Listen: I know the biggest news right now is Trump, impeachment & Dem infighting.
But: *Right now,* NY prosecutors & police are leading a coordinated fear campaign to kill bail reform just 2 weeks in.
If they win: We could see a system more unjust than ever before.
Thread:
But: *Right now,* NY prosecutors & police are leading a coordinated fear campaign to kill bail reform just 2 weeks in.
If they win: We could see a system more unjust than ever before.
Thread:
Snapshot of the system NY police/prosecutors are fighting to perpetuate:
87% cant afford bail set
89% on Rikers Black/Latino
100% jailed too poor to buy freedom
95% of people return w/o bail
$925/nt cost of Rikers
$338k/yr a person
9x more likely to plea
87% cant afford bail set
89% on Rikers Black/Latino
100% jailed too poor to buy freedom
95% of people return w/o bail
$925/nt cost of Rikers
$338k/yr a person
9x more likely to plea
Even worse, prosecutors/police are now calling to allow judges(for the 1st time in NY history) to try to predict future dangerousness, a position already rejected by Albany lawmakers as likely to exacerbate racism in jail decisions & not improve safety or make the system fairer.
Heres a thing about the discussion about replacing cash bail w/ risk algorithms that claim to predict dangerousness. Kalief Browder—the very symbol for the need for bail reform—would have been deemed “dangerous,” still detained pretrial & traumatized to death. Consider.
As 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 To incite hate & vigilante justice against Black & Brown people.
Just hours after news of the horrific anti-Semitic stabbings in Monsey, pro-carceral forces were already using tragedy & playing on fear to call to defeat bail reform. Even though the attacks happened *before* the law even went into effect. motherjones.com/crime-justice/…
We’re fighting back. We launched a campaign to reject fear, to call out fearmongerers, to encourage lawmakers to stand strong: JusticeNotFear.org. “As they continue to peddle fear, we must have patience for change. Otherwise nothing ever will.”
We launched 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.
The campaign spreads truth & gives you tools for the fight: justicenotfear.org
The campaign spreads truth & gives you tools for the fight: justicenotfear.org
SHARE THE FILM. 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.”
LEARN TRUTH. Hard facts about bail reform. Statistics. Interactive map of devastation of bail in NY. Links to truthful media. The flexibility to expand to other jurisdictions facing what we are in NY: JusticeNotFear.org
TAKE ACTION: Call lawmakers & encourage them to stand against fear. If you see something, say something. See untruthful fearmongering media: Report it. Let campaign know. We’ll be recording what you send, holding media, prosecutors, & police accountable. JusticeNotFear.org
