Thread by @GalvinAlmanza

So, because I'm thinking about it tonight, I wanted to explain what I mean when I say "if you let police break everything, you need public defenders to fix everything." I wanted to give y'all some shocking facts (with receipts) so we can get fired up together.

To start with, we've all seen how broad our criminal legal system has been, and is getting, and will get. We have prosecuted people for voting: newsobserver.com/opinion/articl…

Prosecuted (and sometimes violently arrested) for selling water (this one happens a lot) usatoday.com/story/news/nat…

And now this week a woman is being charged with murder to advance a far-right ant-abortion agenda.

msmagazine.com/2022/04/09/wom…

Police stop people for EVERYTHING, especially Black people vera.org/downloads/publ…

And even the stop by itself can cause lasting damage, particularly on kids (who get immediate anxiety, depression, and disengagement from school.)

apa.org/news/press/rel…

What are we using this system for? A small minority of 911 calls are even about serious or violent crime---most of the time when people call the police, it's for disorder, loose kids and pets, traffic stuff, and vague (racist!) suspicions. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10…

So we have a system where the full force of the government is brought down upon people for anything, largely Black and Brown, low income people. And the result is that at this point about 40% of Americans have a loved one who has been incarcerated.

prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie202…

What does this do? Well, the reach of the system is far, far beyond just crime and punishment. In fact, when researchers tried to catalogue all the different ways contact w/this system causes harm, they found OVER FORTY FOUR THOUSAND WAYS.

sentencingproject.org/news/u-s-commi….

First of all, incarceration destroys health, adding 10-15 years to a person's physiognomy and shaving 2 years off their life expectancy for every year behind bars. I tried to assemble a whole bunch of the health consequences (with citations) here: partnersforjustice.org/blog-stories/i…

It destroys families. prb.org/resources/pare….

No, it REALLY harms kids. And families. humantollofjail.vera.org/the-family-jai…

It destroys a person's ability to earn a living, making employment, property, loans, and continuing education more difficult to obtain.

brennancenter.org/our-work/resea…

Want to hear a shocker? Non-White people who have been incarcerated see their projected lifetime earnings CUT IN HALF, losing more than a half million dollars overall, while White people see their earnings post-prison INCREASE. brennancenter.org/our-work/resea…

It creates vicious cycles with homelessness, rendering people unhoused and then entrenching that state. urban.org/features/five-….

So to sum up, our public safety system is destroying health, housing, ability to earn a living, families, the wellbeing of our kids, sobriety...you name it. And we lob it at everything.

As a defender, I've seen it: a day in jail causes a missed shift at work, which means a job lost, no rent money, suddenly a family is out on the street and the kids are disconnected from their school as they navigate the shelter system, ultimately resulting in CPS involvement.

In short, there are OVER FORTY FOUR THOUSAND WAYS POLICING AND PROSECUTION HARM PEOPLE.

And who is the only person whose job it is to protect people from that very harm?

Public defenders.

So to think of a public defender as just a "free lawyer" or ordinary defense attorney is ridiculous. America created a law enforcement system that breaks everything in a person's life, and has a Constitution whose Sixth Amendment offers that person ONE lifeline.

We have to stop accepting the idea that people aren't entitled to protection across all those forms of harm. We have to start demanding more. To #FundPublicDefense so defenders have the resources, staff, training, and time to do ALL THE THINGS PEOPLE ACTUALLY NEED.

Those things are...housing help. Job searches, resume reviews, access to GED programs. Fighting school suspensions. Getting someone a bed in a treatment program or finding mental health support. Fighting to get an employment license back. A driver's license. A diploma.

As we fight to stop those 44,000 kinds of harm, there is only one professional out there who, if given the means, can stand between people and that harm today, and it's a public defender. So if you want to fight that fight, go call your city council, your county board.

Look up your local defender---it might be a state agency or a county one, but usually there is a local government you can call and say I WANT MORE RESOURCES FOR MY PUBLIC DEFENDER.

(Ummm especially do this if you're in Philly rn just saying and talk to @K_Nicole_Hudson )

You can also check out my work at partnersforjustice.org , since all I do is try to help empower defenders to fight the bigger fight. The fight on 44,000 fronts.

But at the end of the day, if we live in a world where the law breaks whole lives, we need to empower defense lawyers to help put those lives back together.