LSPC - Key Persons

Alissa has been directly impacted since her youth, having served over 23 years in state prison on a 15 to life sentence handed down as a juvenile. She came to this work from the Earth Island Institute where she interned for Greenlife: her primary focus was working with formerly incarcerated peoples navigating the return to a world that had changed significantly in our absence with an emphasis on environmental impact. She's honored to have been selected as a 2022 Elder Freeman Policy Fellow because she feels LSPC is more in alignment with her passion for working with and on behalf of currently incarcerated folks.

Job Titles:

• Clinical Social Worker
• Family Defense Social Worker

Arielle is a licensed clinical social worker who is deeply committed to family defense. Before joining Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, she worked for five years at East Bay Family Defenders as a defense social worker for parents whose children had been removed by the Department of Children and Family Services in Alameda County. She received her master's degree in social work from New York University and spent six years working with individuals and families directly impacted by the criminal legal system and mass incarceration. Her commitment to family defense stems from her experience watching the day-to-day absurdity of the Family Regulation System's claim to help families recover from the very decimation it directly causes through child removals and, historically, through the systematic destruction of poor Black and indigenous families.

Job Titles:

• Staff Attorney

I am a Los Angeles native and a graduate of UCLA and UC Hastings College of Law. I grew up in a politically active family. I was in private practice from 1992, primarily as a family law, dependency and criminal defense counsel. I love being here and working for freedom and justice.

Job Titles:

• Executive Director
• Member of the Board of Directors
• Excutive Director

Job Titles:

• Managing Director

Dr. Tanisha Cannon is a dedicated and compassionate advocate for social justice, committed to making a lasting impact on the lives of prisoners and their children. As the Managing Director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, she brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in the fields of education, sociology, criminal justice, and public administration. Dr. Cannon earned her Doctorate in Educational Leadership with a focus on social justice from California State East Bay in May 2023. Prior to that, she pursued her undergraduate studies in sociology and completed a Master's in Public Administration. Her academic background has provided her with a comprehensive understanding of the complex issues surrounding underserved communities and the criminal justice system. Dr. Cannon's passion for creating positive change stems from her personal experiences. Having witnessed firsthand the effects of the criminal justice system on her own family, with her mother, brothers, and grandfather all experiencing incarceration, she is deeply committed to challenging the status quo. As a juvenile, she also faced direct impacts from the system, giving her a unique perspective and a sense of urgency to work towards systemic reform. Throughout her career, Dr. Cannon has actively engaged with underserved communities. She dedicated her time and expertise at the Oakland Housing Authority, where she worked tirelessly to address the needs of marginalized populations. Additionally, her role as a Cultural Strategist with the City of Oakland allowed her to collaborate with government officials and community leaders to develop initiatives promoting equity and inclusion. She believes in the power of civic engagement and community organizing to drive meaningful change. Her dedication to empowering individuals and creating systemic solutions sets her apart as a leader in her field. Dr. Cannon firmly believes that her works at LSPC should be organized around principles of caring, compassion, love, and humanity. Drawing inspiration from the concept of Ubuntu-a Zulu South African philosophy of humanism-she recognizes that while individuals have diverse lived experiences, their shared humanity is the foundation for affirming and validating their voices. She strives to prioritize the human element in her work, placing greater emphasis on the stories, experiences, and perspectives of individuals rather than reducing them to mere numbers and charts. By incorporating these principles into her role as Managing Director, Dr. Cannon ensures that her work is guided by empathy, respect, and a commitment to amplifying marginalized voices. She seeks to create a space that recognizes and values the inherent dignity and worth of every individual, fostering an environment that promotes equity, justice, and positive change.

Job Titles:

• Interim Director of Strategy & Development

Eliza is a dedicated advocate and strategist who brings over 20 years of experience working in partnership with families impacted by the criminal legal system's close cousin, the family regulation and policing system. As a civil legal aid lawyer, youth advocate, family defense attorney, social justice founder and executive director, Eliza has fought to keep families together and prevent the unnecessary and prolonged stay of children in foster care. Eliza is focused on helping organizations with strategic planning to support movement work and promote long term social change. A graduate of New York University's Family Defense Clinic, Skadden Fellow, and Child Welfare Law Specialist, Eliza started her career representing parents in a community legal aid office in Wilmington, Delaware. Later, Eliza represented children and youth at Legal Services for Children in San Francisco. Most recently, Eliza was Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of East Bay Family Defenders, an Alameda County-based interdisciplinary family defense organization that merged with LSPC in the fall of 2023.

Job Titles:

• Staff Attorney

Eric C. Sapp spent his youth in New Jersey. He received a Bachelor of Arts with Highest Honors from the University of Virginia as well as a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School, where he focused on constitutional law, jurisprudence, and international human rights, and where he also worked on asylum in the immigration law clinic. In the private practice of law, he represented defendants in protest-related civil and criminal misdemeanor cases, among other areas of law. He has done extensive graduate studies (ABD) at Stanford University's Program in Modern Thought and Literature, where his dissertation research focused on the juridical structure of the so-called War on Terror during the Bush II and Obama eras, including regarding issues of arbitrary detention, torture, extrajudicial killing, and expansive criminalization based on terrorism-related designations. Additionally, he has published articles on the comparative history of philosophy. As an activist, he has been especially involved in the (overlapping) anti-imperialist and peace movements. Eric believes that all prisoners are political prisoners.

Job Titles:

• Administrative Director

Job Titles:

• Chairman of the Board of Directors

Job Titles:

• Family Unity Matters Coordinator and CFU Lead Organizer

Job Titles:

• Policy Analyst

Jeronimo Cuauhtemoc Aguilar is a Chicano Indigenous of Purepecha descent and Policy Analyst for Legal Services for Prisoners with Children. After completing the 2021 Elder Freeman Policy Fellowship, Jeronimo was brought on to the LSPC staff as the organization's Policy Coordinator. Shortly thereafter, he was promoted to Policy Analyst midway through 2022 and has not looked back since. Jeronimo's combination of lived experience, system impact via incarceration of many family members, and a propensity for critical thinking and analysis has been a strong addition to Legal Services for Prisoners with Children. His background in radical organizing as a former Brown Beret, student activist, and community organizer has set him up uniquely to always stay rooted in the community no matter how much time he has to spend with capitol staff, elected officials, and other stakeholders. Jeronimo graduated from CSU Sacramento with a Bachelor's Degree in Ethnic Studies with a concentration in Chicano Studies and has organized on many levels including city government, county Board of Supervisors, Federal (immigration advocacy), and of course his current focus on CA statewide legislation. Jeronimo's leadership has included helping found the Abolish Bondage collectively campaign (ABC) which has led to LSPC's cosponsorship of ACA 8 The End Slavery in CA Act, helping train and launch similar campaigns in Wisconsin, Kentucky, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Missouri through the ABC National apparatus. In addition to leading the policy efforts on ACA 8: The End Slavery in CA Act, he also has been LSPC's policy lead for the Living Wage for All campaign in CA via AB 1516 a bill aimed at raising the minimum wage of all workers including incarcerated workers, The Fair Chance Coalition looking to pass legislation that limits discrimination in the employment and hiring process, and Fair Chance Housing at the statewide level; to name a few recent policy endeavors. Jeronimo's been quoted and interviewed by the Real News Network, LA Times, Newsbreak, KQED, and writes the monthly "Policy Update " section included in the AOUON Newspaper which goes into all California prisons. He also authors the policy updates for the monthly E-news/newsletter which is available to our members and the public.

Jesse is the In-custody Program Coordinator at LSPC and an AOUON organizer. Born to Black and Native/Mexican parents, he grew up in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco, a drug-infested community filled with poverty and despair. He spent much of his youth in and out of juvenile detention facilities before being sent to adult prison with a life sentence in 1987 where he was held from ages 18 - 49. During his imprisonment Jesse went on a personal journey of learning and development through rigorous studies of histories, laws, religions, philosophies, governments, sciences, and war. Jesse was released in 2018 through the compassionate actions from the children of the man he killed, who came to his hearing with forgiveness in their hearts and an open acknowledgment for his personal growth and maturation. Jesse says that while inside prison he discovered that prisons really are designed government-run "slave quarters". Although "integrated" Jesse believes that the prison system itself was purposely designed to "manage" large segments of this country's former slave population, mainly its Black male population, after the Civil War. Jesse believes the U.S. government sent Black people from slavery (poverty) to segregation (poverty) to integration (but still poverty), and that instead of giving the former slave population land and wealth upon their "freedom", the U.S. government decided to subject the former slaves to discrimination, poverty, poor education, access to drugs, guns, disenfranchisement, and then "criminalization" and the eventual "return" to the plantation; i.e. prisons. Jesse believes that Moral & Political Literacy and Political Engagement is vital in the struggle for human rights and access to meaningful resources, and that there is vision and meaningful leadership amongst the formerly incarcerated.

Job Titles:

• AOUON Outreach Organizer

John is an organizer and policy advocate working to change the injustices that he and his family have experienced in the criminal justice system. As a young person who was charged as an adult at the age of 16, John has experienced the brutality of the system first hand. After being incarcerated for nine years, he is now committed to working with other formerly incarcerated leaders and policymakers to ending mass incarceration and creating more support and resources for people coming home from prison. In his role as a Policy Fellow at LSPC, John is responsible for tracking bills, drafting policy memorandums, working with statewide coalitions on legislative efforts, and developing impactful campaigns. He is also an organizer with All of Us or None where he recruits new members and engages them in the chapter's local work. John was raised in and around the Bay Area and comes from a large and loving family of 7 sisters and 4 brothers who have all been impacted by incarceration.

Job Titles:

• Administrative Assistant
• Receptionist

Kamryn was born and raised in Oakland, CA. She studied in the Law & Social Justice Pathway all four years at Oakland High School, completing her Senior Project on how many laws are designed and/or enforced to oppress Black and Brown communities. "The system isn't broken," she says, "it's working as planned to negatively impact us. Living in Oakland I saw this first hand and it sparked my interest in working for justice." Kamryn discovered LSPC when her class came to visit for a field trip. Now, a few years later, she's excited to be part of the team. "It's too easy for Black and Brown people to become a statistic," she says. "It inspires me to inspire others and show that we can be the ones to make the change. You have to push hard, though." When Kamryn is not working to uplift her community, she enjoys time by herself, listening to music and journaling.

Job Titles:

• Staff Attorney

My name is Kellie and I am from Chicago. I graduated from DePaul University in 2001 and then spent two years working as a domestic violence counselor in an emergency shelter. I began my legal education at The John Marshall Law School in January 2003. During that time, I was an intern at The Fair Housing Legal Clinic for four semesters and spent several semesters employed as a legal research assistant. In 2006, I obtained my Juris Doctor degree and was admitted to the Illinois Bar. Later that year, I enrolled in Northwestern Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, seeking an LL.M. in Environmental and Natural Resources Law. During that time, I wrote my LL.M. thesis on the oil drilling in southeast Nigeria, its effect on the Ogoni tribe, and the ongoing litigation. During that time, I also taught seminars at the Portland Community College about the relationship between Environmental Law and Human Rights. Upon returning to Chicago, I worked with the Civil Rights Center litigating cases involving police misconduct until they closed their doors in 2009. After which, I started in private practice, focusing on criminal defense and civil rights cases. From 2015 through 2020, I was a supervising attorney for the housing section at UIC - The John Marshall Law School Domestic Violence and Family Law Clinic. In 2021, I began working as a Staff Attorney with LSPC and I'm really excited to work on the policy side of civil rights matters.

Job Titles:

• Regional Advocacy and Organizing Associate and Interim CFU Coordinator

Lawrence Cox was born in Oakland, CA and at an early age was not privileged to socio-economic permanency. This was simply "not available to me" according to Lawrence. Like many youth growing up in the Bay Area, he was exposed to obscenities, drugs, addictions, and violence. Before the age of 7 he became a ward of Alameda County touring California's anemic foster care system. However this did not deter him and as a teenager he began advocating for policy reforms for youth in the system through community organizing. Nearing emancipation Lawrence describes that things began to spiral, "This time I had slipped at my own doing, becoming a product of my environment and a replica of my troubled parents. I lost focus of my goals and I became a victim to social, economic, and psychological degradation." This time Lawrence would become a ward of the State of California for almost seventeen years. This adversity, although bleak and monstrous, changed his life. This experience that he had to endure challenged him and stripped him down and exposed him to the darkness and hopelessness only incarceration does. Lawrence persevered despite everything, becoming the man he is today. Lawrence joins Legal Services for Prisoners with Children committed to creating change for those affected by the prison system. After almost 17 years of triumphs, struggles, introspection, growth, and education, Lawrence's prominent focus is finding ways to reverse systematic disenfranchisement and the infrastructures that perpetuate these inequalities.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Board of Directors
• Founder & President - Computers for Everyone

Job Titles:

• Secretary of the Board of Directors

My name is Mei Lia. I was born and raised in the Bay Area. I am formerly incarcerated and, before working at LSPC I worked at Insight Gardening Program. As a woman whose family and children were deeply affected by my being in and out of incarceration, I am passionate about being a part of a movement that directly helps people who are or were incarcerated. I know the struggles of the revolving door of the judicial system and strongly believe that re-placing jails and prisons with programs to help people regardless of their past will help our society and next generation to have a life without being constantly shadowed by their past.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Board of Directors
• Treasurer / Director of Customer Operations

Job Titles:

• Family Defense Attorney

Meredith is a family defense attorney. Before joining Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, she worked for five years at East Bay Family Defenders primarily defending parents whose children had been removed by the Department of Children and Family Services. Prior to this job, she was an academic, teaching law and literature; her Ph.D. is in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University. She is committed to family defense because she believes the actual harm caused by the systematic dismantling of families by incarceration and child removal-particularly poor, Black, and indigenous families-is a far greater and longer-lasting threat to vulnerable children than anything those systems claim to be put in place to remedy.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Board of Directors

Job Titles:

• Communications Associate

"Before LSPC, Mitra was a student organizer and leader at UC Santa Cruz where she majored in Politics and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies. They also served at the UC Student Association as the Vice Chair, lobbying at the Capitol and supporting students for advocating for basic needs. Mitra's passion for social justice is rooted in her childhood in the Midwest, her Iranian identity, and surrounding herself with community and never-ending education. She was first introduced to abolition and AOUON in 2019 when she participated in the Quest for Democracy with the Transitions Collective. The last quarter of her undergrad was life changing, spending it at CTF Soledad for a joint-university class on Transcommunality, led by Dr. John Brown Childs. Now that she has graduated, Mitra is incredibly devoted to end mass incarceration and all structures of the carceral state to collective liberation!"

Job Titles:

• Program Coordinator
• Program Coordinator With Legal Services for Prisoners

Noe Gudino is a Program Coordinator with Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, managing the Elder Freeman Policy Fellows and Interns programs. With nearly ten years of nonprofit experience, Noe has excelled at organizing marginalized communities and advocating for policy change at the state and local level. He has worked on numerous campaigns and statewide ballot measures to restore rights empowering currently and formerly incarcerated folks across California. Born and based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Noe is a proud product of local public schools and jail cells. As a youth growing up, Noe experienced homelessness, gang violence, and recidivism before he began community organizing for rent control and just cause for eviction, which sparked his passion for policy advocacy and higher education. Since then, he has never looked back. Now, Noe has received his Masters of Arts in Public Administration from San Francisco State University and Bachelor of Arts from Cal State University-East Bay, where he majored in Political Science. During that time, he studied abroad in Northern Ireland at Ulster University learning about restorative justice practices and traveling across Europe. Three things everybody knows about Noe: He's a big foodie, loves talking about current events, and is a major fan of live events. In his off time, Noe is either at a sports game or a music festival.

Job Titles:

• National Organizer

Oscar Flores, National Organizer, joined the All of Us or None Family in January of 2018. Oscar has intimate knowledge of the impact of the criminal justice system upon reentry and crimmigration for himself and family. Oscar was a former Director of a Youth Organizing organization in East Palo Alto addressing issues of Environmental Justice and Gentrification. Most recently Oscar was the Coordinator/Facilitator of Contra Costa Racial Justice Coalition, successfully campaigning for the county to return money to families that were unlawfully collected on through the recently banned Juvenile Fines & Fees Statute. Oscar believes that the most effective community organizing involve directly impacted people leading the effort.

Job Titles:

• Deputy Director
• Deputy Director of Legal Services for Prisoners With Children

Paul Briley is the Deputy Director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children. Paul focuses on fines & fees among other legal monetary sanctions that burden formerly incarcerated individuals and disproportionately impact low-income people and communities of color. He grew up in the Bayview-Hunters Point district of San Francisco, a community that has seen its fair share of social problems over the years. As a child Paul was displaced by the foster care system and subsequently fell into a deep cycle of recidivism. The juvenile dependency court deployed him to a military boarding school for troubled youth. This instilled a great deal of consciousness and respect for different people and different places, but it also sparked an immense amount of curiosity and concern within. The majority of individuals confined were impacted by public policy. After aging out of foster care Paul became politicized through Project Rebound and learned how to use his carceral experience as a catalyst for change in social justice. He attended San Francisco State University and became an advocate for system impacted students on campus. He transferred to the University of California, Berkeley and became a student ambassador for the Berkeley Underground Scholars, a student-led organization of formerly incarcerated students on campus working to expand the prison to school pipeline. During undergrad, Paul noticed significant differences that distinguish one community from another and how social programs, public policy laws, and monetary allocations create these community distinctions. He explored how multiple areas of study intersect with one another and majored in interdisciplinary studies with a specific goal in mind, ​utilize the inside knowledge of institutions and systems currently in place to help people from marginalized groups. All of Us or None presented an opportunity in 2019 to become a Ronald Elder Freeman Policy Fellow. He was trained to become a community organizer and policy advocate for formerly incarcerated and convicted people as well as their families. During his fellowship, Paul helped draft the language for ACA 6 which restored the right to vote to 50,000 people on parole in California. He also helped lead the People over Profits campaign in San Francisco, an ordinance change that required the City and its vendors to stop generating revenue from incarcerated people and their loved ones. San Francisco became the first city in the nation to make jail phone calls free and end the markup of commissary items in the county Jail. The victory in San Francisco permeated throughout California influencing larger legislation cosponsored by LSPC making phone calls free inside of all CA state prisons. The People over Profits ordinance was an important change but it didn't help people who still lacked the funds to purchase from the commissary. To go a step further, Paul created the Commissary Allowance Program in San Francisco, which allows incarcerated people who lack financial support to receive a small monthly allowance to pay for basic necessities. This is the first program of its kind in the country. Paul extends his efforts to those who have fallen victim to social forces and will work to reconstruct the policies that have allowed this to happen. Unbound by the institutions of previous order, he is creating an alternative discourse independently of the dominant social group. Paul has an insatiable appetite for resilient truth, obtaining knowledge that produces solutions, and creating ways to sustain institutional change.

Taqwaa Bonner, a proud husband and family man, joined All Of Us Or None as a Housing Advocate in August, 2018. During his 30 years of incarceration, Lee achieved a General Education Development (G.E.D.) and an Associate In Arts Degree in Social Science, became certified in three Electrical trades, a 5-year Electrical Apprenticeship training program, and two in painting programs. Taqwaa also became a certified Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselor.On September 10, 2018, Taqwaa officially started an All Of Us Or None East Oakland Youth Chapter in a quest to help rebuild the community which he damaged 32 years ago.

Job Titles:

• Communications Manager