#end mass encarceration

[politijohn]

A progressive legend

[tortoisebear]

The short answer is: no The long answer needs several points: 1. The shoa is, I think hink, not a good example for both sides of this argument. Resistance failed. Both ways. There were violent and non violent forms of resistance by jews, Jewish associates and opposition organizations. They failed. So your (@consenticalmonster) that a nonviolent jewish resistance would have failed is of few argumentativ use in this topic. Because it not only would have failed, but it has failed. And the implicate assumption that a violent uprising would not have failed is just not true. The warshow getto uprising for example shows that. 2. The systems are not that different. The Indian revolution took place in an imperialistic situation where the powerful British colonisers did not care at all for the life's of the Indian population. If you want to make a difference here I'd say it was way worse the any current one. The second Liberian Civil War ended 2003 and the first female president was democraticly chosen after that. She was a key member of the women of Liberia mass action for peace movement. So a rather contemporary example too. And Martin Luther Kings movement is of course also a very similar situation as today. The velvet revolution might, in hindsight, seam an easy win but it was far from certain that soviet government wouldn't use violent police or even military force to surpress the seperative movement. History shows that the did that before. 3. History also shows that nonviolent resistance is the better way to get the public and media on your side, while violence is not only a very good way to alianate media, politics, public and even foraign countries, it's also giving the police and government a reason to arrest, trial and encarcerate you. So no, it is not sometimes better to punch the nazi. 4. And last but not least I want to come back to the main point this short text seams to want to make, that nonviolence is rasistic. Now, I have not read the any works of Peter Gelderloos apart from this excerpt of one of his books. So I will not make any claims about if he is right or wrong. I just want to state that nonviolent resistance is almost always done by suppressed minorities for mostly the for mentioned reasons, especially because it is a legal and publicly appreciated way of protest that puts the powerful, the government, the police, the fashists into the attacker, the Offenders role. And it was used, successfuly by people of color, immigrants, women and other minorities and not as stated by privileged white middle class suburban people. 5. In conclusion I understand fully that an anarchist sees the need for more violence in, I assume, contemporary USA, but I disagree with this sentiment generally and with the condemnation of nonviolent protest as racist especially.

“Nonviolence is racist. I do not mean to exchange insults, and I use the epithet racist only after careful consideration. Nonviolence is an inherently privileged position in the modern context. Besides the fact that the typical pacifist is quite clearly white and middle class, pacifism as an ideology comes from a privileged context. It ignores that violence is already here; that violence is an unavoidable, structurally integral part of the current social hierarchy; and that it is people of color who are most affected by that violence. Pacifism assumes that white people who grew up in the suburbs with all their basic needs met can counsel oppressed people, many of whom are people of color, to suffer patiently under an inconceivably greater violence, until such time as the Great White Father is swayed by the movement’s demands or the pacifists achieve that legendary ‘critical mass.’”

— Peter Gelderloos, How Nonviolence Protects the State (via meatthawsmoth)

[cory-castillon]

Confront Adversity with Confidence and Fearlessness

[politijohn]

Just wait until you see how much this costs...

[politijohn]

Genuine question. I am a history grad student specializing in the Cold War. I have a hundred years of evidence of all kinds from four continents that indicates that socialism ends with mass graves and prison camps. What makes your guy different? I figure you probably won't publish this because it runs counter to your bought and paid for purpose, but it would be braver if yoou did.

Ah, so from your studies, you probably read that only one long-lasting democracy has ever existed...the US. Suggesting that democracy is somehow the perfect political system is entirely short-sighted. All political systems have flaws.

Speaking of flaws, I’m glad you brought up “mass graves and prison camps” - two things the US is notorious for. I’m sure you’ve read how the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. No? Then perhaps you recall when the US created concentration camps for Japanese Americans during WWII, yes? Maybe you also missed children being locked in cages at the border. Oh, and remember learning how the US has incited, enabled, and participated in wars all across the globe? How ‘bout that for mass graves.

You asked me, “What makes you guys different?” Simple - I know what the hell I’m talking about. Now get off my blog.

[politijohn]

Fund education and rehabilitation, not mass incarceration

[politijohn]

In case you missed it -

Bernie Sanders released the most comprehensive criminal justice reform plan - 

Highlights include:

Ensure Law Enforcement Accountability and Robust Oversight

Provide More Support to Police Officers and Create A Robust Non-Law Enforcement Alternative Response System

Right to Counsel

Ensure Accountability and Fairness in Prosecution

Ending Mass Incarceration and Excessive Sentencing

End the War on Drugs and Stop Criminalizing Addiction

End the school-to-prison pipeline

Reform Our Decrepit Prison System to Make Jails and Prisons More Humane

Ensure a Just Transition Post-Release

End Cycles of Violence and Provide Support to Survivors of Crime

Reverse the Criminalization of Disability

Invest in Our Communities 

Below are the concrete steps he will take as President. I have never seen anything like this; It’s gold. 

Ban for-profit prisons.

Make prison phone calls and other communications free.

Audit the practices of commissaries and use regulatory authority to end price gouging and exorbitant fees.

Incentivize states and localities to end police departments’ reliance on fines and fees for revenue.

Remove the profit motive from our re-entry system and diversion, community supervision, or treatment programs, and ensure people leaving incarceration or participating in diversion, community supervision, or treatment programs can do so free of charge.

End the use of secured bonds in federal criminal proceedings.

Provide grants to states to reduce their pretrial detention populations, which are particularly high at the county level, and require states to report on outcomes as a condition of renewing their funding.

Withhold funding from states that continue the use of cash bail systems.

Ensure alternatives to cash bail are not creating systematic disparities.

Rescind former AG Jeff Sessions’ guidance on consent decrees.

Use DOJ investigations, consent decrees, and federal lawsuits to address systemic constitutional violations by police departments.

Ensure accountability, strict guidelines and independent oversight for all federal funds used by police departments. 

End federal programs that provide military equipment to local police.

Create a federally managed database of police use of deadly force.

Provide grants for states and cities to establish civilian oversight agencies with enforceable accountability mechanisms.

Establish federal standards for the use of body cameras and establish third-party agencies to oversee the storage and release of police videos.

Mandate criminal liability for civil rights violations resulting from police misconduct.

Conduct Attorney General’s investigation whenever someone is killed in police custody. 

Establish a federal no-call policy, including a registry of disreputable federal law enforcement officers, so testimony from untrustworthy sources does not lead to criminal convictions. 

Provide financial support to pilot local and state level no-call lists.

Ban the use of facial recognition software for policing.

Establish national standards for use of force by police that emphasize de-escalation.

Require and fund police officer training on implicit bias (to include biases based on race, gender, sexual orientation and identity, religion, ethnicity and class), cultural competency, de-escalation, crisis intervention, adolescent development, and how to interact with people with mental and physical disabilities. 

Ensure training is conducted in a meaningful way with strict independent oversight and enforceable guidelines.

Ban the practice of law enforcement agencies benefiting from civil asset forfeiture. Limit funding to those who do not comply.

Provide funding to states and municipalities to create civilian corps of unarmed first responders, such as social workers, EMTs, and trained mental health professionals, who can handle order maintenance violations, mental health emergencies, and low-level conflicts outside the criminal justice system, freeing police officers to concentrate on the most serious crimes.

Incentivize access to counseling and mental health services for officers.

Diversify police forces and academies and incentivize officers to live and work in the communities they serve.

Triple congressional spending on indigent defense, to $14 billion annually.

After a review of current salaries and workload, set a minimum starting salary for all public defenders.

Create and set a national formula to assure populations have a minimum number of public defenders to assure full access to constitutional right to due process.

Establish federal guidelines and goals for a right to counsel, including policies that reduce the number of cases overall. 

Create a federal agency to provide support and oversight for state public defense services. 

Authorize the Department of Justice to take legal action against jurisdictions that are not meeting their Sixth Amendment obligations. 

Cancel all existing student debt and cancel any future student debt for public defenders through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.

Rescind former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ orders on prosecutorial discretion and low-level offenses. 

Appoint an Attorney General committed to public safety and creating a more just and humane criminal justice system.

Limit “absolute immunity” for prosecutors, which is used to shield wrongdoers from liability.

End the practice of jailing material witnesses.

Place a moratorium on the use of the algorithmic risk assessment tools in the criminal justice system until an audit is completed. Ensure these tools do not have any implicit biases that lead to unjust or excessive sentences.

Abolish the death penalty.

Reverse the Trump administration’s guidance on the use of death penalty drugs with the goal of ending the death penalty at the state level.

Stop excessive sentencing with the goal of cutting the incarcerated population in half.

End mandatory sentencing minimums.

Reinstate a federal parole system and end truth-in-sentencing. 

People serving long sentences will undergo a “second look” process to make sure their sentence is still appropriate.

End “three strikes” laws. 

Invigorate and expand the compassionate release process so that people with disabilities, the sick and elderly are transitioned out of incarceration whenever possible.

Expand the use of sentencing alternatives, including community supervision and publicly funded halfway houses.

Revitalize the executive clemency process by creating an independent clemency board removed from the DOJ and placed in White House.

Stop the criminalization of homelessness and spend more than $25 billion over five years to end homelessness. This includes doubling McKinney-Vento homelessness assistance grants to build permanent supportive housing, and $500 million to provide outreach to homeless people to help connect them to available services. 

In the first year of this plan, 25,000 Housing Trust Fund units will be prioritized for housing the homeless.

Legalize marijuana and vacate and expunge past marijuana convictions, and ensure that revenue from legal marijuana is reinvested in communities hit hardest by the War on Drugs.

Provide people struggling with addiction with the health care they need by guaranteeing health care — including inpatient and outpatient substance abuse and mental health services with no copayments or deductibles — to all people as a right, not a privilege, through a Medicare-for-all, single-payer program.

Decriminalize possession of buprenorphine, which helps treat opioid addiction, and ensure first responders carry naloxone to prevent overdoses.

Legalize safe injection sites and needle exchanges around the country, and support pilot programs for supervised injection sites, which have shown to substantially reduce drug overdose deaths.

Raise the threshold for when drug charges are federalized, as federal charges carry longer sentences.

Work with states to fund and pursue innovative overdose prevention initiatives.

Institute a full review of the current sentencing guidelines and end the sentencing disparity between crack and cocaine.

Ban the prosecution of children under the age of 18 in adult courts.

Work to ensure that all juvenile facilities are designed for rehabilitation and growth.

Ensure youth are not jailed or imprisoned for misdemeanor offenses.

Ensure juveniles are not be housed in adult prisons.End solitary confinement for youth. 

Abolish long mandatory minimum sentences and life-without-parole sentences for youth.

Eliminate criminal charges for school-based disciplinary behavior that would not otherwise be criminal and invest in school nurses, counselors, teachers, teaching assistants, and small class sizes to address disciplinary issues.

Ensure every school has the necessary school counselors and wrap-around services by providing $5 billion annually to expand the sustainable community school model.

End the use of juvenile fees.Decriminalize truancy for all youth and their parents. 

Eliminate federal incentives for schools to implement zero-tolerance policies. 

Invest in local youth diversion programs as alternatives to the court and prison system.

Work with teachers, school administrators, and the disability rights movement to end restraint and seclusion discipline in schools.

Ending solitary confinement. Solitary confinement is a form of torture and unconstitutional, plain and simple.

Access to free medical care in prisons and jails, including professional and evidence-based substance abuse and trauma-informed mental health treatment.

Incarcerated trans people have access to all the health care they need.Access to free educational and vocational training. This includes ending the ban on Pell Grants for all incarcerated people without any exceptions.Living wages and safe working conditions, including maximum work hours, for all incarcerated people for their labor.

Re-enfranchise the right to vote to the millions of Americans who have had their vote taken away by a felony conviction.

End prison gerrymandering, ensuring incarcerated people are counted in their communities, not where they are incarcerated.

Establishment of an Office of Prisoner Civil Rights and Civil Liberties within the Department of Justice to investigate civil rights complaints from incarcerated individuals and provide independent oversight to make sure that prisoners are housed in safe, healthy, environments.

Protection from sexual abuse and harassment, including mandatory federal prosecution of prison staff who engage in such misconduct.

Access to their families — including unlimited visits, phone calls, and video calls.

Determination for the most appropriate setting for people with disabilities and safe, accessible conditions for people with disabilities in prisons and jails.

Make expungement broadly available. 

Remove legal and regulatory barriers and facilitate access to services so that people returning home from jail or prison can build a stable and productive life. 

Create a federal agency responsible for monitoring re-entry.

“Ban the box” by removing questions regarding conviction histories from job and other applications.

Enact fair chance licensing reform to remove unfair restrictions on occupational licensure based on criminal history.Increase funding for re-entering youth programs. 

Pass a massive youth jobs program to provide jobs and job-training opportunities for disadvantaged young Americans who face high unemployment rates.

Guarantee safe, decent, affordable housing.

Remove the profit motive from our re-entry system and diversion, community supervision, or treatment programs, and ensure people leaving incarceration or participating in diversion, community supervision, or treatment programs can do so free of charge.

Guarantee jobs and free job training at trade schools and apprenticeship programs.

Focus law enforcement resources to dramatically increase the solve rate of the most serious offenses like homicides and sexual assaults.

Fund Cure Violence and similar proven effective violence interruption models to stop violent incidents before they begin.

Fund programs for people who are at serious risk of being either the perpetrator or victim of gun violence, provide non-law enforcement-led services including job training and placement assistance, education, and help covering basic needs such as housing, food, and transportation.

Provide funding to end the national rape kit backlog and institute new rules requiring that rape kits be tested and that victims are provided with updates on the status of their rape kits.

Address gender-based violence on college campuses by reversing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ decision to weaken Title IX protections. We will protect and enforce Title IX.

Prevent and address sex trafficking with “safe harbor” policies that treat trafficked persons involved in illegal activities such as prositution as victims rather than criminals, and that offer legal and financial support for victims.

Funding sex trafficking research and prevention programs that include early identification of vulnerable populations, like foster children and youth in transition, as well as Native American women.Immediately reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.

Provide housing assistance and paid leave for victims of sexual assault.

Expand non-police interventions for domestic violence, including a national help hotline and state-funded, long-term counseling.

 Make discriminatory law enforcement interactions with people with disabilities a major enforcement priority of the Civil Rights Division. 

Use the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision to challenge states that have failed to adequately support the voluntary, community-based mental health services that can divert people with mental illness from ending up in the criminal justice system.

Bar criminal charges for school-based behavior that would not otherwise be criminal and invest in school nurses, counselors, teachers, teaching assistants, and small class sizes to address disciplinary issues. 

Ensure every school has the necessary school counselors and wrap-around services by providing $5 billion annually to expand the sustainable community school model.

Work with teachers, school administrators, and the disability rights movement to end restraint and seclusion discipline in schools.

Invigorate and expand the compassionate release process so that people with disabilities are transitioned out of incarceration whenever possible.

Invest in diversion programs as alternatives to the court and prison system for people with disabilities and ensure those people have the community-based supports and services they need.

Create an Office of Disability in the DOJ focused on coordinating these efforts, including the reduction of incarcerated people with disabilities, reducing recidivism and guaranteeing a just re-entry for people with disabilities, and ensuring every aspect of our criminal justice system is ADA compliant.

Guarantee mental health care to people with disabilities as a human right, including all the supports and services needed to stay in the community. Mental health care, under Medicare for All, will be free at the point of service, with no copayments or deductibles which can be a barrier to treatment. The plan will also provide home- and community-based long-term services and supports to all and cover prescription drugs.

Train, recruit, and increase the number of mental health providers to provide culturally competent care in underserved communities.

Guarantee that people with disabilities have safe, accessible, and integrated affordable housing.

People with disabilities deserve jobs that pay a living wage. It’s time to end the subminimum wage and guarantee truly integrated employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

Triple Title I funding, expand the IDEA, and make other major investments in public K-12 education as outlined in the Thurgood Marshall Plan for Public Education and Educators. Provide mandatory funding to ensure that the federal government provides at least 50 percent of the funding for IDEA and guarantee children with disabilities an equal right to high-quality education by enforcing the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Guarantee tuition- and debt-free public colleges, universities, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs and the end equity gap in higher education attainment for people with disabilities by ensuring all our students get the help they need so they are ready for college and receive the support they need when they are in college.

Increase educational opportunities for persons with disabilities, including an expansion in career and technical education opportunities to prepare students for good-paying community employment.

Enact a federal jobs guarantee to provide good jobs at a living wage revitalizing and taking care of the community.

Pass a $15 minimum wage.

Provide people struggling with addiction the health care they need by guaranteeing health care, which includes inpatient and outpatient substance abuse and mental health services with no copayments or deductibles, to all people as a right, not a privilege, through a Medicare-for-all, single-payer program. 

Provide transportation benefits to and from health services for those who need it. Invest in our health care workforce and infrastructure to ensure that all communities have access to  these services.

Enact paid family leave, so people can take time off from work to help themselves or a family member as they go through treatment. 

Ensure that people who interacted with the justice system are still able to get the rehabilitation services they need and are able to find housing and employment.

End the exploitative practices of payday lenders and ensure all Americans have access to basic financial services through the Post Office, and capping interest rates on consumer loans and credit cards at 15 percent across all financial institutions. States will be empowered to cap rates even lower than 15 percent.

Tie Department of Transportation funding to integration and improving commuting in urban centers, and restore the TIGER program to focus on public transportation. Create a $10 billion grant program within the Minority Business Development Agency to provide grants to entrepreneurs of color.

Pass the WATER Act to create a $35 billion annual fund to remove and replace lead pipes in communities throughout the country.

Ensure federal resources are focused on the Americans who need it most — often as a result of structural disadvantage. We will implement the 10-20-30 approach to federal investments which focuses substantial federal resources on distressed communities that have high levels of poverty.