|  OUR PEOPLE  |

Laila Aziz began organizing through prisoner led organizations including the National “Million for Prisoners March for Human Rights” and the state initiative “Amend the 14th.” She also began performing legislative visits through Families United to End LWOP (FUEL) under Geri Silva. She began working on the Senate Resolution for felony murder and was a volunteer signature collector for Prop 57. She worked for 21 years with Metro Community Ministries beginning as a youth advocate, case manager, program manager, and then as the Director of Operations where she contributed to the growth of over 2-million annually through her innovative evidence based program design and grant writing. In 2017 she left Metro and joined Pillars of the Community where she began building power locally to change gang laws and fight against the carceral punishment system. Laila Aziz believes in community building to promote public safety and works within Southeast San Diego, regionally, and statewide to end systemic oppression and build power within the oppressed.

Chyrl Lamar is a Program and Outreach Advocate with the CA Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP). Chyrl comes to this work with over 30 years of direct experience with the carceral system, a grassroots abolitionist organization—with members inside and outside prison—that challenges the institutional violence imposed on women, transgender people, and communities of color by the prison system. Chyrl also serves as Peer Mentor/Thought Partner for Unapologetically HERS, Healing Experiences through Research Solutions, supporting women inside with leadership development and systems change. When not advocating, you can find Chyrl listening to music of many genres and crocheting both of which she finds relaxing.

Colby Lenz is the Deputy Director of Policy and Community Research at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women. Colby has over 20 years of experience in community-engaged research, grassroots organizing, and policy advocacy addressing the intersections of criminalization, incarceration, and gender-based violence. Colby is a co-founder of Survived & Punished, a national organizing project to end the criminalization of survivors of sexual and domestic violence, and a long-term advocate and organizer with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP), and the Transgender Advocacy Group (TAG).

Christina Mendoza is a mother of three who is system impacted.  She began her personal journey into criminal justice reform because of the harshness and injustice of her husband’s sentence. Christina is the Coordinator for The Felony Murder Elimination Project and organizer with the Drop LWOP Coalition and volunteers with various restorative justice, family reunification coalitions. She has served as liaison and representative for families in her former  role as Chair of the Mule Creek State Prison Inmate Family Council and is the former Chair of CDCR Statewide Inmate Family Council. 

Joanne Scheer is the founder of Felony Murder Elimination Project. When her only child was convicted under the felony murder rule and sentenced to the death sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, she began the work of bringing an end to one of the most heinous of California’s laws. With nothing but the resolve to eliminate a law that so easily and unjustly sentences youth to death, she sponsored Assembly Bill 2195 in 2016, co-sponsored Senate Concurrent Resolution 48 in 2017, and co-sponsored Senate Bill 1437 in 2018 which eliminated second-degree felony murder and the natural and probable consequences doctrine. She continues to fight for the elimination of first-degree felony murder and special circumstances. Joanne is also the author of a 2020 CSW Policy Brief on Felony Murder Special Circumstances.

Daniel Trautfield serves as the Project Director at the Felony Murder Elimination Project. Daniel oversees FMEP’s data projects, contributes to legislative advocacy, manages coalitional work, and leads development. He has worked in anti-carceral movements since 2010 and is a core member of California Coalition for Women Prisoners and the Drop LWOP Coalition. In 2019 he founded the UCLA Special Circumstances Conviction Project to study the disturbing racial and gender disparities in life without parole sentencing. He previously served as co-director of People’s Pottery Project, an employment and reentry services organization in Los Angeles.