#criminal justice system

[politijohn]

Source

Reminder that 53% of Alabama’s prison population is black people who are incarcerated at 3x the rate as white people (source).

[audhdnight]

Spanking is to parenting what prisons are to criminal justice. Allow me to elaborate:

What does spanking do? “It teaches kids to behave!” Actually, no. It teaches kids to fear their caregiver(s). But say we go with that line. How does spanking teach kids to behave? “It shows them the consequences of bad actions!” Actually, no. It shows kids that when the caregiver is displeased, the kid gets hurt. In the mind of the child, the sequence of events is not [misbehave:consequence]. It is [caregiver unhappy:pain]. And maybe you’ll say “But my kid stopped mouthing off after I started spanking them for it”. Okay, sure. Maybe they stopped responding when you argue, but only because the learned to fear what their response would bring. They’re not holding their tongue because they realized it’s disrespectful or rude or whatever else you believe it is. They’re holding their tongue because they know it won’t do any good and will only make the situation worse for them. I can guarantee they are still thinking all those rebellious naughty talk-backy thoughts. They just aren’t saying them out loud. Spanking did not teach your child to behave, it taught them to walk on eggshells.

Similarly, prisons do absolutely nothing to enforce laws. Prisons do nothing to fix the real crimes that do get committed. A shooter or rapist or embezzler being incarcerated does not bring their victim back to life, un-traumatize them, or make reparations for any damages. Additionally, it makes life a living hell for the innocent people who end up in jail (OF WHICH THERE ARE A HELL OF A LOT). And maybe you might say that the point of prison is to encourage good behavior, because no one wants to go to jail. I would ask, then, why there are so many prisons, of which so many are full or overcrowded. Clearly, the threat of incarceration is not keeping people out of jail. Additionally, much like a child who was spanked being afraid to do normal things in their own home for fear of displeasing their caregiver, regular non-criminal people are afraid of prison, even though they have done nothing wrong. They know they could be incarcerated because of falsified evidence, biased testimonies, unfair trial, or simply bigotry. Especially people of color. Even though they haven’t done anything wrong, they are scared of what could happen to them if the person in power (police) was unhappy with them.

Negative consequences unrelated to the actual incident do not discourage “bad behavior”. Just like a child who is spanked will simply learn to be sneakier, a thief who goes to jail will simply cover their tracks better next time.

Stop spanking your kids, and abolish prisons. Have a nice day.

[theconcealedweapon]

The ruling class say "some of you will be our slaves".

The general population then fight over who those slaves will be.

That's exactly how the prison system works to a T.

[isaacsapphire]

Saw a post about the sex offender list that kept repeating, "police love to get minorities for X crime" and I realized, both people who supposedly oppose the system and the system itself very intentionally frame police and police discretion as a more powerful and unilateral part of the system that it actually is, while ignoring or obscuring the rest of the system.

The DA's office decides what cases to drop and what to move forward with, and what punishments to request. The judges decide to throw out cases or let them continue, and then use judicial discretion in handing down sentences. And so on, I am not a legal expert yet, but there's a whole chain of people more powerful than some beat cop who chose to pursue or drop cases.

This all seems very convenient for the DA, as nobody is rioting to abolish or defund their office.

[tommyandtabitha]

"We need to stop relying on the compassion of individuals but instead build compassionate systems." —Monica Maalouf, MD

We live under deadly systems that can destroy lives with a single expense.

A hypothetical person can get hit by a reckless driver and end up dying, in jail, of an infectious respiratory disease they contracted from another inmate, or maybe just freezing to death on the streets because there isn't even a warming shelter available. Things like this happen far too frequently.

The US Supreme Court's ruling that municipalities can criminalize sleeping on public property even if there's nowhere else that's safe to sleep means that being homeless and trying to find a safe place to sleep can land you in jail. A punishment for trying to exist (to be clear, this was already happening, but it's currently deemed 'Constitutional' here).

And don't forget, it's the authorities who get to decide what a safe place to sleep is. In our town, they've decided it's the lawn behind the police department. And the cops have been known to turn on the sprinklers during the times that people are allowed to stay there. A town that said the warming shelter couldn't be opened when the temperature dipped to below freezing, because it's only insured for 90-days occupancy, and those 90 days had already been used back at the beginning of the year (plenty of time to find a solution, but they didn't bother until it was already needed and they were pressured by the public and managed to find a church that would help). A town that has decided that if you're caught being too homeless in public, you can be 'excluded' from huge chunks of town.

What happens when you have no money, there are no public restrooms, you have to be a paying customer to use any business' toilet, and you can land on the sex offender registry if you're caught peeing in public? What happens when you've just been told you'll be arrested for trespassing if they ever see you on that side of town again (because you had a cardboard sign asking for help and were sitting at the exit of a parking lot) but all your stuff is on that side of town? What happens when you're given a fine you can't pay, for the crime of existing, and are threatened with jail if you can't pay?

Many people will not rent to folk who have a police record. It's nearly impossible to get a job without a home address.

Especially when you're still recovering from getting hit by a reckless driver.

Or maybe our hypothetical person's spouse died suddenly, the home isn't paid off, and the surviving person was the stay-at-home parent, so they have no work experience for a resume, and two kids in school. What happens to them?

Or maybe it's just an autoimmune disorder and they can't afford the treatments without insurance, and their insurance is through their employer, who overworks them and won't give them accommodations they need to be able to work safely, so they work unsafely and take a decade or more off their life—but at least get medical treatment... when they can get the time off for it. Systemic problems will not be resolved without systemic change.

.

linktr.ee/TommyAndTabitha

[remembertheplunge]

“There is no poetry or thusness in the approach of win at any cost. Our job is not to win—-our job is to tap societal throb pulse and twine the art to the undulation.” 2/10/1993

Note: 12/21/2024

This quote, from the above journal entry, is referring to the way a fellow criminal defense attorney approached his work in a ruthless, no holds barred manner in which everyone else in the circle is an enemy. I see the criminal justice system as a circle in which all play a roll in achieving a fair resolution.

The balance of the had written entry were transcribed and posted separately in the 12/22/24 blog scheduled for tomorrow.

[ex-foster]

[bitchesgetriches]

Sup bitches! I’m in love with a very sweet, smart, hardworking man - who also finished a 20-year prison sentence three years ago. He has a great, well-paying job in a small business, his credit is blossoming, and he is beloved my all; by all accounts a success story. But of course, there are barriers, namely finding a place to rent. I have no such barriers, but I know most places do background checks on all potential occupants. What are our options?

Legal discrimination against ex-convicts is one of the blackest stains on our country. You and your partner have our sympathy and support! He has done his time and by rights should be entitled to the full privileges of any other citizen. And yet.

Remember that we are NOT legal professionals, and so we can't offer legal advice. What I CAN tell you is that if you are the only person on the lease, you will be the only one subject to a background check. Additionally, if you submit his criminal record up-front, in a personal letter to a private landlord (rather than a giant rental corporation), they're more likely to be reasonable about your case.

For more practical advice and to understand your partner's rights, risks, and options as an ex-convict, we recommend reading "The New Jim Crow." It talks about the racial component of the criminal justice system, but the discriminatory aspects of post-prison life are broadly applicable.

The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander: A Bitchtastic Book Review

If this helped you out, join our Patreon!

[audhdnight]

So I was having a discussion about abortion rights and mentioned that making them illegal will not stop abortions from happening, and the person I was talking to sort of scoffed and said “Right so why have laws at all? Murder still happens. And I could apply that to your gun control laws too”

I need yall to understand that the point of laws is not and has never been to stop something from happening. The point of laws is to make those actions legally punishable.

Murder isn’t illegal because the law stops murder, murder is illegal so that if you beat someone to death in anger there are consequences.

I don’t want gun control laws because I think they will automatically make all wrongful deaths by firearms end forever. I want gun control laws so that it’s harder to get away with slaughtering people. So that guns are harder to access for those people who would misuse them.

Republicans know this. That’s the entire reason they want abortion to be illegal: so you can go to jail if you get one. Their aim is not and has never been to “protect life”. It has always been to control women and queer people. This isn’t about saving babies, it’s about making the exercising of bodily autonomy punishable by law.

[isaacsapphire]

Perp walk for Mangione was a show of force in support of the rule of law. Everyone knows murder for profit is wrong. Apparently it’s a matter of public debate whether it’s ok to murder an individual deemed symbolically responsible for a systemic problem which he did not personally cause and could not have personally solved.

Rule of law? I understand what you’re saying, but rule of law includes presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial, which both were impinged upon by that perp walk.

Luigi has plead not guilty, and for all I know all the evidence was planted and he’s just a slightly loopy guy who would fit in here and was on an American walkabout when the cops decided to frame him because they needed a perp in custody asap.

And yes, the overall public reaction to the killing has been somewhere between joy and the arguably mild approval of the “we aren’t going to try to help solve this one” from various investigative subreddits, to people arguing about the true cause of the health care crisis in the United States.

The aggression of the response to both Luigi and Boston really doesn’t feel like equality under the law, because the same offenses are treated differently when the victims are regular people.

[yetisidelblog]

Next Thursday, March 20, the State of Florida is set to conduct its 108th state-sanctioned murder and execute Eddie James. Late yesterday, Governor DeSantis signed yet another death warrant – this time for Michael Tanzi, who is scheduled to be executed on April 8 at 6 pm. We will be sharing more details about Michael soon.

We will continue fighting to stop Eddie’s death, and we and our collaborators are planning several opportunities for you to get informed and speak out about Florida’s death penalty. 

Governor DeSantis is the single executive official who can stop this execution. That’s why we need you to send him a message today and urge him to grant a stay. You can also call at (850) 488-7146.

On Thursday, we will send your signatures to Governor DeSantis, the Florida Board of Executive Clemency, and other administrative officials. Please continue to sign and share our petition. Help us reach 4,000 signatures. Every signature, every voice, will be seen and heard, reinforcing our collective call for justice.

While the state presses on with executions, some legislators are also trying to make it easier for people to end up on death row by expanding the number of situations in which a death penalty can be applied. We are tracking HB693/SB776, HB1283/SB1804, and SB984/HB653. We can only defeat these erosions of our freedom if we stand together.

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[jtem]

Warning! Warning! Warning! Warning!

Unpopular opinion time

Yes. Call it an "Opinion." It's a truth and a dire warning but we'll call it an opinion:

The current "Squatters" problem is about to make a very ugly turn.

Imagine you come home from work one day and your key doesn't work. Your locks have been changed and people are your home! They tell you to leave, get off your property.

You persist. After all, it is your home. You've had a long day. All you want to do is get inside your own home, pour yourself a bowl of cereal and plop down in front of the TV. And here these strangers are inside your home, they changed your locks and they're telling you to get off your own property! So you break in. You break into your own home and confront these strangers.

Then they call the police.

On you.

These strangers in your home, call the police on you. They do.

The police show up.

The home invaders show the damage from where you broke in, show the police some rental agreement they made up, one or more receipts for rent they never paid..probably some bills in their name.

The police arrest you. The police arrest YOU for breaking into your home, trying to wrongfully evict these "Renters" you are victimizing.

Again, this is your home. You live there. You got up that morning, left for work, locked the door behind you and when you came home at the end of the day you found these squatters inside your home.

This is going to happen.

It's going to happen a lot.

Why wouldn't it?

When it comes to squatters, there's literally no difference between them being there for a week or them being their for hours. The police don't see a difference. The courts don't. In both cases it comes down to pieces of paper, and these squatters inside your home made sure to print out lots of authentic and properly dated pieces of paper.

Oh, you'll probably get them out. Eventually. Maybe in only six months! In the mean time you can't get inside your home and God knows what kind of damages they're doing...

It's going to happen.

They just have to pick an address, cherry pick the legal jurisdiction to give them the greatest advantages, print everything out & wait for you to leave for work in the morning.

People are going to start coming home and finding strangers inside their homes. Squatters. It will happen, if it's not happening already.

[outstanding-quotes]

The War on Drugs was a war on the poor, on people of color, on anyone who didn’t fit in the moral majority; the War on Drugs was a war on us.

Madeline Pendleton, I Survived Capitalism and All I Got was This Lousy T-shirt

[politijohn]

Source

[beansguytm]

Hot take but I actually do believe that convicted felons should be able to run for political office, AFTER serving their sentence. If we are serious about rehabilitation and second chances, then once a sentence is served, that should be the end of the legal punishment. If someone committed a felony and served a 30 year sentence and finally comes out of prison a new person (if we’re being as optimistic about our incarceration system as possible) then yeah I think they should be able to run for office. Let it be up to the voters whether it’s a good idea to let an ex-felon serve in a public office on a case by case basis. If someone got in with a bad crowd when they were a teenager and committed murder at like 18-19 and that’s the only crime they’ve committed, we shouldn’t be disqualifying them from running for office at 50.

However, I believe that if you are convicted of a felony and are either awaiting your sentence or serving it, you shouldn’t be able to run for office. The ability to serve in public office ought to be a privilege reserved for people who, except for in cases of civil disobedience, play by the rules. Trump, up through his 70s, committed 34 felonies that he was found guilty for. At the very least, make him serve his sentence before letting him run. And I would feel the same way even if he wasn’t a fascist. It’s absolutely ridiculous that he can still run for president at this point in time.

It bears mentioning that the reason a convicted felon can run for president is not that some lawmaker decided “yes, and convicted felons should be able to run for president.” It’s that no one in the history of this country thought it circumstantially possible that a convicted felon could or would run for president, so no one made it illegal. What a time.