As with any attempts to transform the criminal justice system, the First Step Act is complicated. While we rejoice that several thousand people will likely be treated more humanely, and some released slightly sooner, because of this legislation, we also stand in solidarity with those opposed to this act. We wonder with them if this will actually be a first, or last, step? Will we congratulate ourselves on having an impact on ~10 % of the prison industrial complex population while 2 million people, their families and friends still wait to be treated with dignity and respect?
Please read some of the articles and statements below to begin understanding the response to this current work. Congress just passed the most significant criminal justice reform bill in decades - Vox News First Step Act has Sinister Implications for the Poor and Marginalized - Truth Out Movement for Black Lives Statement JustLeadershipUSA statement - signed by the UUA NAACP Statement November post of several articles on the First Step Act We will continue to work for more radical and complete change and hope you will join us in the struggle.
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He Was Sentenced to Life for Selling Crack. Now Congress Wants to Reconsider.
The New York Times Alan Blinder and Jennifer Medina Edward Douglas is serving a life sentence for selling crack cocaine. He cannot go to church with his mother, a pastor in Chicago. He cannot take his grandchildren to the park. He dreams of working as a mechanic again. It’s a possibility that seems increasingly likely. Under bipartisan criminal justice legislation that won final approval by Congress on Thursday, Mr. Douglas, 55, could have his sentence reduced to less time than he has already served. He was convicted at a time when crack cocaine offenses were handled far more harshly than those involving powder cocaine. READ MORE The Movement for Black Lives Position on the First Step Act
Statement - December 2018 The Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of more than 150 Black-led organizations, opposes the First Step Act. Despite a few positive measures, the First Step Act further harms incarcerated people and does little to stop or correct the state-sponsored intergenerational violence our communities experience. Since the First Step Act was passed in the US House of Representatives, the Movement for Black Lives leadership has engaged in internal discussion, debate, and exploration of the bill’s proposed and potential impact to deepen our understanding about how the bill would advance or deter the objectives articulated in the Vision for Black Lives Policy Platform, a foundational 21st-century proposal for how to pass legislation that liberates, not further denigrates Black people. Through this process we have determined that the First Step Act, despite the few positive reforms, is a dangerous bill that if passed will cause further harm to many people currently incarcerated, continue the long history of violence against our communities, and introduce new ways to rob our people of the freedom and justice we deserve. We recognize that the positive aspects of this bill are the product of the tireless work of advocates who have worked to create inroads for meaningful reforms in a moment of heightened attacks on ALL Black people. Our opposition to the First Step Act is not directed at those who support this bill and whose hopes are rooted in seeing their loved ones free. Our opposition is directed towards a bill that we believe will do more harm than good. We believe that in addition to not reaching far enough to ensure our peoples’ freedom from all forms of incarceration, the First Step Act is an intentionally divisive bill that authors a dangerous future for all of our families and communities. Read More Is Prison the Answer to Violence? -
The Marshall Project Bill Keller 2-16-2017 I think there are a handful of reasons we have to think differently about how we approach the question of violence. The first relates to what you just said, which is that we will not end mass incarceration without taking on the question of violence. We have a choice. We either give up the aspiration of ending mass incarceration or we steer into the question of what to do about people who commit harm. The other reason is that if you ask survivors of violent crime what they're worried about, it’s people who may hurt them. And many don’t trust police to protect them. We know that fewer than half of victims of violence call the police in the first place when they're hurt. That's a profound indictment of our system. Let me pick up on that. In your report, "Accounting for Violence," your first principle is that the response to violent crime should be survivor-centered. What if the thing the survivor really needs in order to feel safe is to just lock away the bad guy for a long, long time. How much should that weigh in the outcome? A survivor-centered system is not the same as a survivor-ruled one. We never would argue that what a crime survivor wants should be the only factor we take into account. If a crime survivor wants somebody free and we have real reason to believe that person will go on to hurt other people, then we may have an obligation to incarcerate that person. Read More How to Support Cyntoia Brown
Colorlines by Ayana Byrd December 10, 2018 Sentenced to life in prison at 16 for killing her would-be rapist, Brown is not eligible for parole until she is 67. In the unanimous decision, the state court ruled that juvenile offenders facing life, like Brown, must serve five decades before being considered for parole. Brown is in the Tennessee Prison for Women for shooting Johnny Allen in 2004. At the time of the incident, she was a 16-year-old who had been forced into prostitution. Allen, 43, picked her up at a Sonic drive-in and drove her back to his house, which had guns on display. Brown maintains that she killed him with a gun from her purse in an act of self-defense. Prosecutors in her trial countered that she went to Allen’s house to rob him. Read More Jailing Americans for Profit: The Rise of the Prison Industrial Complex
Huffington Post by John W. Whitehead In an age when freedom is fast becoming the exception rather than the rule, imprisoning Americans in private prisons run by mega-corporations has turned into a cash cow for big business. At one time, the American penal system operated under the idea that dangerous criminals needed to be put under lock and key in order to protect society. Today, as states attempt to save money by outsourcing prisons to private corporations, the flawed yet retributive American “system of justice” is being replaced by an even more flawed and insidious form of mass punishment based upon profit and expediency. Read More I Can Be Free Again': How Music Brings Healing at Sing Sing
I've seen firsthand how music can restore what's missing in prison: a respect for humanity. Pacific Standard by John J. Lennon October 24, 2018 In Concert at Sing SingThe Sing Sing cellblocks are piles of brick and slabs of metal and steel and concrete, built on a hill of prime real estate overlooking the Hudson River. At four open tiers high, with two sides of 88 cells that stretch the length of two football fields, Cellblock A is the largest in the world, per the Sing Sing Prison Museum. Pipes snake along the wall hissing heat; cell radios tuned to Hot 97, New York City's hip-hop station, bump Nicki Minaj rapping about her privates being wetter than puddles; Bloods yell out roll calls ("Whoopti!" to responses of "Can't stop! Never stop!"), while the rest of us wait impatiently, screaming out cell numbers for corrections officers to open. Read More When the Market Is Our Only Language
On Being with Krista Tippett interviewing Anand Giridharadas We Americans revere the creation of wealth. Anand Giridharadas wants us to examine this and how it shapes our life together. This is a challenging conversation but a generative one: about the implicit moral equations behind a notion like "win-win"— and the moral compromises in a cultural consensus we’ve reached, without reflecting on it, about what and who can save us. Anand Giridharadas is a journalist and writer. He is a former columnist and foreign correspondent for "The New York Times" and a visiting scholar at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. He is the author of "India Calling," "The True American," and "Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World." Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org. Listen to the full episode Find in the list... A Letter to My Dad In Jail - A Mighty Writers Essay
This essay was written by a student at Mighty Writers, an education nonprofit that offers free writing classes to over 2,500 inner-city Philadelphia students a year. Hi Dad - I wanted to say thank you for my birthday card that you sent me. I absolutely love it and I will cherish it forever. I know I haven’t written you in a long time, but I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. I’ve been going to this writing camp on Thursdays and the topic I chose to write about is how to cope with a parent being incarcerated. I really have a lot of feelings about you being locked up; most of them are sad feelings. I'm going to tell you, because you’re my dad, and I want us to have a strong bond, because you’re my dad. Read More From defendant to top prosecutor, this tattooed Texas DA represents a new wave in criminal justice reform
Washington Post by Justin Jouvenal November 19, 2018 ...The nation’s 2,400 district attorneys wield significant power in the criminal-justice system, with wide discretion over charging and sentencing and influence over which defendants are granted bond. This new breed of prosecutors is upending a traditional tough-on-crime focus by emphasizing a holistic approach over conviction rates and long sentences. ... Read More |
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