One of the most important battles of criminal justice today should be changing incarcerated laborers’ classification to legal workers. This would provide the same rights and benefits as non-inmate labor and allow prisoners to earn a “livable wage."
“We don’t look at the crime. We are looking at predetention when you have not been convicted of a crime. We didn’t make the system. The system says, ‘You are innocent until proven guilty.’”
The African American perfectionists offered “faith” instead of “hope”—emphasizing the struggle to realize a vision of justice rather than passive assurance that it would prevail.
The 2018 Farm Bill okayed the production of hemp, removed it from the DEA's list of Controlled Substances and changed the marijuana landscape — that doesn’t erase criminalization’s disastrous impact on the working class.
These inspiring developments serve as powerful reminders that by working together in pursuit of progress, we can manifest meaningful criminal legal reform that makes our country more humane, more just, and more democratic.
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