Thread by @GalvinAlmanza

So, I'm learning a lot from today's #TwitterThon with @JoshuaBHoe asking the President to commute the sentences of the 4,500 people who were safely released--pre-screened--and who have been living without incident at home for over a year. A thread.

I have thought a lot about what this system does to the people in it. After all, I have worked in it--in various roles--for about 10 years. And so when I think of accused people, I don't think of "offenders," but rather of very real people I know well and care about deeply.

So the group of people who we could classify as system users--the accused--are as varied a group as any group of humans. Some have caused harm. Many haven't. Few have caused as much harm as they're accused of. And all are actively being harmed, to extreme degrees, by our system.

It's actually pretty easy to retain your humanity on the defense side (or it should be). It's just painful. People let you share their stories, trust you to fight for their lives, and you aren't always able to win for them. But on the other side--it's a different story.

DAs have to seek to put people in cages. Judges have to actually do it by setting bail & imposing sentences. And so we've built this system that relies on dehumanizing the person--the system user--so that other system actors can feel okay about inflicting harm on them.

So the system sets up a structure to preserve their ability to do harm. Using language that otherizes and dehumanizes. Creating spaces where pain is hidden (Judges and DAs only see the accused person for a minute, their pain is hidden outside and in holding cells.)

The problem is, the system would actually get much better outcomes if two-thirds of the parties weren't inoculated against their feelings. They'd be able to better consider the full array of challenges--and potential--in the accused person and craft better offers and outcomes.

partnersforjustice.org/blog-stories/c…

This really bears out in practice--when we at @PFJ_USA bring the full scope of a person's story into the courtroom, usually we (1) get jail off the table and get people home and (2) get great feedback from judges and DAs who are happy to have had better, more human information.

But back to today. Today I'm sitting here in upside-down world, where my mentions are overtaken by people with handles like God Blessed 1776 who spit slogans like "do the crime do the time" and urge our government to re-incarcerate people like Gwen Levi. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…

I can't reply to all these posts, but I wish I could. I know that if these people's daughter or brother or grandparent was in danger of incarceration, they'd pull out all the stops to protect them, inherently recognizing that everyone is more than their worst moment.

The perspective is infused with the racist dehumanization we pack into every aspect of the legal system and its language, but it's popping up here in people who may have had zero contact with this system in their entire lives. People utterly unaware of its realities.

People didn't do this to themselves (entirely). We did it as a culture--yes, the failures of our educational system, yes the toxicity of our politics, yes, the suppression of elected officials who want to somehow protect our legacy of oppression.

But today made me reflect on how in media, language is more important than ever. The same terms that let judges sentence a person to 30 years--and then do it again the next day--are the terms that let people say a grandma like Gwen should be back in prison to "do the time."

You see it all the time, all around us. "Convicts" are being released. "Offenders" have to be managed. "Facilities" are ready to "house" them. It sanitizes what's really happening and lets God Blessed 1776 continue believing that the people in the prison are nothing like them.

This is not a small number of people who are convinced that (1) our system is fair and (2) that they can hold such cavalierly violent opinions about their neighbors. They don't see the utterly racist application of our legal infrastructure. They just see "convicts."

I'm begging you to share with your local media outlet. Feel free to tag them in the comments. Push them. Your local paper, your local news, your favorite major outlet. Let's demand better so that everyone has to feel the full weight of what we've built. themarshallproject.org/records/2651-l…