A Conversation with Crime Survivors Speak National Director Aswad Thomas

About this episode

Aswad Thomas discusses his journey from a near-fatal shooting to advocating for crime victims' rights and policy changes.

In 2009, Aswad Thomas was 26 years old and weeks away from going to Europe to play professional basketball. As he left a convenience store he was approached by two young men intent on robbing him and he suffered two near-fatal gunshot wounds to his back ending his basketball career. Today, Aswad is Vice President of the public safety organization Just Safe and the director of Crime Survivors Speak, a national network of over 200,000 crime victims across the country, particularly from communities hardest hit by crime and violence. At Crime Survivors Speak Aswad helps elevate the voices of crime victims in policy debates, which has helped pass legislation increasing crime prevention, rehabilitation and access to victim compensation and trauma recovery. Aswad has been featured in news stories across the country including the New Yorker "Black Wounds Matter, NPR: “Black Men Who Are Crime Victims Have Few Places to Turn”, and the Sacramento Bee: “California's crime survivors must speak out for smart justice”. Learn more about TimeDone at https://timedone.org/ Learn more about JustSafe at https://justsafe.org/ This podcast is proudly sponsored by the Innocence Project of Florida. Visit…

People in this episode

Host: Harriet Hendel

Guest: Aswad Thomas

Topics covered

• crime victims
• public safety
• legislation
• trauma recovery
• community violence

Keywords

• crime survivors
• gun violence
• public safety advocacy
• victim compensation
• trauma recovery

Sponsors

Innocence Project of Florida

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Just Safe, Crime Survivors Speak

Books & works: Black Wounds Matter, Black Men Who Are Crime Victims Have Few Places to Turn, California's crime survivors must speak out for smart justice

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