The blunt fact about the cash bail system in the US is that it creates a two-tier system of “justice” in which the presumption of innocence is denied to people who have not been convicted of anything but the “crime” of being poor.
Free Black Mamas DMV in 2017 is a self-described Black women and femme-run abolitionist campaign seeking to end the country’s current carceral system. The effort is part of the National Bail Out, a collective of local and national Black-led organizations that plan Mama’s Day Bail Out events around the country.
A record number of inmates are dying in Georgia's five largest county jails, and that Fulton County Jail has led the state in such deaths since 2009.
Overcrowding and understaffing plague the facility, where around half of the more than 3,000 inmates have not been charged with any crime.
Economic disparities that exist between men and women, particularly women of color, are exacerbated for formerly incarcerated women. Lack of structural support increases women’s chances of experiencing poverty, re-offending and returning to imprisonment.
Death by incarceration is the most prevalent and most overlooked form of state sponsored execution. They call it a life sentence, but that is a misnomer. Any prison sentence that a person cannot outlive is a sentence to death.
America’s wars on drugs, crime, terrorism and more — along with our endless involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan — have created a weapons-saturated politics of policing, border control and mass incarceration. This reshaping is not one-dimensional...
Even in the darkest of times, in the most hopeless of places, Eddie’s commitment to organizing for liberation was unwavering. And, despite the unimaginable toll that 44 years of incarceration had taken on him, Eddie’s organizing did not stop when he walked out of prison.
With virtually nothing but the clothes on their backs, many inmates are placed on a bus, given $50, known as ‘gate money,’ and if they’re lucky, they may be told to have a nice life.
Just Mercy challenges us not just to abolish the cruel, oppressive, and racist system of death sentencing, but to move beyond soul-killing modes of thought that are part of what make such systems of oppression possible in the first place.
Abolitionists and advocates of criminal justice reform in Los Angeles County have amassed some impressive victories, laying out a vision for reducing incarceration and providing care that could have national significance.
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