Justice news and commentary 6.8.22

Commentary

• Crystal Hayling, the ED of the Libra fund, wrote “Who are we now? A Black woman’s meditation on the second anniversary” of George Floyd’s murder.  

• Kassandra Frederique, the ED of the Drug Policy Alliance and a brilliant emerging national leader, argued that the drug war drives exploitation, and that drugs should be regulated, not criminalized. 

Solutions and Wins

• I previously wrote about the extremely impressive work of Astra Taylor and the Debt Collective. Several days ago, they won their 7-year campaign to erase the debt of people who attended Corinthian colleges, a predatory, for-profit network that made fraudulent representations to students about future earnings and employability.  About half a million people will have about $3.5billion in debt forgiven by the U.S. government. See NYTimes and the Prospect.

• The Complete Picture Project makes films about defendants to show judges at sentencing, to show the fullness of their lives and connections to family and community. These films have reportedly led to defendants receiving dramatically reduced sentences. See The Laura Flanders Show’s coverage. 

• Thanks to years of tireless work by the Innocence Project, a Florida man was exonerated 36 years after being convicted of sexually assaulting a child. 

• Mother Jones did a lengthy profile about a community-based hotline in Oakland called Mental Health First, which provides assistance in acute mental health crisis situations. Far too often, when families call police to help with relatives in crisis, the police shoot their loved one. This hotline provides an alternative. 

Police

• The vast majority of police officers who died in the line of duty in 2021 died of COVID.

• Useful citation if you’re in discussions around police in schools: a 2018 study of NC schools found that "increasing investments in school resource officers does not lead to safer schools.”

• Two more Austin police officers have been indicted by Jose Garza’s office for crimes they committed against protestors in 2020, bringing the total number of indictments up to 21. .

Elections

• Here’s a thread with 3 great Bolts articles on the stakes in the CA Sheriff elections this week. 

• L.A. City Councilman Mike Bonin wrote an illuminating and detailed (with receipts!) thread about the role of police and real estate money in Los Angeles elections this cycle. 

• An extreme conservative lost their bid for the Arkansas Supreme Court in recent primaries; the challenger holds particularly aggressive views on the death penalty and abortion. 

• NPR interviewed John Legend on what motivates his activism to elect new prosecutors. 

• Republican operatives have brazenly articulated their intent to partner with partisan District Attorneys to help overturn the next presidential election. Here’s the legal counsel to the Amistad project, who’s presentation was leaked to Politico: “Remember, guys, we’re trying to build out a nationwide district attorney network. Your local district attorney, as we always say, is more powerful than your congressman.”

Research

• PPI has a good report on how prison brings trauma into communities - corrections jobs are bad jobs, and prisons do not revitalize local economies. 

• A new study on drug addiction finds that feelings of shame and guilt, often encouraged by abstinence programs, prevent recovery. 

• A public health research brief argues that involuntary commitment, supposedly more humane and medicalized, causes immense harm and should not be used as an alternative to criminalization.