Staff writer at Philadelphia Inquirer. Send tips and gripes: smelamed@inquirer.com. DM for Signal.
Jun 8, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
For The Inquirer's More Perfect Union series, I wrote how Philly pioneered the penitentiary and use of solitary in America -- and how that endeavor was infected by racism from the start inquirer.com/news/inq2/more…
Just a decade after PA enacted gradual abolition of slavery, it opened the first state prison based on the idea of incarceration & solitary as means of rehabilitation.
As @kaligrossphd notes, it was no coincidence Black people were disproportionately punished
Jun 25, 2020 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
I was detained Tuesday while doing my job, reporting the news, right here in America. A few people have been asking me what I think about that, if I’m OK, was I “being a bad girl”, etc.
A brief response re: trauma. (My view, not the paper’s.)
Whether it’s right or wrong for the mayor and managing director, instead of sending a staffer to accept a letter from constituents with strong (and, yes, loud) views on a city budget, to have sent police — not Civil Affairs, but COUNTERTERRORISM— is not for me to say.
Jun 23, 2020 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
About two dozen protesters pushing to defund and “demilitarize” Philly Police are in the lobby of Municipal Services Building, preparing to sit in and demanding to meet with Mayor & Managing Director over the proposed budget
Chants of “no justice, no peace” in the MSB. Protesters are blocking at least some of the elevators
Dec 27, 2019 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
I spent a whole lot of 2019 talking with people on probation in Pennsylvania, a system that would've made Kafka say, "Whoa, guys, that's messed up."
In case you missed it, here's what you need to know. In a thread. 1/
Crime has been falling for decades. Incarceration has quintupled. And the number on probation or parole has grown five times larger, to 290,000. In Philly, 1 in 14 black adult residents is under supervision. 2/ inquirer.com/news/inq/proba…
