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Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
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8 Sep, 4 tweets, 2 min read
We cannot mince words: this @sacbee_news article is monstrous. The worst of Willie-Horton-style "journalism." It uses a tragic anecdote to call for cash-based child separation, and human caging in horrific conditions, contrary to all evidence about safety. sacbee.com/news/local/new…
The newspaper published this article strategically on the very day that the State legislature is considering modest changes to prevent pretrial human caging based on wealth, in a society that cages Black people 6 times more than South Africa during Apartheid. Shameful.
We must see "journalism" like this not just as ugly propaganda that is divorced from factual reality of what keeps us safe, but also as actively violent. The authors, editors, and publishers of this nonsense bear responsibility for the racist violence that will result from it.
It is a sick society whose only response to inequality and violence is more state-sponsored violence and inequality.

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More from @equalityAlec

Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
10 Sep
Today, the owner of the lucrative Jane bakery chain in San Francisco, a self-described "lifelong Democrat" emailed customers of her bakery an unhinged rant asking them to support a far-right campaign to recall the local District Attorney. A few thoughts.
First, the bakery owner has not a shred of evidence to back up any of her vague claims about "crime." There is no evidence that more police, prosecution, human caging, and family separation would lead to less crime. (She's also wrong about basic SF crime trends!) Embarrassing.
Second, that it is an unhinged cop-union delusion with no basis in reality hasn't stopped other very wealthy white people in San Francisco from spreading it. Look at how this wealthy person debases themself to call for more poor families to be separated.
Read 11 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
9 Sep
THREAD: One enduring truth you don't hear police mention when they talk about "crime waves" is this: violence is higher in countries that are more unequal, and violence is higher in U.S. states that are more unequal. Structural inequality kills. Let's look at the data:
In groundbreaking work studying decades of data from around the world, leading researchers found a number of things that you should know about how inequality determines all of the problems that cops, prosecutors, and judges tell you we need cages for. equalitytrust.org.uk/sites/default/…
Homicide rates are higher in more unequal rich countries:
Read 11 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
30 Aug
Thread: With talk of Breyer not retiring, we must remind people about his past. In 1980s Breyer was a main architect of the Sentencing Guidelines, one of the great scandals of mass human caging. But even in legal circles, most people don't know what a fraud he perpetrated. (1)
There were two main (and many more) frauds perpetrated by elite bureaucrats who designed the Sentencing Guidelines. Hundreds of thousands of poor people and people of color were consigned to millions of extra years in cages as a result of choices Breyer and his group made. (2)
First, the Guidelines purported to be scientific. Elites said they were needed to combat variation among judges. So Breyer and friends did a "past practice study." But after standardizing sentences based on past results as promised, Breyer simply increased them all! (3)
Read 8 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
29 Aug
Thread: On any given night, the U.S. has 580,000 unhoused people and 17 million vacant homes. As we prepare for mass pandemic evictions, how do these facts connect to booming police budgets?
A huge portion of what police do is arrest people who are unhoused. In Portland, for example, the *majority* of arrests are for human beings who are unhoused, and a *vast majority* of those are for things police call "nonviolent."
It is a choice by elite bureaucrats who control the police to spend billions to arrest, cage, control, and brutalize people without houses instead of helping all human beings have permanent safe shelter, medical care, and safety. Why?
Read 13 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
27 Aug
THREAD: This cop "demoted for use of n-word" suing because Black officers were not also demoted for using the same word is a perfect example of major differences between conservatives, liberals, and a third category I call "normal people."
courier-journal.com/story/news/pol…
Conservatives are outraged the white cop was demoted for using the n-word when Black cops also use the same word because they do not understand how inequality and racism work.
Liberals want this bad apple cop disciplined because they see racism and harm in the world and think that it is all attributable to "bad people" and not the intentional and historical design of systems to benefit wealthy people who own things.
Read 6 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
25 Aug
THREAD: Here is a local politician in Sacramento arguing that unhoused human beings must be caged by armed government bureaucrats *for their own good.* Let me be clear: this is a monstrous argument that reflects a deeply sick society. sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/…
The person arguing for human caging of unhoused people by armed bureaucrats *for their own benefit* is named Jeff Harris. Here is how he describes himself: cityofsacramento.org/Mayor-Council/…
Some people like @Jeff4sac are well meaning, but they are among the biggest obstacles to the real transformations that we need to address rampant inequality and oppression. The criminal punishment bureaucracy is never the answer to any social problem, and it never makes us safe.
Read 8 tweets

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