June 1, 2020

The Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project (PILP) denounces the systemic racism that led to the recent murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and the many others before them, as well as the incident involving Christian Cooper. This structural racism has led to mass incarceration and detention which disproportionately impacts people of color. As PILP works to advocate and provide free legal representation for people in prisons, jails, and detention centers, state-sanctioned violence and other injustices inflicted against Black people and other people of color is unfortunately highly familiar to us. Our incarcerated clients face racist abuse and violence every day, but often without video evidence or other means of seeking accountability. We are committed to advancing justice by fighting for the rights of imprisoned people, and we will continue to challenge both internal and external systematic inequities as a fundamental part of our work.

Read and download the PDF of this statement here.