Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Jun 8, 2021 6 tweets 1 min read Read on X
A few thoughts about "crime." The concept of “crime” is created and manipulated by people who have power. Throughout U.S. history, powerful people have defined “crime” in ways that benefit wealthy people and white people. (1)
For example, cocaine, marijuana, and opium were each made illegal through specific political campaigns in order to give police more discretion to target specific racial minorities. (2)
It is illegal for poor people to wager over dice in the streets but legal for wealthy people to wager on the global price of wheat, the value of international currencies, or mortgage securities. (3)
And even within categories of acts that are classified as “crimes,” powerful people decide where to look for those acts, when to look for them, and which ones to ignore and which to document. "Law enforcement" only enforces *some* laws against *some* people. (4)
Students at universities frequently violate underage drinking, drug, and assault laws without punishment while Black people who live down the street are surveilled, searched, arrested, beaten, jailed, and rendered homeless, jobless, and traumatized for similar behavior. (5)
A schoolyard fight at a wealthy private school may mean a call to parents but the same fight at a school filled with poor children is recorded as a “crime” and prosecuted, ending with a child kept in a cage away from her family. The entire system is filled with such examples. (6)

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More from @equalityAlec

Oct 12
THREAD. Did you know that at about 1/3 of all stranger homicides in the U.S. are perpetrated by police? But there's something hidden here that is important to understand in this authoritarian moment.
First the basics: The vast bulk of physical and sexual violence in our society is *not* perpetrated by strangers, but by people who know each other. Obscuring this fact is a critical feature of copaganda in the news. People are shocked to hear it. Why?
A simple answer is that the news makes people extremely scared of strangers--the person next to you at CVS, the person walking down the street, the unhoused person in a tent, the anonymous burglar, etc. These are the kinds of crimes associated with surveillance, policing, etc.
Read 12 tweets
Oct 2
THREAD. In Trump's speech to an unprecedented gathering of generals, he announced he was preparing to order them to use U.S. "cities as training grounds for our military." I want to highlight a few other bone chilling statements and put them into context that media obscures.
First, although it didn't get as much coverage, Trump also said the U.S. is facing "a war from within" against "the enemy from within." This essentially declared to military leaders--who Hegseth had just essentially told he would be purging of disloyalty--a new civil war.
Second, Trump specifically added that this "war" was something the "people in this room" (i.e. military generals) would "straighten out" in domestic deployments to cities run by Democrats "one by one." He added: "inner cities" are "a big part of war now. It’s a big part of war."
Read 16 tweets
Sep 27
THREAD. I happened to be in Portland yesterday to give a university lecture as Trump called it “war ravaged Portland” while illegally ordering the deployment of the U.S. military to use “full force.” Image
Image
This kind of outrageous misinformation would not be possible without the culture of fear spread for years by the mainstream media. He is playing on the prodigious ignorance and irrational fear cultivated by the way the news media distorts our sense of safety.
Portland, needless to say, is nothing remotely like what Trump describes. But the mass media has created an entirely delusional public perception of what threats we face and from whom.
Read 5 tweets
Sep 25
THREAD. PBS recently aired a dangerous news segment, full of misinformation. The incident is not only embarrassing for PBS and Democrats, but it portends dark days for the future of our society that it was published. People at PBS should be doing some deep soul searching.
First, the article is a mind-boggling interview with the Democratic New Mexico governor. She validates and increases hysteria about street crime at the same moment such crime (which was and is down) is the precise (and false) pretense of national authoritarian takeover.
Worse, the reporter (cheering along like an AI-bot) lets Governor do it at a time of near-historic crime lows in New Mexico. Even worse, reporter lets her demand more authoritarian repression as a solution to fear, despite the evidence that this is like flat-earth stuff.
Read 11 tweets
Sep 6
THREAD. I don't know what there is left to say about the New York Times and Democrats, but documenting their support for fascism still feels important. If there's any chance to walk back from the fascist cliff, we must see why things like today's article are so dangerous. Image
The article today is premised on the idea that--while some Dems are uncomfortable with Trump deploying military to cities without consent--they want more federal resources (even military) to flood their cities for surveillance, police, prosecution, and prison. Image
As with any article, ask yourself: Why is this a news story? Who benefits from it being news, from how it's framed, from what info is included and what is ignored? Always look: who are sources quoted, and which perspectives are ignored? Take a look at the sources in order: Image
Read 14 tweets
Aug 29
THREAD. For over a decade, I've been working across the country to challenge unconstitutional cash bail. So, why is Trump trying to entrench it?
The for-profit cash bail industry exists only in U.S. and Philippines. Even though you're presumed innocent, you're stuck in a jail cell while you wait for your day in court if your family doesn't have cash to pay a private company to secure your release.
Basing bodily liberty on a person's access to cash destroys millions of lives. It makes us all less safe. It's unconstitutional. But it makes a lot of people a lot of money, and it gives huge leverage to prosecutors and police to force people to plead guilty in low-level cases.
Read 8 tweets

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