Share this page!

Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Twitter logo
24 Nov, 8 tweets, 3 min read
This journalist is so conditioned to mindlessly quote prosecutors that he misses a huge story (the decades-long divestment from healthcare and investment in useless jails/prisons) to blame a preventable death on not requiring slightly more cash bail from a mentally ill man.
The person tweeting this hasn’t thought deeply about cash bail (which all available evidence shows *increases crime*) or about the empirical literature on the effectiveness of short stints in jail at preventing future crime.
Cash bail separates millions of poor families every year and hurts public safety. Journalists like this do a massive disservice when they parrot DA talking points without looking into any of the actual evidence or without putting the bigger picture in perspective.
It also makes no sense. Would anyone be safer if a person pays cash to be released from jail? US and Philippines are only countries in the world to legalize for-profit money bail. The supposed common sense assumptions this reporter makes would be laughed at in most of world.
The below thread contains a number of linked articles and threads that I hope reporters will read, ask questions about, and use to provide context that doesn’t mindlessly repeat bail industry propaganda.
Bottom line: all available social scientific evidence shows that jailing people does not reduce crime. It’s criminogenic effects actually increase crime. Real story here is a massive societal divestment from care.
It’s also worth noting that @chrisvanderveen appears to have unintentionally hit on a big story: DA apparently admitted to him that he wanted to use cash bail to detain the mentally ill man, which would be illegal under CO law. It would also likely be a federal felony crime.
@chrisvanderveen Another problem with local journalists trying to get clicks and social media attention without knowing basic pieces of history about, evidence relating to, or law governing the issues.

• • •

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
26 Nov
This is a thread about how journalists decide what is “news” and what isn’t. Anyone shaping the news and anyone consuming the news should understand who decides what counts as news, how they decide it, and what determines what they say about it. Here, I ask a few questions:
This thread is inspired by the gap in what mainstream media treats as urgent and what are the greatest threats to human safety, well-being, and survival.
For example, air pollution kills *10 million people* each year and causes untold additional illness and suffering. It rarely features in daily news stories. Why?
Read 23 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
24 Nov
THREAD: The reaction of this reporter reflects a common flaw in media coverage of the punishment bureaucracy: proposals to shrink and end human caging are framed as unthinkable folly, while the radical historical aberrations of the status quo are ignored. A few key thoughts:
In conversations with people, it's vital to start with how unprecedented current U.S. human caging is: 5 times U.S. historical average from 1790-1970, 5-10 times other current countries, almost all poor people, and a rate of caging Black people 6 times South Africa in Apartheid.
Many journalists never do this. They don't tell people how unprecedented and how lacking in evidence the current system of mass human caging is. Instead, proposals for change are subjected to (sometimes cartoonish) skepticism that reporters haven't brought to the stauts quo.
Read 18 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
12 Nov
THREAD. Journalists should be more interested in the gap between what police talk about and what they do. Almost all police media statements are about "violent crime." But almost none (4%) of police time is spent on "violent crime." Why is this important?
First, we must recognize that police propaganda in the media is effective. Most people in the U.S. have no idea that 96% of all police time is spent on things even the police call "nonviolent," because the media doesn't report on that other stuff much.
Second, we should be skeptical of people who don't talk about most of what they do! Why don't police talk about the bulk of their time/money: trespassing, drug possession, suspended licenses for debts, civil forfeiture seizures, evictions, mental health calls, shoplifting, etc..?
Read 8 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
10 Nov
Huge NEWS: Today the New York Times reported on a lawsuit, initially filed in secret, alleging a coordinated effort by NY officials to silence people attempting to expose pervasive corruption by prosecutors. It's a fascinating case for a few reasons: nytimes.com/2021/11/10/nyr…
The federal lawsuit alleges that the case had to be filed in secret because New York officials, including Queens DA and Corporation Counsel for the City of New York, threatened a group of law professors that **publicly talking about their prosecutor grievances was illegal.**
The lawsuit alleges that these New York "law enforcement" officials then violated the First Amendment again by threatening the professors that even **telling the public about the threats made against them** by the City's lawyers and Queens DA would be illegal.
Read 9 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
8 Nov
THREAD: One of the core recurring problems in our society and in our media is focusing too much on individuals and not enough on systems. When something bad happens, we (and the media) want to find "bad" people to blame for it. This is dangerous.
For example, the petrochemical industry created the largely useless idea of plastic recycling to get individuals (starting with children) to feel moral blame and praise re: recycling just so that everyone would stop asking: why do we have all this plastic? theintercept.com/2019/07/20/pla…
When there is an act of police violence, many people's first response is to blame a "bad apple cop." It's not “bad apples" who quintupled the US human caging rate. It's not "bad apples" who have led US to cage Black people at 6 times South Africa at the height of Apartheid.
Read 9 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
5 Nov
Thread. Another teenager was killed by the cash bail system in Houston. He was 19, had an IQ of 62, and weighed 98 pounds. He had never been arrested before, and the DA and the judges put him in a cage because he couldn't pay a couple thousand dollars. His story is important.
The jail didn't even bother to bring the teenager to court for his own bail hearing b/c he was being evaluated for mental health issues. Despite never having been accused of a crime before, the judge agreed with DA that his release should be barred unless he paid $$$.
Jailing a person solely because they cannot pay cash is unconstitutional. The DA and judge here jailed the teenager without him even being at the hearing and without making the findings required by law--an intentional judicial act that is itself a federal felony crime.
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

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

:(