Maria Garza
Speaker, LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF ILLINOIS, ISSUES BRIEFING 2022
Maria Garza is a justice-impacted community activist whose 12 years of incarceration in the Illinois Department of Corrections has influenced her passion in advocacy towards a criminal justice system that does not marginalize, discriminate, and hinder returning citizens from being productive during and after incarceration. She is a Restorative Justice practitioner who values the humanity in all people and works to support empowerment and healing for people who carry the trauma of incarceration. She has tutored women for GED and college courses, assisted in paralegal work such as clemencies, appeals, and post-conviction relief filings, and completed an apprenticeship in Service Dog Training through the U.S. Department of Labor and graduated many dogs into service through two non-profit organizations.
Currently, Maria is the Coordinator for People’s Liberty Project, a direct justice impacted-led group of women and men, focused on creating spaces of healing and drafting restorative/transformative alternative policy frameworks that support healing communities and people. She is an advocate for the Fully Free Campaign, a campaign to end the 1189 permanent punishments that restrict the rights of people with records after incarceration. She works with Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants (C.U.R.E. Illinois), an organization that for over fifty years has advocated for reform of prisons and jails as well as the decarceration of the mentally ill. She continues to volunteer for MidAmerica Service Dogs’ Foundation and Paws Giving Independence, two non-profit organizations that train service dogs to assist people with a variety of different disabilities. Maria is a student for Northwestern University Prison Education Program, and she is planning to pursue her Masters in Theological Studies with a concentration in ministries of restoration in contexts susceptible to violence, trauma, race relations, nonviolent communication, conflict transformation, restorative practices, and transformative justice.