Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
Programs
Budget
$3,500.00
Description
TADP has developed several workshops designed to educate and empower citizens with the basic tools to organize themselves and advocate for their own interests. The training workshops include public speaking and citizen advocacy.
Program Areas Served
None
$3,500.00
Description
TADP has developed several workshops designed to educate and empower citizens with the basic tools to organize themselves and advocate for their own interests. The training workshops include public speaking and citizen advocacy.
Program Areas Served
None
Budget
$70,000.00
Description
Tennessee conservatives are reevaluating the current death penalty system. Polls show that national support for the death penalty has steadily decreased over the past two decades and has reached a 40-year low, even among conservatives who have traditionally been strong proponents of capital punishment. Our state continues to spend millions of dollars a year on an unpopular punishment that has been used 13 times since 1960. The 2004 Tennessee Comptroller's "Tennessee's Death Penalty: Costs and Consequences" report revealed that death penalty trials cost an average of 48 percent more than the average cost of trials in which prosecutors seek life imprisonment. The death penalty fails at both efficiency and results. Tennessee Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty (TNCC) provides a platform for Tennessee conservatives to question this system marked by inefficiency, inequity, and inaccuracy and to educate other conservatives about this failed policy that doesn't make us safer.
Program Areas Served
None
$70,000.00
Description
Tennessee conservatives are reevaluating the current death penalty system. Polls show that national support for the death penalty has steadily decreased over the past two decades and has reached a 40-year low, even among conservatives who have traditionally been strong proponents of capital punishment. Our state continues to spend millions of dollars a year on an unpopular punishment that has been used 13 times since 1960. The 2004 Tennessee Comptroller's "Tennessee's Death Penalty: Costs and Consequences" report revealed that death penalty trials cost an average of 48 percent more than the average cost of trials in which prosecutors seek life imprisonment. The death penalty fails at both efficiency and results. Tennessee Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty (TNCC) provides a platform for Tennessee conservatives to question this system marked by inefficiency, inequity, and inaccuracy and to educate other conservatives about this failed policy that doesn't make us safer.
Program Areas Served
None
Budget
$10,000.00
Description
Shelby County is responsible for half of Tennessee's death row, demonstrating the work that must be done in this county to make it a safer, healthier, and more just place for all its citizens, particularly people of color, to live. TADP is educating and creating awareness about the impact of the criminal legal system in Shelby County, including the role of the prosecutor and the impact of trauma in the community. As a member of the Memphis and Shelby County Justice & Safety Alliance, TADP is working to reduce the size, scope, and disparate treatment within the criminal legal system in this county while more effectively addressing the harm caused by the violence in the community and by the system itself. Addressing these needs in Shelby County will impact the use of death penalty statewide and provide a model for other counties to follow.
Program Areas Served
None
$10,000.00
Description
Shelby County is responsible for half of Tennessee's death row, demonstrating the work that must be done in this county to make it a safer, healthier, and more just place for all its citizens, particularly people of color, to live. TADP is educating and creating awareness about the impact of the criminal legal system in Shelby County, including the role of the prosecutor and the impact of trauma in the community. As a member of the Memphis and Shelby County Justice & Safety Alliance, TADP is working to reduce the size, scope, and disparate treatment within the criminal legal system in this county while more effectively addressing the harm caused by the violence in the community and by the system itself. Addressing these needs in Shelby County will impact the use of death penalty statewide and provide a model for other counties to follow.
Program Areas Served
None
Budget
$20,000.00
Description
Sharing Our Stories is an innovative program pairing TADP staff with surviving family members of murder victims, death row exonerees, corrections officials, and families of the executed to provide presentations to faith communities, schools, and organizations. This program allows those most directly impacted by this policy to share their stories about the broken death penalty system. TADP empowers these individuals through speaking engagements and events specifically organized to offer support to those who have been directly impacted by the death penalty.
Program Areas Served
None
$20,000.00
Description
Sharing Our Stories is an innovative program pairing TADP staff with surviving family members of murder victims, death row exonerees, corrections officials, and families of the executed to provide presentations to faith communities, schools, and organizations. This program allows those most directly impacted by this policy to share their stories about the broken death penalty system. TADP empowers these individuals through speaking engagements and events specifically organized to offer support to those who have been directly impacted by the death penalty.
Program Areas Served
None
Budget
$25,000.00
Description
Working with the TASMIE coalition, TADP educates Tennesseans about the human and financial costs of pursuing the death penalty for those who have severe mental illness and why these individuals should not be eligible for a death sentence. Other sentences to ensure public safety and accountability would still be available. With the death sentence off the table, surviving family members of murder victims would be provided with legal finality much sooner while the State would save millions of dollars that can be used for mental health treatment, compensation for victims' families, and additional training for law enforcement around engaging those experiencing a mental health crisis.
Program Areas Served
None
$25,000.00
Description
Working with the TASMIE coalition, TADP educates Tennesseans about the human and financial costs of pursuing the death penalty for those who have severe mental illness and why these individuals should not be eligible for a death sentence. Other sentences to ensure public safety and accountability would still be available. With the death sentence off the table, surviving family members of murder victims would be provided with legal finality much sooner while the State would save millions of dollars that can be used for mental health treatment, compensation for victims' families, and additional training for law enforcement around engaging those experiencing a mental health crisis.
Program Areas Served
None
CEO/Executive Director/Board Comments
| Across the country, the death penalty is falling out of use. As more voices join this conversation, including political conservatives, members of corrections, murder victims' families, death row exonerees, and law enforcement, more citizens are learning of the failures and risks of this antiquated system. Twenty-three states no longer have the death penalty, including Virginia, which achieved repeal in 2021, becoming the first Southern state to do so. Another three states have moratoria on executions. Unfortunately, even as the nation is moving away from the use of the death penalty, Tennessee resumed executions in 2018 after nine years with no executions. Since 2018, the State of Tennessee has executed seven men, in addition to the six who were executed between 2000 and 2009. However, rather than diminishing citizens' concerns about the death penalty, the state's recent executions have only amplified them. More and more Tennesseans are recognizing the system's flaws, including its racial bias, the exorbitant cost, the risk of executing an innocent person, and the toll the decadeslong process takes on victims' families. Now, more than ever, is the time to get involved with TADP's work and to help us make history by educating Tennesseans about why our state does not need the death penalty and moving Tennessee to repeal. |
