Thread by @ScottHech

I always argue against calls for new harsh laws to punish even for those we despise--white, privileged, racist fascists among them. Because people who will be most affected by greater harshness are rarely if ever white, privileged, racist fascists. More:

https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1349704594121756672

Public defenders across the country see how the vast array of criminal laws, procedures, & practices that already exist-unique in their harshness & scope around the globe-play out in real life. Oppression, mass caging, prosecution, surveillance, policing of Black & Brown people.

So many laws get passed either in the wake of outlier high profile crimes or using outlier high profile crimes as justification. Nearly without exception these laws predominately affect non-outliers. Devastate Black and Brown communities. Undermine faith and trust in the system.

What do these laws look like?

The criminalization of everything.

Expansive police powers that make people feel like they’re incarcerated in their own neighborhoods.

Historic power in the hands of prosecutors to charge harshly, withhold evidence, and coerce guilty pleas.

Broad authority to jail people pretrial who can’t afford bail, or hold people based on the fiction that we can somehow predict future dangerousness.

Mandatory minimums that warehouse Black men & coerce them into giving up the right to trial or to challenge police misconduct.

Sentencing enhancements for allegations of gun possession, loose claims of gang involvement, a death in the course of a crime caused by someone else even if you had absolutely no intent.

Procedure laws making it near impossible to challenge your conviction.

Laws passed in the last half century based on fear & gut reaction politics have more than tripled the number of people in jails and prisons. They disproportionately devastate people without means and Black & Brown people only living in certain overpoliced communities.

Beyond new laws, I get concerned by our rush to condemn people-even those privileged, those we abhor & want to rot in prison-to the harshness of our uniquely brutal criminal legal system. Bc doing so, I fear, endorses it's okay for all. Leads to discretion for more harshness.

You can’t make a law for just one person. Or just one class of people, even people we may have every reason to revile, hate and despise. White supremacists for example. Trump’s fascist MAGA cult for example.

Right now we are in crisis. When it comes to the our legal systems--criminal, immigration, housing, education, employment, family. Our only focus should be on how we make them smaller, less harsh, less costly, in favor of policies that actually promote health and public safety,

Right now: We need a page one rewrite of our criminal legal system, not a single additional word, let alone chapter or book.