Launched in June 2023, the Police Accountability Legal Center (PALC or The Legal Center) is a coalition of national legal and policy organizations working together to collect, develop, and test novel and impactful strategies that dismantle the legislative and regulatory carve outs and misdirected public funds law enforcement associations use to stymie reform to the criminal legal system.

The Legal Center’s current members include:

• Community Resource Hub for Safety and Accountability - The Hub serves as a resource for local advocates and organizers working to address the harms of policing in the U.S. and seeking to cultivate community safety and accountability outside of the criminal legal system. The Hub is a conduit of information and assistance for local grassroots organizations across this nation and beyond.

• The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law - The Lawyers’ Committee is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to mobilize the nation’s leading lawyers as agents for change in the Civil Rights Movement. Today, the Lawyers’ Committee uses legal advocacy to achieve racial justice, fighting inside and outside the courts to ensure that Black people and other people of color have the voice, opportunity, and power to make the promise of our democracy real. The Lawyers’ Committee implements its mission and objectives by marshaling the pro bono resources of the bar for litigation, public policy, advocacy, and other forms of service by lawyers to the cause of civil rights.

• Prisma Legal Center for Youth Justice - Built on years of deep partnership with youth justice leaders, Prisma is a natural outgrowth of the movement. It is a non-traditional firm that uses lawyering and legal expertise as tools for the transference of power to movement leaders, youth, and their communities.

• The Prometheus Conspiracy - TPC is black-led POC organization of movement nerds who have been directly impacted by incarceration, crimmigration, police violence, and political prosecutions. TPC is delegitimizing, defunding, and dismantling the institutions of police and prosecutors through policy analysis, public research, coalition building, communications, community engagement, and movement litigation.

PALC is a fiscally sponsored project of the Democratizing Justice Initiative. The mission of the Democratizing Justice Initiative is to work with funders, practitioners, and activists to create the infrastructure and support required to deliver tangible wins against law enforcement associations and unlock opportunities for community-driven criminal justice reform.