Ronnie Waters

Ronnie Waters is a Community Engagement Specialist with Safe & Just Michigan, as well as CEO and owner of Over 40, LLC. He has decades of organizing experience both inside and outside prison. Ronnie is also a former juvenile lifer. He has worked with the Chance for Life, NAACP, and ACLU’s juvenile justice program while incarcerated. After he was released in 2020, he worked with Michigan Liberation and VAAC where he knocked on thousands of doors, registered hundreds of voters, and educated justice-impacted people about their voting rights.

Ronnie is particularly interested in changing public opinion about life and long indeterminate sentences that are handed out to our Black and Brown friends and family members. Ronnie is working to pass legislation that grants a second chance to people who have demonstrated they have earned them. He holds an associate degree in arts and sciences and has done coursework towards a bachelor’s degree at Central Michigan University.

Ronnie has experience using digital organizing platforms, including being part of social media online campaigns promoting the abolishment of juvenile life without parole. He has also participated on a panel with Kathi Milliken-Boyd and James Windell, authors of Sentencing Youth to Life in Prison – Justice Denied. This in-person and virtual event was hosted by Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth (CFSY) and held at the University of Michigan.