Help Protect Our People by Supporting Our Work

We Resolve was founded four years ago and is a nonprofit organization that stands with, and supports, loved ones, their families, and communities as they go through the criminal legal process. We Resolve’s model is designed to give a voice and support to those for whose voices are most often silenced. We hope to mitigate the harm that the criminal justice system has on the individual, family, and the community as a whole, as we have been personally impacted by this system and have watched our loved ones and community members suffer. We often see a white judge, a white prosecutor, a white public defender, and a black defendant in the middle watching them go back and forth deciding what is going to happen to them. It is like watching a tennis match, the tennis match that decides your freedom. The defendant is often there alone and isolated with little to no participation in their own defense.

We, a group of Twin Cities families, artists and organizers, resolve to walk with individuals, families, and communities as they empower themselves using the Participatory Defense Model to defend their loved ones against a discriminatory punishment system and to humanize them before the court. Our team of “resolvers” includes families, artists, community organizers and is staffed by a diverse group of men and women, all of whom have lived experience in the oppressive and harmful “legal” system.

The Participatory Defense model was started 15 years ago in California and now has 35 different chapters throughout the United States it has been proven to successfully tip the scales of justice away from a harsh and discriminatory punishment system and instead toward community healing, cooperative partnerships and a more equitable criminal legal system.

The system loves to use the term “time served.” We Resolve works to flip that script to TIME SAVED. Our results show the benefit of the investment we make in our people. To date, We Resolve has SAVED:

13,577 months

1,131+ years

$8,046,430.00 million in fines

$61,136,631.86 million in taxpayer costs of incarceration

“We Resolve is the Army of Justice when you’re fighting for your life within this system.”

-Landis, Community member supported by We Resolve with 596 months (49+ years) saved

“I sought out We Resolve this winter when I had little support and advice from my community regarding my charges. The support and alliance I received from We Resolve was monumental in me believing that my charge does not define who I am, and that there needs to be change in the criminal punishment system. I wholeheartedly believe that if I didn't receive the care and encouragement from We Resolve, I'd be in a very different place right now.”

-Pablo, community member served by We Resolve and We Resolve team member (120 months saved)