Thread by @freddieoconnell

Much of my work on #Liberate37208 began in part last term, like investing deeply in @BVES_MNPS, among other projects.

Huge credit to CM Taylor for leading a committee through giving it more shape and to @whittlz for ensuring young voices were heard.

nashville.gov/Portals/0/Site…

https://twitter.com/NC5PhilWilliams/status/1278101365722624001

At our last #MetroCouncil meeting, the CMs from the committee passed a resolution calling on @JohnCooper4Nash to complete a fines and fees study initiated almost a year ago.

Our criminal legal system too often criminalizes poverty itself.

For years, Metro collected so-called jailers’ fees. We literally charged pre-trial inmates—people who could not afford to post bond—$44/day to be incarcerated. But it didn’t go to the jailer; it came to the general fund.

We stopped doing that in 2018.

nashville.gov/Metro-Clerk/Le…

We put more than $1m back in the wallets of Nashvillians Metro was punishing for being too poor not to be in jail before they went to trial.

We need this study. I predict there’s more we should be doing.

The original point of #Liberate37208 was to address the scenario whereby kids born in 37208 from 1980-1986 were more likely to be incarcerated than any other zip code in America.

This was mass incarceration in its worst possible form.

In 2017, we passed sweeping correctional facilities reform intended to bring greater transparency to existing contracts for privatization and to strengthen them if renewed.

nashville.gov/mc/ordinances/…

Contracts for privatized incarceration are about to come before #MetroCouncil for the first time since we passed that bill.

We can #Liberate37208 by ending private incarceration in Nashville and ensuing that prison beds are not profit centers.

We put a lot of work into the #Liberate37208 report and recommendations.

This is not a plan that will sit on a shelf.

Here’s what I can tell you about 37208: never again.

Also, @whittlz reminds me that we started under #Liberate208.

And though we didn’t make as much progress as I hoped, #MetroCouncil was concerned enough to start asking questions about how our policing strategy revealed troubling signs of bias.

There’s no question this has an impact on our ability to #Liberate208.

nashville.gov/mc/resolutions…