When President Eisenhower left office late in the 1950s he said, “The biggest threat to our country is the military industrial complex.” This means feeding the beast!
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Prison & Punishment for Crimes
Four decades of death penalty executions by year, state, race and gender, in 1 chart
Since 1976
- Texas executed the most people
- 1999 had the most executions
- More white men have been executed than Black men
- Disproportionately more Black man have been executed. Black men make up about 6% of U.S population but about 30% of executions are of Black men
- Females are the least likely to be executed
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Source: www.washingtonpost.com
A disarming approach to protests
“…it seems every time there’s a questionable officer-involved shooting… a code of silence is enforced and the general public gets the message: “Yes, this was a tragedy. But it wasn’t personal. It was protocol.”
No admission of responsibility. No acknowledgment of how the situation could have been handled differently. And, certainly, no apology.
It’s a dead-end conversation. And the result is predictable: More public outrage, more distrust, more lawsuits.
It’s no doubt one reason why many Sonoma County residents were frustrated last week at the news that Deputy Erick Gelhaus, the officer responsible for the shooting of 13-year-old Andy Lopez was put back out on patrol. Yes, 10 months later, the community appears to be moving toward some significant changes, including putting cameras on deputy uniforms, improving oversight of officer-involved shootings and, possibly, creating a public park at the corner of Moorland and W. Robles avenues where the shooting occurred. But putting the deputy back on patrol was a harsh reminder that we’re no closer to having assurances that what happened on Oct. 22, 2013 won’t happen again.
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Source: www.pressdemocrat.com
Obama Voices Concerns on Police Militarization in Wake of Ferguson
“There is a big difference between our military and our local law enforcement and we don’t want those lines blurred”
Source: time.com
Law Enforcement-Above The Law
This week has been exhausting. Thankfully, I subscribe to other blogs that give me a sigh of relief with gorgeous photos and quotes of wisdom. However, it’s not long before I return to thinking about seeing law enforcement on the streets of America with equipment that was manufactured and intended for use by military troops.
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Source: blackbutterfly7.wordpress.com
Stanford research discovers whites support harsher laws when they perceive more black Americans in prison
Informing the white public that the percentage of black Americans in prison is far greater than the percentage of white people behind bars may not spur support for reform. Instead, it might actually generate support for harsh laws and sentencing.
Source: news.stanford.edu
Family of mentally ill inmate says guards laughed and joked as he died
“I can see you breathing,” Cheryl Neumeister called to a shackled, mentally ill — and dead — inmate, whose slow-motion death took place in the presence of casually chatting prison personnel, and on video.
Fifteen more minutes dragged by before guards pulled the body of Christopher Lopez, 35, from an intake cell and they realized he had died.
Moments later, a guard called for medical “backup.”
It is the first hint on the nearly six-hour video that anyone witnessing the man’s almost comatose behavior, uncontrollable shaking, grand mal seizures and disturbed breathing realized he was in dire need of medical attention.
The video, taken at San Carlos Correctional Facility in Pueblo on March 17, 2013, is evidence in a lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Denver by Lopez’s mother, Juanita Lopez.
In a release responding to the suit, prison officials said within 10 days of the incident, three employees were terminated and another five were subjected to corrective and/or disciplinary action.
Neumeister, a mental health clinician, was among those fired, according to the suit.
Lopez, a schizophrenic, died of severe hyponatremia, a condition that occurs when sodium levels are too low. “Almost all instances of hyponatremia are treatable if a person receives prompt and adequate medical attention,” the suit said.
Source: www.denverpost.com
Do Heat-Sensitive Inmates Have A Right To Air Conditioning?
Jails and prisons without air conditioning can be uncomfortable for both prisoners and guards. But for inmates with health conditions that make them heat-sensitive, hot cells can pose serious risks.
Source: www.npr.org
Why I Support Marijuana Legalization, But Not as a Strategy for Winning Racial Justice
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But, while I support legalization as an incremental step in the right direction, I think we are wrong to promote legalization as a means of achieving racial justice. Making that claim minimizes the very real problem of structural racism that has made the war on drugs such a hugely devastating law enforcement strategy for Black people.
The legalization of marijuana, in my opinion, would not lead to less over-policing, racial profiling, or over-incarceration of Black and brown people. What relief legalization would provide, and I do believe there would be some immediate relief, would be mostly temporary.
Why? The New York Times report on reader response to their legalization editorials sums it up nicely,
Times readers favor legalization for the same reasons the Times editorial board does: They think the criminalization of marijuana has ruined lives; that the public health risks have been overstated; and that law enforcement should focus its resources on graver problems.
Those “graver problems” bother me. They bother me because the illegal drug trade is as much an economic issue as it is public health issue. My experience growing up in a drug economy tells me that folk turn to illegal means of making money when legal jobs aren’t available. And decent paying legal jobs have rarely been harder to find than right now.
As a sociologist friend of mine recently reminded me, prison is a form of disguised unemployment. That’s part of the reason programs meant to reduce recidivism so often don’t work. Without a job, people are often forced to commit crimes, like selling marijuana. Once convicted of that crime, a criminal record can make you unemployable. Those who’ve been to prison too often end up back in prison, and keeping them there is a way of managing unemployment, even if this effect is, perhaps, mostly incidental.
If we added incarcerated Black people to the unemployment rolls, Black unemployment statistics would be noticeably higher (and it’s already twice that of whites). This would more accurately reflect the status of Black people in the U.S. labor market. Large numbers of poor Black people have been structurally excluded from the legitimate economy, ironically in part because Black people as a class won the right to ordinary worker protections nationwide via the Civil Rights Movement. This made other excluded workers, like undocumented migrants, cheaper, more compliant, and, following the logic of the market, more desirable.”
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Source: www.racefiles.com
ICE Detains Pregnant Women Against Its Own Policy
“According to its own policy, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, only detains pregnant women if they pose a public safety threat—but new evidence illustrates the practice is quite common.
Over at Fusion, Cristina Costantini found that at 559 pregnant women have been detained by ICE in just six facilities since 2012, and there’s no reason to believe they meet ICE’s own policy for holding expecting mothers. At least 14 women suffered miscarriages while in detention in 2012. According to Fusion’s estimate, up to 57 pregnant immigrant women are being detained per day.
Read more over at Fusion.”
Source: colorlines.com