Rep. Ayanna Pressley vs. the US "Criminal Injustice System"

[lpetrich]

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley on Twitter: "This country's criminal INjustice system is racist, xenophobic, rogue & fundamentally flawed beyond reform.
Today, we are calling for a radical transformation rooted in decarceration: The People's #JusticeGuarantee [url]https://t.co/67rSvoSmt5 https://t.co/MxdKetnOTo" / Twitter[/url]
proposing "The People's Justice Guarantee":

• Shared Power - Enlisting a Participatory People's Process
• Equality - Ensuring equal justice under the law
• Freedom - Promoting policies to support de-carceration
• Safety - Ending cycles of violence and trauma
• Human Dignity - Ensuring every person in America is treated with dignity and respect

Then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "I love how @RepPressley is not only introducing a #JusticeGuarantee bill today, but she’s also releasing materials to educate on the *principles* upon which the guarantee is drafted.
Understanding principles unlocks the why behind a legislation’s chosen approach. Here she has 5." / Twitter

Tiffany Cabán on Twitter: ".@AyannaPressley naming our racist, xenophobic criminal legal system & calls to divest & drastically decarcerate.
Supports ending cash bail, decriminalizing sex work, drug possession, & other low level offenses, ending LWOP, ending fines & fees, & more. https://t.co/GSv20fqL5q" / Twitter
TC had run for Queens District Attorney on a similar platform earlier this year, and she lost by a tiny fraction of the votes in the primary.

LWOP = "leave without pay"

Rep. Pressley Launches A Bold, Progressive Criminal Legal Reform Resolution: The People’s Justice Guarantee | Representative Ayanna Pressley Copying off of that page:

• Dramatically Reducing Jail and Prison Populations by
  • Expanding access to restorative justice and diversion programs
  • Decriminalizing consensual sex work and low-level offenses, which are byproducts of poverty, homelessness, discrimination and/or addiction
  • Ending the death penalty, including life sentences without the possibility of parole, which effectively function as “death by incarceration”
  • Capping sentences, for all crimes, particularly those that do no cause serious harm
• Transforming the Experience of Confinement by
  • Ending solitary confinement
  • Expanding visitation
  • Allowing trans people to be housed in accordance with their chosen gender identity
  • Providing high-quality, trauma-informed, and culturally-responsive mental and physical health care (including substance- use therapy, hormone therapy, and mental health treatment)
  • Increases vocational and educational access, including Pell Grants, and ends the use of forced labor
• Eliminating Wealth-Based Discrimination and Corporate Profiteering by
  • Prohibiting private companies from profiting off of incarceration and immigrant detention
  • Relieving people in poverty of the unfair debt burdens by ending the use of money bail and the imposition of unaffordable fines and fees - ceasing the practice of charging people for their own supervision and banning incarceration for debt alone
  • Supporting a just transition for returning citizens, including policies that remove restrictions to employment and public services such as housing, education assistance, and voting
• Investing in Impacted Communities by
  • Ending the transfer of military equipment to local police and refocusing resources to dramatically increase clearance (or solve) rates for the most serious crimes – shootings, homicides, domestic and sexual violence
  • Limiting firearm production and sales
  • Eliminating qualified immunity and establishing standards on use of force, de-escalation, and crisis intervention training including the designation of a non-911 number for dispatch of crisis and trauma intervention teams

 

[Trausti]

The Committee to Re-Elect the President is off to a great start.

 

[Metaphor]

Although the woke have cultivated an embarrassment of riches when it comes to ideas that are batshit insane with zero chance of public buy-in in this universe or any universe, the "no police/no prisons" angle surely ranks amongst the batshitest. I hope they keep pushing the idea though, because that'll surely alienate them further from mainstream society.

 

[lpetrich]

Rep. Ayanna Pressley Unveils Sweeping Plan To Reshape American Criminal Legal System - The Appeal

“The criminal legal system is racist, xenophobic, rogue, and fundamentally flawed beyond reform,” Pressley told reporters on a call Wednesday. “It must be dismantled and radically transformed through a large-scale decarceration effort.”

In recent years, localities across the country have worked to dismantle mass incarceration by electing progressive prosecutors and passing reforms, like the end of mandatory minimums and cash bail. Pressley’s proposal would extend that momentum as the most comprehensive, progressive vision for reform on the federal level.

... Under the resolution, communities would be encouraged to repeal and dismantle the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and other federal policies that caused the country’s prison population to explode since the 1970s.

Pressley’s resolution also includes a call for the restoration of voting rights to people who are incarcerated. Just two states, Vermont and Maine, currently allow people serving time for felony convictions to vote, but there has been a growing movement in the last year to abolish disenfranchisement in states across the country.

...
Pressley told reporters Wednesday that her office spoke with more than 20 grassroots organizations and people impacted by the legal system to help shape the resolution. She highlighted the importance of engaging with the people most harmed by the system, explaining that the work is personal to her as she was raised by a parent with a substance use disorder who was in and out of the legal system.

“I’ve seen firsthand the effects of criminal and racial injustice and the trauma it causes for families and entire communities,” she said. “If one of us is suffocated by systemic oppression, racism, and intergenerational trauma, we all lose.”

Great ambitions. It must be noted that some people in the Right have also embraced prison reform, under the name "right-sizing". They are finding that prisons cost a lot of taxpayers' money.

 

[lpetrich]

Ayanna Pressley Introduces Sweeping, Progression Vision for Criminal Justice Reform

The resolution is organized around five core principles: shared power, freedom, equality, safety, and dignity. “Shared power,” for instance, refers to community involvement in decarceration efforts through workshops, assemblies, and town halls, while “equality” captures reforms like abolishing private prison, jail, and immigrant detention contracts.

... Consensual sex work and low-level offenses like loitering would be decriminalized, and access to restorative justice and diversion programs would be expanded—making rehabilitation and community service programs the default for petty, victimless crimes.

Working in tandem, these reforms would make prison sentences applicable only to crimes committed with an intent to cause harm.

Jails and prisons themselves would also be transformed.

Pressley’s resolution calls for an end to solitary confinement—which has been deemed “torture” by prison experts and psychologists—and would expand educational and vocational opportunities, including Pell Grants. Forced labor would also be abolished.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley Calls To Decriminalize Sex Work In Criminal Justice Resolution | HuffPost

The resolution aims to decriminalize sex work by “removing criminal and civil penalties related to consensual sex work and addressing structural inequities that impede the safety, dignity, and wellbeing of all individuals.” Specifically, the resolution seeks to protect minority communities who are often pushed into sex work as a form of survival, including Black, Latinx and transgender communities.

“For far too long, those closest to the pain have not been closest to the power, resulting in a racist, xenophobic, rogue, and fundamentally flawed criminal legal system,” Pressley said in a Thursday statement, adding, “Our resolution calls for a bold transformation of the status quo ― devoted to dismantling injustices so that the system is smaller, safer, less punitive, and more humane.”

Ayanna Pressley Just Called for Decriminalizing Sex Work - VICE

Pressley’s latest resolution appears to signify the congresswoman’s own subtle shift on the issue of sex work. Last year, Congress passed SESTA/FOSTA, a package of bills that shuttered websites used by sex workers, which advocates argued jeopardized sex workers’ safety and livelihood in the name of curbing sex trafficking. Though Pressley was not in Congress to vote on the bills at the time, her website stated as recently as last year that she supported “holding executives of websites that serve as marketing tools for traffickers criminally responsible.”

This is a remarkable shift for a Democratic politician, a remarkable shift from Clinton-era efforts to seem very tough on crime.

 

[lpetrich]

Rashida Tlaib on Twitter: "My sisters in service are on fire this week fighting for our everyday people. @AyannaPressley" / Twitter
noting
Justice Democrats on Twitter: "“I’ve seen firsthand the effects of criminal and racial injustice and the trauma it causes for families and entire communities. If one of us is suffocated by systemic oppression, racism, and intergenerational trauma, we all lose.” -@AyannaPressley https://t.co/xkWYh67rv3" / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had tweeted on prison reform and "prison abolition" a month ago:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Mass incarceration is our American reality. It is a system whose logic evolved from the same lineage as Jim Crow, American apartheid, & slavery.
To end it, we have to change.
That means we need to have a real conversation about decarceration & prison abolition in this country. https://t.co/9E9NTAmBNi" / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Yesterday morning I spoke with a woman who was thrown in Rikers as a teenager. Put in solitary confinement for MONTHS, aka torture. Force-fed pills.
The conditions were so bad, she too had drank out of toilets.
A cage is a cage is a cage. And humans don’t belong in them." / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "I know the term “prison abolition” is breaking some people’s brains. The right is already freaking out.
Yet the US incarcerates more than anywhere in the world.
We have more than enough room to close many of our prisons and explore just alternatives to incarceration.
/1" / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "First of all, many people in jailed or in prison don’t belong there at all.
Whether it’s punitive sentencing for marijuana possession or jailing people for their poverty & letting the rich free through systems like cash bail, we wrongly incarcerate far, far too many people.
/2" / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Secondly, our prison & jail system is so large bc we use them as de facto mental hospitals, homeless shelters, & detox centers instead of *actually* investing in... mental health, housing, edu, & rehab.
If we invested meaningfully, what do you think would happen to crime?
/3" / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Lastly, people tend to say “what do you do with all the violent people?” as a defense for incarcerating millions.
Our lawmaking process means we come to solutions together, &either way we should work to an end where our prison system is dramatically smaller than it is today.
/4" / Twitter

 

[Derec]

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley on Twitter: "This country's criminal INjustice system is racist, xenophobic, rogue & fundamentally flawed beyond reform.

I think it's bullshit to say that the criminal justice system is racist and xenophobic, and if Private Ayanna thinks it's "flawed beyond reform", why is she even trying to reform it?



Anyway, her list has some good and some bad ideas.

[*]Decriminalizing consensual sex work and low-level offenses, which are byproducts of poverty, homelessness, discrimination and/or addiction

I agree that sex work should be decriminalized, but not for the reason stated here, but just because it's a matter of individual freedom. Sex work should be seen as work as any other.
What I fear is that Private Ayanna and others will in reality support the sexist and discriminatory Swedish Model instead of decriminalizing both buying and selling of sexual services.

[*]Ending the death penalty, including life sentences without the possibility of parole, which effectively function as “death by incarceration”

I agree about death penalty, but some people should be held without parole.

[*]Capping sentences, for all crimes, particularly those that do no cause serious harm

Capping sentences for all crimes? Even murder, armed robbery and such?

[*]Ending solitary confinement
[*]Expanding visitation

Meh. SHU is a valuable disciplinary tool and inmates already get plenty of visits.

[*]Allowing trans people to be housed in accordance with their chosen gender identity

That can spell chaos if everybody can choose their "chosen gender identity". Attica! Attica! Attica! (wasn't Al Pacino in that movie supposedly trans?)

[*]Ending the transfer of military equipment to local police and refocusing resources to dramatically increase clearance (or solve) rates for the most serious crimes – shootings, homicides, domestic and sexual violence

As we have seen from urban riots in places like Ferguson, Baltimore, Charlotte and earlier in LA, police need riot control equipment erroneously called "military". Not that clearing serious crimes is not important, but so is keeping order when radical groups want to unleash chaos.

[*]Limiting firearm production and sales

[*]Eliminating qualified immunity and establishing standards on use of force, de-escalation, and crisis intervention training including the designation of a non-911 number for dispatch of crisis and trauma intervention teams

Qualified immunity is necessary to protect police officers doing their jobs. There already are standards on use of force. What Private Ayanna wants is to throw police officers to the wolves when they kill somebody of her race, no matter how justified. For example this recent case of [URL="https://abcnews.go.com/News/devon-bailey-shooting-police-face-charges-colorado-mans/story?id=67001965"]De'Von Bailey - committed armed robbery, fled (armed with a gun) when police wanted to search him for guns, refused lawful orders, reached for waistband, Bob's your uncle.

If anything, law needs to protect cities and counties better against lawsuits that extort millions even when the shooting is justified.

 

[Trausti]

We should abolish the criminal justice system entirely and return to the days of blood feuds and self-help.

 

[Derec]

'
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had tweeted on prison reform and "prison abolition" a month ago

Prison abolition is a stupid idea. Many people belong in prison.

 

[Derec]

This is a remarkable shift for a Democratic politician, a remarkable shift from Clinton-era efforts to seem very tough on crime.

Why can't we have both? Be tough on murderers, rapists, robbers, assaulters and the like, but at the same time erase unneeded crimes from the law books and focus on non-carceral sentences for minor crimes?

As far as Ayanna's treatment of sex work, I am still concerned about her emphasis on "minority communities". Surely ALL individuals deserve equal protection of the law. The law should not be "especially" about those who look like certain Congress critters.

 

[Arctish]

Although the woke have cultivated an embarrassment of riches when it comes to ideas that are batshit insane with zero chance of public buy-in in this universe or any universe, the "no police/no prisons" angle surely ranks amongst the batshitest. I hope they keep pushing the idea though, because that'll surely alienate them further from mainstream society.

Who is proposing "no police/no prisons"?

 

[Derec]

Although the woke have cultivated an embarrassment of riches when it comes to ideas that are batshit insane with zero chance of public buy-in in this universe or any universe, the "no police/no prisons" angle surely ranks amongst the batshitest. I hope they keep pushing the idea though, because that'll surely alienate them further from mainstream society.

Who is proposing "no police/no prisons"?

There is definitely a police and prison abolition movement on the far left in the US. AOC apparently supports at least the "prison abolition" part of it. She even used those words in her tweet. .

 

[Metaphor]

Although the woke have cultivated an embarrassment of riches when it comes to ideas that are batshit insane with zero chance of public buy-in in this universe or any universe, the "no police/no prisons" angle surely ranks amongst the batshitest. I hope they keep pushing the idea though, because that'll surely alienate them further from mainstream society.

Who is proposing "no police/no prisons"?

Prison abolition and police abolition are fringe movements but have supporters. The Guardian seems to think ending incarceration in America is a possibility. Many feminists also think that women should not go to prison for anything. (google 'no woman should be in prison' for more articles). Just a couple of weeks ago on Australian panel show QandA, Nayuka Gorrie said police were 'incapable of being reformed'.

It is fun to make fun of prison/police abolitionists because their mad philosophies are unacceptable to everyone except the radical fringe left. And some of them don't even have the courage of their convictions. In one of the 'no women in prison' articles, the author said that all nonviolent female offenders would not be in prison, and violent female offenders would be in 'custody centres close to their friends and family'. Apparently being held against your will in a 'custody centre' is somehow distinguishable from being held against your will in prison. (Custody centres are obviously prisons).

 

[lpetrich]

AOC is not an absolutist about prison abolition. She states that "we should work to an end where our prison system is dramatically smaller than it is today." But not necessarily nonexistent. She seems too pragmatic to ever want to go that far. It's like her calling the border camps "concentration camps" and Puerto Rico a US "colony" - provocative, but well-supported. She also calls the WWII Japanese internment camps "concentration camps".

 

[Derec]

AOC is not an absolutist about prison abolition.

And yet she uses absolutist language.

She seems too pragmatic to ever want to go that far. It's like her calling the border camps "concentration camps" and Puerto Rico a US "colony" - provocative, but well-supported. She also calls the WWII Japanese internment camps "concentration camps".

If she was really "pragmatic" she would not use such hyperbolic and inflammatory language.

 

[lpetrich]

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley on Twitter: "Criminal INjustice is the denial of people's most basic human rights.
We need a #JusticeGuarantee to set national standards on temperature control in prison, jails, and detention facilities and affirm the dignity of all. https://t.co/Ug8slTkNfw" / Twitter

Why people are freezing in America’s prisons - Vox

As New York temperatures dropped in early December, a public defender in Brooklyn tweeted a request for warm clothing for those incarcerated on Rikers Island. “It’s freezing outside. It’s even colder on Rikers,” Scott Hechinger wrote to his nearly 70,000 followers. “Right now, people are walking around in the blanket they’re provided. Literally shivering. Guards open windows to spite them.”