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Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
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17 Jun, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Huge story: The Biden administration has **still done nothing to cancel** the Trump administration's quiet plan to work with a for-profit surveillance corporation to end physical mail for people in prison and their families. The shameful program continues every day.
You can register for a webinar on how to fight against this monstrous plan here: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regist…
I first reported on this plan more than four months ago, and the Biden administration appears to be happily going along with the Trump plan. Read more here:
Also, read the fantastic work on this by @ddayen and @Marcia_Brown9 prospect.org/justice/physic…
@JustDetention

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More from @equalityAlec

Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
18 Jun
Breaking news: A California state judge has just sided with cop unions to strike down one of the most inspiring forms of direct democracy in modern U.S. history. If you don't know this story, you should. (1)
In the last election, voters overwhelmingly passed Measure J to amend the charter of Los Angeles. It was a visionary plan, resulting from years of organizing, requiring LA to shift *hundreds of millions of dollars* per year from incarceration to community based investments. (2)
Police, sheriff, prosecutor, and probation unions were outraged. They profit from endless expansion of the punishment bureaucracy. They brought a long-shot legal challenge to invalidate the democratic will of the people. (3)
Read 8 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
15 Jun
Thread: This the story of one of the most remarkable cases in U.S. history, and you’ve probably never heard of it. The story of what the U.S. government did to Ezell Gilbert is important because it explains how our legal system works as well as any case I have ever seen. (1)
In 1997, Ezell Gilbert was sentenced to more than 24 years in federal prison in a crack cocaine case. Because of mandatory sentencing (treating crack 100 times as severely as powder), he was put in a cage for a quarter century, and even the judge said this was too harsh. (2)
At sentencing, Gilbert saw an error that increased his sentence by about **ten years** based on a misclassification of a prior conviction. In 1999, without a lawyer, he filed a petition complaining about the mistake. The Clinton DOJ opposed him, and a court ruled against him. (3)
Read 16 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
14 Jun
A scandal is happening in Austin, Texas: A few Democrats are trying to ram through an unpopular $80 million new jail for women funded by local taxpayers. Worse, they are marketing the project as a "Trauma Informed" place for poor women so they can trick well-meaning voters. (1)
As medical experts have explained, it is not possible to provide "trauma informed" care inside a human caging facility. (2) snehalalu.medium.com/support-commun…
The $80 million plus the $700 million Travis County later plans to spend on more human caging would make a huge difference in the lives of vulnerable people if it was spent on housing, treatment, violence interruption, education, and support services. (3)
Read 5 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
10 Jun
Thread. You're going to hear a lot about how cops need more resources because "crime is surging" in the next few months. It's propaganda, and here's how you can respond:
First, what constitutes a "crime" is determined by people in power who have a lot of money.
Second, police control and manipulate crime stats for political reasons. In addition, police don't even count the **violent crimes that police commit,** which would entirely reverse the crime stats in every city and state.
Read 13 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
10 Jun
Thread: A few years ago, Republicans in Houston hired a corporate law firm to defend money bail, which caged tens of thousands of poor people if they didn't have cash and separated tens of thousands of children from their parents in Houston each year. The story is shocking. (1)
Poor people were brought to a basement in the jail, not given lawyers, and told to be quiet during their own bail hearings. They were mocked, ridiculed, and separated from their families in a matter of seconds. Watch this: (2)
These corporate lawyers got paid more than $10 million to defend what you just watched. And their argument in court was that there was no one poor in the jail who couldn't pay cash bail. People were in cages because they "want" to be there! (3) houstonpress.com/news/claiming-…
Read 5 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
9 Jun
I finally listened to @theallinpod Episode 33 that people have been asking me to weigh in on. (It's the last 10 minutes of an episode where four wealthy tech people, @DavidSacks @jason @chamath @friedberg talk about "progressive prosecutors.") A few thoughts:
First, it's always amazing to me when smart people speak publicly about important issues they know almost nothing about. Virtually every word that they say about "crime," prosecutors, and the legal system is demonstrably wrong.
Second, they seem like people who might be persuadable by hearing from people who are experts. I've written some basic background on how the wasteful punishment bureaucracy functions and how prosecutors fit in. I hope they'll check it out and engage. yalelawjournal.org/forum/the-puni…
Read 6 tweets

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