Share this page!

Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Twitter logo
5 Jul, 6 tweets, 2 min read
A giant scandal: We now know that, as local governments around Miami gorged police departments with cash for drug enforcement, wasteful overtime, low-level crimes of poverty, and military equipment, they basically ignored building safety laws. nytimes.com/2021/07/04/us/…
The perversion of our safety priorities by corrupt cops and prosecutors is a national epidemic. Did you know that there are about 100,000 significant violations of the Clean Water Act each year, resulting in rotting teeth, cancer, kidney failure, and damage to the nervous system?
Tens of millions of people are exposed to dangerous chemicals in drinking water due to these crimes. Prosecutors and state/federal officials who call themselves "law enforcement" choose simply to ignore the vast majority of these corporate pollution crimes.
At the same time, for years, local police across the U.S. have ignored hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits, deliberately choosing to ignore sexual violence and instead focus police resources on low level arrests for drugs, trespassing, unpaid court debts, evictions, etc..
When you examine the wide range of police and prosecutorial choices, an unmistakable picture emerges: they do not care about violence and harm. They do not keep us safe. The punishment bureaucracy is fueled instead by profit and social control.
You can read more here about how and why cops and prosecutors don't care about our safety, with hundreds of examples like these: yalelawjournal.org/forum/the-puni…

• • •

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
6 Jul
Thread. Have you ever heard of "civil asset forfeiture"? You're never going to think about the police the same way again. (1)
A few years ago, when I was at the public defender's office, my very poor clients kept telling me the same story: they would be walking down the street and DC police would stop them, search them at gunpoint, tell them to open their wallets, and take all the cash they had. (2)
The wildest part? The DC police would then send them a letter saying that, if they wanted to challenge the police taking of their cash, they would need to pay either $250 or 10% of the amount taken, whichever was more! (3)
Read 13 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
5 Jul
Thread. This is a story you won't hear on the news, but it's as important as anything you will read. Here is the story of one man who got lost in jail, and it says a great deal about our society. (1)
The man was arrested by sheriffs in Houston for possession of meth. He was kept in a cage before any legal proceedings unless he could pay a predetermined amount of cash--a problem across Texas. He was too poor to pay, so he stayed in jail. (2)
Court records show that cops, prosecutors, and judges knew that he had “been determined to have a mental illness or to be a person with an intellectual disability by the local mental health authority.” (3)
Read 13 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
30 Jun
THREAD: While investigating a jail, I met a Black teenager who was taken from the street by armed government agents, put in metal chains, and kept in a cage b/c he couldn’t pay a ticket a cop gave him for “sagging his pants.” This is what's “normal” in the “justice system.” (1)
A reasonable person may view what the cops did as a violent kidnapping. It felt that way to the child's family. But in our society, it actually counts as a "crime" committed *by the child* that cops report to the media as part of a "crime surge" in "high-crime neighborhoods." (2)
When the jail guards worked with the prosecutor and judge to keep the child in a cage unless his family paid a "cash bond," none of those "law enforcement" cared to enforce the U.S. Constitution to help the child. He was never compensated, and no one was held accountable. (3)
Read 6 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
30 Jun
Thread. We have reached the point as a civilization when a city paying wealthy people $15 million to put an exploitative for-profit corporation in an impoverished segregated community is celebrated as the way to stop a community's "reputation for crime." nytimes.com/2021/06/30/bus…
The New York Times calls Target's betrayal of promises to a predominantly Black neighborhood in Baltimore "a sobering reminder of the realities of capitalism." You can't make this stuff up.
People who have a real political analysis don't need "reminders" of this. They don't pretend like the way to address profound structural inequalities is to pay a for-profit corporation $15 million tax dollars to open a for-profit store that exploits global poor and environment.
Read 4 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
29 Jun
Thread. In the last few days, Democrats from Congress and now Biden have developed a new talking point: they are going on tv shows and saying that *Republicans* are the ones who want to "defund the police." This is absurd and, like much of what Democrats do, very dangerous.
First, this is just bad propaganda. Every person paying attention in our society knows that Republicans support the most extravagant military and police funding in modern world history. So, it won't be persuasive. (Lack of persuasion usually doesn't stop Democrats though.)
Second, it plays into the wild fear-mongering all over the media now linking a "crime surge" to police funding, with no evidence. In fact, all available evidence shows that police have nothing to do with actual public safety.
Read 6 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
28 Jun
Thread. Despite the fact that police ignore most crime and have nothing to do with preventing most harm, the media relentlessly links cops to "public safety." Why? Answering this question changed my life. (1)
Elites who created the “criminal justice system” are broadly comfortable with the way that our society looks. These bureaucrats, profiteers, and people who own things thus market a "crime" problem in need of “law enforcement” in order to keep society looking like it does. (2)
This is vital to understand: powerful people do not want to solve the “crime” problem if that means a society that looks much different—say, more equal and with less private profit. (3)
Read 7 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

:(