Portside

To flee from a war zone, only to be met with a fatal police bullet on the other side of the world: It's an uncomfortable, truncated narrative of an abbreviated life. This was how Alfred Olango's life concluded late last month, at the intersection of many forces of violence that converged at a San Diego suburb, in a scene that braided strands of war, policing, race and migration.

What do you think #SafetyIs? Too often, conversations about safety revolve around crime and fear. Now more than ever, we know that police are not the pathway to safety, especially for black and brown communities. Join us on August 2nd for Night Out for Safety and Liberation (NOSL) as we redefine and reimagine what public safety really means for our communities.

People in at least 30 states are barred from voting because they're unable to pay their court fines.

Thousands are still imprisoned on federal drug charges who, without presidential clemency, will most likely die behind bars. In 2013, 98,200 people (more than half the federal prison population) were in prison for drug offenses such as trafficking and possession. Within the federal prison system, the overall imprisonment rate for Black women is more than twice that of white women. Latinas are also imprisoned at a higher rate than their white counterparts.

American over-policing involves far more than the widely reported up-armoring of your local precinct. It’s also the way police power has entered the DNA of social policy, turning just about every sphere of American life into a police matter.