SJC Exchange Library

Originally posted by Leslie Kerns on 01/09/2025

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Hello, SJC community! And happy New Year!

We're excited to share the new Safety and Justice Playbook to support your narrative and other messaging efforts. You can access it via the playbook's embedded link or the SJC website.

As discussed at the SJC virtual convening in December, the playbook is based on insights from a narrative pilot run out of the FrameWorks Institute from July 2023 to July 2024. The pilot worked in collaboration with local partners in St. Louis and Multnomah counties to do two things:

1. Combine available national, statewide, or local opinion research with randomized control trial (RCT) message testing on the Swayable platform to identify the frames, messages, and creative that persuade moveable audiences to support changes to local criminal justice systems.
2. Apply a page from the political playbook-an emphasis on message repetition and saturation through digital ads-to a 501(c)(3) narrative setting to test whether moveable audiences would engage with tested, persuasive creative about changes to local criminal justice systems on their preferred digital platforms ("in the wild").

Based on insights from RCT message testing and digital ads running in the two distinct counties, the playbook offers five key ideas to help groups on the ground, their funders, and their allies move from discussing the need for narrative change to executing it:

• Key Idea #1: Frame changes to local criminal justice systems as safety solutions-not problems-by taking a pragmatic stance on doing what works to improve the thing we all want (safety) and not doing the things we know don't work. 
• Key Idea #2: Prioritize the strategic use of digital ads to shift sentiment about local criminal justice reforms and related non-carceral outcomes upstream of narratives that appear in the press. Apply Key Idea #1-taking a pragmatic stance on doing what works to improve the thing we all want (safety)-to inform creative.  
• Key Idea #3: In local efforts to shape narratives among moveable audiences, disregard preconceived assumptions about who is moveable. Far more people are persuadable about changes to local criminal justice systems than we realize, so begin your effort by counting people in-not out. Prioritize framing, messaging, and creative that are persuasive across demographics, and treat audience targeting decisions for execution separately. 
• Key Idea #4: Consider potential messengers who are most likely to strike the pragmatic stance in Key Idea #1: doing what works to improve the thing we all want (safety) while reflecting local priorities and contexts. 
• Key Idea #5: Start playing the long game-consistently and proactively communicating persuasive messages around changes to local criminal justice systems. If your offensive posture is a pragmatic stance on doing what works to improve the thing we all want (safety), you're in a better position to address threats to your priority reforms and outcomes head-on when they arise. 

Each recommendation in the playbook is supported by examples, test results, and takeaways from the pilot. The result is a practical tool to help local groups, their partners, and their funders frame changes to local criminal justice systems as safety solutions-not problems-and positively shift public sentiment. The playbook recommendations can also be applied as part of a robust, integrated narrative campaign model that includes opinion research and organic strategies, from press to social media to stakeholder outreach.

If anyone has questions or is interested in additional guidance, please let us know. Of course, please feel free to share the playbook with your networks. The recommendations are relevant to many audiences-from the field to funders to allies-so we'd love to share them widely.

Many thanks, and stay well.

Leslie Kerns
Principal, 1235 Strategies, Inc.    

PS: During the December convening, we received two questions we didn't have time to address. Below are our responses, which we hope are helpful to the network.

Question: "Did you encounter challenges in terms of competing definitions of safety, particularly in the context of racist and racialized fear-based narratives?"

• Answer: This challenge did not emerge in our pilot research or tests. However, we encountered a different barrier that might present challenges to future narrative efforts: a belief that jail suggests guilt and punishment deters future harms. This belief surfaced in in-depth interviews (IDIs) we conducted with plausible representatives of our most moveable audiences (e.g., likely to be female, older, and less highly educated) in both St. Louis and Multnomah counties. While the belief in punishment as a deterrent was particularly entrenched in St. Louis County, it also emerged (unprompted) in IDIs with respondents living in "liberal" Portland. More work is needed to figure out how to have conversations about safety that don't get taken over or disrupted by this punishment/deterrence mindset.

Question: "Given the importance of stakeholder buy-in, not just voter buy-in, do you think messages in adjacent markets could make a difference? For example, as someone who spends a lot of time in Portland, we know that a lot of Portland police live across the river in Vancouver, Washington."

• Answer: It's a question of resources and where and how to invest them for the greatest impact on your narrative goals. The pilot's digital ad test was designed as an experiment to influence the crime and safety narratives local residents hold upstream of crime and safety stories appearing in the press. This was a deliberate choice. While much is and has been underway in the field to advance a better reform narrative in the press and with stakeholders, there has been less investment in shifting public sentiment and influencing narratives via digital channels most people today go to for information, connection, and entertainment. We wanted to test and identify a new pathway for gaining narrative ground with public audiences using innovative digital tools.  

• If reaching law enforcement or other stakeholders is an effort's main narrative priority, the digital ad campaign we tested in the pilot may not be the best use of dollars. Using ads to reach broad audiences across multiple counties or an otherwise expanded region with enough repetition to set a narrative is expensive. Other approaches might be more strategic in targeting stakeholders with the framing and messaging recommendations in the playbook. For example, on the digital ad side, using geo-targeting to reach and saturate people in and around locations highly trafficked by systems stakeholders (e.g., city halls, county buildings, courthouses, etc.) with tested messages. The playbook's framing recommendations can also inform talking points and other offline communications with stakeholders, and we encourage the network to do so.