Thread by @ScottHech

🚨REJECT FEAR: Police, prosecutors, & right-wing media allies are fearmongering to undo bail reform in NY. It's cynical. It’s dangerous. Now *you can do something at JusticeNotFear.org.*

Spread truth. Contact lawmakers. Report mistruths. Watch. Share.

As commonsense bail reform has started in 2020 saving lives & keeping families together, I’ve been horrified by the desperate attempts to try to defeat them. Using the same tactics of fear used by George Wallace to Trump that got us mass incarceration, now to perpetuate it in NY.

As public defenders, we know what bail looked like just a few weeks ago. 1000s of predominately Black & Latino people jailed for their poverty. Pretrial. Presumed innocent. A costly, wasteful injustice that *undermined* public safety. We demanded change. Lawmakers listened.

Commonsense reform: No cash bail for just misdemeanors & nonviolent felonies. Lawmakers studied. Learned that community investment, housing, jobs, treatment are all better for public health & safety than incarceration.

So guess who is scared now: Prosecutors & police.

Police & prosecutors feel threatened by change. So they’re doubling down on fear. The fearmongering has been overwhelming. And sadly appearing to work. Lawmakers who just months ago made a reasoned decision based on facts now are signaling that they are prepared to cave to fear.

Those who fought so hard for change—directly impacted people, defenders, survivors of crime, organizers—have been fighting back w/ truth. About injustice, danger of basing policy on outlier cases, about why giving judges discretion to jail one, means incarceration for all.

We shared truth. Like about a man we represented: Miguel. Locked up on $1500 bail for a suspended license. Lost job. Suffered horrors of Rikers. Once out couldn’t find another job, afford rent. Had to move out of NY w/ his family.

The NYT Edirorial Board strongly rejected reform fear: “Prosecutors and police unions trying to thwart the will of the voters and undermine the public’s trust in long-overdue reforms should instead get to work making the change.” nytimes.com/2019/11/17/opi…

Organizers & champions are rallying against racist hypocrisy: ”We know that DAs have persistently failed to indict officers who shoot Black people. Now all of sudden you have all this energy bc Black & Brown people are getting out of jail?”🔥

Jewish leaders rejected fear: “As Jewish legislators, we are deeply concerned about the rash of anti-Semitic attacks. We are also deeply concerned about recent attempts to use these attacks as a rationale for dismantling NYs brand new bail reform law.”nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-ope…

Here’s the thing. Fear right now is winning. We’re launching Justice Not Fear at a critical inflection point. Either we allow procarceral forces to scare us into continuing w/ the same old devastating policies. Or we reject their fear. A tour of justicenotfear.org:

THE FILM. Actor Jesse Williams (@iJesseWilliams) of Grey’s Anatomy & Justice champion lent his voice & perspective to contextualize the current campaign of fear within the racist tradition that created mass incarceration. “Let’s have patience for change.”

THE SITE. Hard facts. Truth about bail reform. A range of tools & actions (more below) to hold power accountable. Statistics. An interactive map of the devastation of bail in NY. Links to truthful media. The flexibility to expand to other jurisdictions facing what we are in NY.

THE TOOLS. Call lawmakers & encourage them to stand against fear. If you see something, say something. See untruthful fearmongering media: Report it. Let the campaign know. We’ll be recording what you send, holding media, prosecutors, & police accountable. JusticeNotFear.org

Proud to have launched this campaign of zealo.us with @ColorOfChange.

JusticeNotFear.org also has its own twitter handle now: @justicenotfear.

Follow. More to come.