Share this page!

Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Twitter logo
24 May, 4 tweets, 1 min read
Thread: A few years ago, we uncovered an extortion scheme in which judges, prosecutors, and sheriffs worked with a for-profit "probation" company to extort cash from poor people by threatening to jail them if they didn't pay illegal fees. What happened next was shocking. (1)
We sued them and went to federal court for a hearing. During my cross-examination of the local judge, the federal judge interrupted me. The federal judge asked the local judge if he thought there was anything wrong with jailing people simply because they couldn't pay. (2)
The local judge, who had been jailing and threatening to jail thousands of people if they didn't pay illegal debts, explained better than anyone how the criminal system works in the United States. Here's what he said under oath: "money makes the world go round." (3)
Read more about the case here, for it is one of the best examples of how the entire criminal punishment bureaucracy works (end)

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Alec Karakatsanis

Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @equalityAlec

Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
25 May
**Alarming News** Governor Cuomo has just nominated one of the most dangerous possible people to the highest court in New York. The state senate could block the nomination, but people rarely pay attention to judges. Please share widely. (1)
The nominee is the DA in Nassau County, one of the most notoriously corrupt offices in the country. She has led that office through an unprecedented era of family separation, mass human caging, and racial injustice. (2)
Before running the Nassau DA, Singas was a notorious DA in Queens during a time when the Queens DA office has been documented to have been engaged in rampant patterns of corruption. Nominating this person to serve as a judge is astonishing. (3) accountabilityny.org/about/
Read 6 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
24 May
This NYT piece is one of the most irresponsible acts of journalism you can imagine. The reporter declares an "epidemic" of shoplifting with his own cute personal anecdotes and quotes from cops but never fails to mention that "property crime" is at historic lows.
With **zero** evidence, @thomasfullerNYT then tells millions of readers that the fake shoplifting epidemic he declared is linked not to poverty, mental illness, lack of investment in community, etc. but to efforts to reduce barbaric family separation and sentencing laws. Shameful
**first tweet should read "never mentions" not "never fails to mention." he intentionally does not include any data or evidence (because it would undermine the copaganda story he wanted to tell)
Read 4 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
20 May
THREAD. A major scandal is happening right this moment on the House floor: mainstream Democrats are quietly trying to ram through a $1.9 billion *budget increase* to the Capitol Police, military, and DHS, supposedly because January 6 showed that they **need more funding.** (1)
For those of you new to this, of the many things that went wrong on January 6, insufficient funding for Capitol Police and bloated military bureaucracy was not one of them. (2)
This is part of a long pattern: police work with liberal reformers to use their own violence, waste, brutality, and incompetence to justify increased budgets. (3)
Read 6 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
19 May
Thread: You hear a lot of talk about "public safety" from cops, prosecutors, and judges. Setting aside the many other problems with their conception of what "safety" means and who gets to be "safe," there's another hilarious flaw. (1)
As I have studied and fought cash bail for the past 7 years, this "public safety" mantra is everywhere. But it makes no sense. These bureaucrats would literally release every single person from their cages if they paid enough cash. (2)
So, there are many reasons cops, prosecutors, and judges do what they do. But literally **the one thing we know cannot be motivating them** is "public safety." (3)
Read 4 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
19 May
Imagine being a *serious* scholar in the most over-policed society in modern history and publishing pro-police "research" without confronting the most basic flaws in your research design. The complicity of academics in state violence is shameful.
Fancy people shilling for cops are complicit in enormous harm. I describe many of the flaws with this kind of research here. But there are so many more. It's such nonsense "research" asking and answering all the wrong questions. currentaffairs.org/2020/08/why-cr…
These people should retract this paper until they can have a public workshop to discuss how to repair this harm.
Read 6 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
18 May
Thread: When we did our investigation into the illegal home raids by D.C. police that brutally target Black families, we were horrified by the precision of the military tactics. The D.C. police were being trained by the Israeli military. (1) theintercept.com/2017/09/15/pol…
People with power and privilege in our society need to see and understand these stories. (2)
This is how police budgets in the U.S. are spent: (3)
Read 6 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @equalityAlec has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @equalityAlec!

Read all threads by @equalityAlec

:(