Dear ones,
It is difficult not to think about ways to improve the criminal justice system when we have only to look at the news to see its myriad problems. Last week, Amber Ruffin offered a crash course on the criminalization of poverty, which is worth seven minutes of your time, even if you think you understand the issue.
Watch Why Using Police as Debt Collectors Leads to the Killing of Black People.
New York reincarcerates more people on parole for technical parole violations like missing an appointment with a parole officer, being late for curfew, or testing positive for alcohol than any state in the country except Illinois. Of people on parole whom New York sent back to prison in 2016, over 6,300 or 65% were reincarcerated for technical parole violations. That's five times the national average. Only 1,318 or 14% of parolees who were reincarcerated were returned to prison because they were convicted of a new crime. The racial disparity is stark: Black people are incarcerated in New York City jails for technical parole violations at more than 12 times the rate of whites.
The warrant will remain in effect with no right to bail throughout the violation process.
No right to bail. You read that right. When someone has “outstanding warrants,” it likely means that a person has technical parole violations or was unable to pay a fee or a fine. This fakakta situation has put far too many people in harm’s way and this is what the NYS legislature is taking up with bills to reduce reincarceration for non-criminal violations of parole.
Contact your state senator and assembly representative and call on them to support modification to the standards for revoking parole, S1144/A5576.
D.C. jail officials later determined that all Capitol detainees would be placed in so-called restrictive housing —a move billed as necessary to keep the defendants safe, as well as guards and other inmates. But that means 23-hour-a-day isolation for the accused, even before their trials begin.
“Solitary confinement is a form of punishment that is cruel and psychologically damaging,” Warren said in an interview. “And we’re talking about people who haven’t been convicted of anything yet.”
Senator Richard Durbin, chair of the Judiciary Committee, agreed with Warren.
In a modest triumph for justice, the City will “pay $748,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by Black Lives Matter protesters who said the NYPD illegally targeted demonstrators with Long Range Acoustic Devices [LRAD] in 2014.” The court took exception to the city’s argument that the LRAD, or sound cannon, is a communications tool rather than a weapon.
Under the settlement, the NYPD will also ban the use of the LRAD’s powerful “deterrent tone” and, for the first time, generate a written policy governing the use of the devices….
At a press conference on Monday, the attorneys noted that the settlement does not create any court oversight or binding legal obligation to keep the NYPD from using the deterrent tone. And it does nothing to prevent police from using – or misusing – the LRAD’s powerful public address function. “This is still a weapon that’s in the police department’s hands, and we still don’t trust them to use it responsibly.”
The LRAD is one of many weapons developed by the military and now in the arsenal of urban police departments. The DeBlasio Administration fought this suit for years before settling without conceding any wrongdoing. We will have to follow up with the next administration to secure a lasting commitment to divest the department of weapons of war.
The order of mayoral candidates on our June 22 primary ballots has been set by the Board of Elections in a public lottery. It seems advantageous that the three most progressive candidates are among the first five listed. Dianne Morales lucked into the number 2 spot, after someone I’d never heard of, so I’m regarding that as a good omen.
The UFT has endorsed Scott Stringer for Mayor. Although there is tension within the union about the process by which endorsements are made and disappointment that Dianne Morales — a former teacher — was not among the candidates seriously considered, Stringer is a progressive choice.
The People’s Plan NYC has released our education platform. I joined the project too late to work on the education section; nonetheless, I feel connected to this work.
Register here to learn more about the education platform this Thursday @ 7 PM with New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools.
Tuesdays are supposed to be reserved for good news and today’s offering feels a bit muted. We are waiting on jury deliberations, with our hearts in our throats.
Here’s a piece of truly good news: we celebrate this 420 because New York’s new cannabis legalization law
could produce well over 1 million expunged [criminal] records from just the last two decades alone.
The new legalization law aims to address 50 years of targeted law enforcement tactics that were carried out primarily within low-income Black and Brown communities, all dating back to the anti-drug campaign launched in January of 1973 by then Republican New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller.
For hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, this could mean a chance to begin again, without a record.
with love,
L