Overview: Convene, Reckon, and Dream
The Square One Project invites people, organizations, and localities to develop and undergo a narrative change and reckoning process with the goal of changing how society creates safety and responds to harm and violence. Square One defines narrative change as the intentional effort to shift people’s language, attitudes, and behaviors about justice and safety. Their goal is to challenge dominant narratives around safety that are harmful and inaccurate, and create new narratives that are more inclusive, empowering, historically accurate, and truthful. They strive to support new, collaborative opportunities for policy and advocacy efforts led by Black, Brown, Native, incarcerated, and formerly incarcerated people. They support work that focuses on narrative change around punishment and harm, is grounded in local history, and creates community safety outside of carceral systems. See the work currently happening in Oklahoma as an example.
Square One proposes bringing their facilitation framework to Multnomah County and surrounding communities. In an equitable partnership with a local leader, Square One hopes to bring together a wide range of local stakeholders to (1) develop a shared understanding of how historical injustices drive current racial and social inequity; (2) consider how to support thriving communities in ways that are non-punitive and socially integrative; and (3) develop a plan to engage their fellow community members in making this vision of safety and thriving into a reality. The stakeholders will include people who are currently or formerly incarcerated, people otherwise directly affected by the criminal legal system, organizers, policymakers, academics, funders, business owners, and nonprofit leaders. In addition to providing programming and logistical support, Square One will collect qualitative data from participants, providing feedback throughout the process to support local stakeholders as they build their knowledge base about narrative change as it relates to justice, equity, and community safety.