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What is HEARD?

  • We are deaf and disabled people who support deaf/disabled incarcerated people. We believe that prisons should be abolished, even as we fight for the rights and dignity of our community members inside.
  • We support deaf/disabled individuals to fight for their rights, access emotional and legal support in their language, learn about prison and police abolition, and access financial support while inside and in the crucial months after release.
  • We support lawyers and advocates to learn about and defend the rights and dignity of deaf/disabled incarcerated people.
  • We organize disability communities and social movement organizations to understand incarceration and policing as part of a system that targets disabled people, that disables people, and that must be abolished.
  • We believe we must unite across identities, communities, movements, borders, and all forms of oppression and violence to end ableism, racism, and capitalism. We believe that deaf people are part of disability communities and that we must reject disability hierarchies and rigid definitions of disability.
Learn More About Our Work

Our Program Areas

  • Incarcerated Advocacy

    Learn more about our efforts to advocate for the freedom and dignity of deaf/disabled people inside prisons and jails.

  • Reentry Support

    Learn more about our work to support community members as they come back home after incarceration.

  • Community Education

    Learn more about how we create political education for disability communities, advocates, lawyers, and organizers

Explore Resources

Community Members Currently Incarcerated Formerly Incarcerated Legal Support Staff

Our Vision

HEARD envisions a world where multiply-marginalized disabled people are inherently valued and have the resources, safety and love they need to thrive and live self-determined lives. We dream of a world that honors our interdependence, invests in our healing from harm and trauma, recognizes our potential for growth and transformation, and ensures our collective liberation. There are no police or prisons in the future because our communities have created the conditions, developed and provided the resources, and shared the necessary knowledge to make all forms of policing and incarceration obsolete.

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