Share this page!

Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Twitter logo
16 Sep, 9 tweets, 3 min read
THREAD: Read this unhinged fear-mongering by the Democratic DA in Atlanta warning "dangerous people will get out of jail," and the way media just repeats her false claims with no context, correction, or skepticism. This is how mass incarceration happens: news.yahoo.com/atlanta-area-d…
First, note that the Democratic DA's talking points fit right in with the goals of the Fox News reporter. The entire story is framed around a supposed nationwide "spike" in crime that is false and misleading. Read more in depth here:
Second, no one mentions in this story that the "dangerous," "violent" people are presumed innocent, haven't been convicted, and would be released if they paid cash. No one cites real evidence: people are more likely to commit crime in the future if they are detained before trial!
Third, the entire point of this story is for the Atlanta DA to scare people into thinking she needs a higher budget to hire even more prosecutors! Several things are wrong with this:
Neither the media nor DA notes that they already have among highest levels of prosecutor staffing in modern recorded world history. Georgia has huge rates of incarceration and spending higher than U.S. average: and U.S. cages Black people 6 times South Africa during Apartheid.
The investments in cops, prosecutors, judges, privatized probation (Georgia leads the U.S. in this), and jails in Georgia has been nothing short of staggering. The answer is NEVER more investment in these systems of pain and punishment.
There is not a shred of evidence that more money for more prosecutors has one iota of impact on "public safety." The entire causal premise of this article is fabricated.
The combination of pro-incarceration Democratic and Republican politicians, a complicit media, and massive wealthy interests have created a culture in which we spent trillions of dollars on human caging with zero benefit and massive harm. Why? yalelawjournal.org/forum/the-puni…
Thanks to the amazing @JRapping of the wonderful @Gideons_Promise for the story.

• • •

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
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
8 Sep
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.
Read 4 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

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

:(