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This afternoon I had the privilege of watching a close formerly incarcerated friend present his case to be pardoned

He stayed so calm and respectful, and gave thoughtful answers to every question the AG's office and Parole board asked while answering without sugar coating I cannot tell you how much this wonderful man has changed since his days of addiction and crime....He helped found several organizations in Michigan, he helped pass legislation that made it possible for the MDOC to hire formerly incarcerated people.....

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Let's talk about the crisis in America's jails...a largely silent crisis b/c jails exist at the county level and people only see information about the county they live in.

Why a crisis?

People die every single day across our 2,850 US county jails

reuters.com/investigates/s… Do a search for "jails" and you will see prison stories come up...people use the terms interchangeably, but they are not the same thing

Jails are county facilities that hold people pretrial, people awaiting trial, & people sentenced for one year or less

prisonfellowship.org/resources/trai…

Still trying to understand this one....46 other states have the exact same level of discovery...their prosecutors don't quit b/c it is too hard to provide evidence to the defense?

When is the NYT going to stop being the patsy?

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1650949075465027587

Prosecutors get paid more than public defenders, they have an investigative arm paid for by tax payers (the police), they have plea bargaining and charge stacking...but copying discovery documents is a bridge too far?

I wonder if the people tweeting out that "liberalism is a mental disease" realize that their overlords come up with things like that b/c they want to dehumanize the opposition

Why?

Because once you dehumanize someone it is easier to oppress and/or be actually violent to them There are people, and a lot of "thought leaders" on the right, who are actually trying to prepare the ground for violence and state suppression of difference...that is what they are trying to do...they want you to hate the neighbors who see the world differently than you do

My first college roommate was a cowboy who loved George Strait and starched his jeans every day...I was a punk rock guy listening to Bad Brains and wearing ripped jeans and combat boots...we agreed about NOTHING..not about food, music, politics, anything..but we still b/c friends When I was in prison, many years later, one of my bunkies had some serious racism and violence issues...he was nothing like me at all...he was inclined to want to kill me at first...over time I convinced him he was wrong (not kidding) and we b/c good friends

I will admit I am conflicted...but I think it is important to remain connected to people from all places and who represent all parts of the political spectrum to make the case for a justice system that is more about justice than punishment

So, I am sticking around I also believe that Mr. Musk has the right to say what he wants to say on his platform, and to regulate what is said on his platform...My sadness is about what he is choosing to say and how he is choosing to make his points (often convicting people in the court of personality)

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Okay, let me answer all of the Griner talking points at once:

1. She "hates America" - people who knelt during the anthem did not kneel b/c they "hate America" they kneel b/c they oppose police violence against Black people

1/ 2. "She deserved it, she is a drug dealer" - this is just idiotic. She was arrested for having used vape cartridges in her luggage with traces of marijuana...and charged with TRAFFICKING...and sentenced to 9 years in a Russian Gulag

Get over yourselves people, that is not just

People misunderstand, when Mr. Bout was incarcerated, I suspect Russia continued to sell arms on the black market...should Mr. Bout face consequences, of course he should, but the idea that incapacitating him stopped the trade in illegal arms is a fallacy of incarceration The reason Mr. Bout could do what he was doing was b/c he was (likely) state sponsored and part of the Russian state apparatus...that didn't stop b/c he was arrested

I mean, for many people cancel culture is simply speaking their opposition to messages that they find problematic or voting with their feet

For some it is about cruelty, but that is equally present in trolls on all sides of the divides we have concocted The problem is that what most people call cancel culture is simply the use what has traditionally been called, in free speech theory, counter-speech

To block counter-speech is just as censorious as any other censorship

People don't have a right to have their speech unopposed..

Mr. Musk,

I will ask you again, since you have suggested that you are a "free speech absolutist" and that this is the new "digital public square."

Will anonymous speech have access to the algorithm too given the fact that anonymous speech is protected?

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589390597798125568

I get that bots, and sock accounts are a problem. I gather that people impersonating real people are a problem (although that is actually also protected speech, see the suits around the band Negativland)....but many people facing oppression or tyranny turn to anonymous speech

Alternatives to TOUGH on CRIME work...remember when everyone was mocking the idea of "calling a social worker" and suggesting they would get killed or police would have to be called?

Oddly enough, the program in Denver (called STAR) has been a success

curbed.com/2021/03/denver… STAR REDUCED CRIME compared to "Police-only" interventions and was much more cost-efficient

news.stanford.edu/press/view/439…

You have heard a lot of messaging about how candidates are "soft on crime"

TOUGH ON CRIME IS A PUBLIC SAFETY DISASTER

The top six states in murder rates have tough on crime prosecutors, fully (over) funded police, and "tough-on-crime" leadership...stop listening to nonsense The increase in crime was NATIONAL and coincides with the onset of COVID. Most researchers believe that the social dislocation and insecurity created by the pandemics and lockdowns had a lot to do with it...But, it was not POLITICAL

Few states have invested more in police, tough-on-crime prosecution, harsh sentencing, and incarceration than Georgia....and yet here is Mr. Walker calling for more of the same while he admits that the tough-on-crime approach has been a TOTAL FAILURE despite GOP leadership Side note....Mr. Warnock was not running how crime is addressed in Georgia....he was representing Georgia's interests in DC...it was literally some of the most RED leadership in the country running Georgia's approach to crime

This tweet was an incredible "self-own"

Says someone who has no idea what they are talking about...

People throw a party when they hear that prisons are TOUGH and then throw a fit when they find out that people come back worse...and 96% of people incarcerated will come back

HOW PEOPLE COME BACK MATTERS! This <idiotic> message sponsored by the people who think that people are cured of violence by being put in incredibly violent places or that society is cured of crime by sending more people to prison

PEOPLE

STOP BEING RIDICULOUS

Drug dealer SELL drugs, they do not give them to kids for free (kids largely can't BUY drugs later)

Please for God's sake news outlets, at least try to talk to someone who knows something about the way drug markets work

https://twitter.com/ABC7/status/1582900012597800962

Why in the world would a drug dealer go into their own pockets and give FENTANYL to random kids....bringing INFINITELY MORE HEAT on themselves...AND FOR WHAT?

For goodness sake people...at least TRY to engage your brains and stop swallowing copaganda whole cloth

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Okay, story time...

I have a friend named James...when he was a kid he committed a murder...he got out b/c the Supreme Court allowed people sentenced to Juvenile Life Without Parole to be re-sentenced

Now, in Tom Cotton's unforgiving world, James would have died in prison Since James has come home, he helped open a warming center in his community during the polar vortex in 2019 (probably saving lives) and now he runs a food program that helps food insecure people in his community eat every day - here is more of his story

freep.com/story/news/loc…

Lying charlatans....crime rates are up MORE in GOP sates and cities...criminal justice reform MAKES COMMUNITIES SAFER...and cheap taglines make for IDIOTIC policy

Crime increased everywhere and more in TOUGH ON CRIME PLACES

If you want to have a real debate, do some research FACTS

Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Alabama, Missouri, South Carolina lead the states with the highest murder rates....those are states without much criminal justice reform, with tough on crime prosecutors, fully funded police, and GOP LEADERSHIP

STOP THIS NONSENSE!

On my list of dream interviews for Decarceration Nation would be @charltonbrooker

There are a lot of episodes of #BlackMirror that are groundbreaking in the way that they reflect on society's commitment to punishment and I would love to discuss those episodes with him someday Which episodes?

White Bear (my personal favorite)
White Christmas
Men Against Fire
Black Museum
probably Nosedive as well
maybe Hated in the Nation to talk about mass surveillance as well

I am not sure why people are so impressed with themselves for these responses to the notion that prison food is bad:

"Prisoners get more food than many starving, poor, and homeless people"

This seems like a dunk to people? Seems to me like all of those are indictments What if....and I am just talking here...but, what if, we thought it was bad that poor people didn't have food, kids didn't have food, unhoused people, and incarcerated people didn't have food..and TRIED TO FIX THAT

Also, are all of these people commenting doing anything to help?

I see the most un-serious person in the Senate is at it again...People who have committed murder are released almost every day in the United States...sentence lengths are largely made up and long sentences are increasingly counterproductive

Tom Cotton is the worst! It is easy to just scream "murderers" every day instead of seriously addressing the issues involved.

To Tom Cotton, incarcerated people are just grist for his political meal & public safety is something he loves to talk about..but what he is really doing is mining fear of crime

More nuance missed in the Michigan governor's debate...the part where Dixon quoted the Sheriffs Association suggesting that incarceration hasn't decreased (people were just being hidden in jails) was TOTAL NONSENSE (and obvious self-dealing) During the first few waves of COVID, jail numbers increased massively because prisons stopped taking new admissions...but that ended OVER A YEAR AGO and I have literally asked those questions of MDOC and seen the results....prisons are down and jails are largely back to normal