California has a worsening homelessness problem. Today, there are over 150,000 unhoused people in the state. Mental illness and homelessness have a bidirectional relationship. Often, people end up on the streets because they are unable to live within the normal confines of society. Homeless people are more likely to face violence and fall prey to […]
Tag: criminal justice system
A Stain on California’s Progressivism
In a country plagued by a hurricane of partisan politics, California is often seen as the United States’ leader on progressive policy and action, the calm amidst the storm. California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has held office since 2019, is often hailed as the masthead of this movement. His stances on climate change, gun control, […]
Voting Behind Bars: Why Incarceration Should Not Limit the Right to Vote
On March 2, as congressmembers considered the For the People Act, a bill that would enact the most comprehensive expansion of voting sights in the United States since the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Democratic representatives Cori Bush of Missouri and Mondaire Jones of New York introduced an unprecedented and groundbreaking amendment to the bill […]
Death to the Death Penalty: Capital Punishment as a Tool of White Supremacy
White America is slowly but surely coming to the realization that when government-created and funded systems fail minorities, the intended systems have not broken; rather, those systems are working exactly as intended. They directly reflect their creation on the backs of slaves as our nation was born. One of the most vile and haunting reminders […]
Algorithmic Injustice
Algorithms in the justice system started off as a noble solution to a serious problem: the bias of judges. There are two distinct ways that judges can be biased — targeted bias, such as sexist and racist beliefs, and cognitive bias, ways in which our mental circuitry fails to work logically (such as how judges […]
On California’s Law and Order Initiative: Proposition 20, Featuring Eric A. Stanley
“This bill is being pushed through at the same time that the people across the United States are demanding the abolition of the prison industrial complex. It’s indicative of a culture war, which is to say a class war, around prisons and policing.” – Eric A. Stanley Walking on the streets of California after consuming […]
Boudin takes aim at the criminal justice system as SF’s new District Attorney
Chesa Boudin, the newly elected San Francisco District Attorney, strikes a chord among many when discussing his experiences with the criminal justice system. Growing up with two incarcerated parents and visiting them behind bars all throughout his life, Boudin was destined to become the activist and leader he is today. He knows the criminal justice […]
Bail Reform: The Antidote America Has Been Looking for, or an Instrument of Discrimination?
“Crime wave” is the phrase that surrounds the newest set of criminal justice policies passed by New York and California. If you look up “bail reform” on Google, the first page of results reveals a host of articles in which it is a keyword, authoritatively bolded. There are publicly available transcripts of police chiefs in […]
Dangers of Predictive Policing Algorithms
As more and more states are employing algorithms in policing, the dystopian world of The Minority Report might be more of a reality than a sci-fi film. The use of algorithms in policing is not a new topic. Predpol, a for-profit company pioneering predictive policing algorithms, was a largely controversial issue in 2012, sparking criticisms […]
Amber Guyger: A Symptom of White Supremacy in American Policing
By now, almost everyone has heard the infuriating details of the murder of Botham Jean. As off-duty police officer Amber Guyger tells it, she mistakenly walked into Jean’s apartment and shot him dead, thinking him an intruder in her apartment. The idea that an African American man can be sitting idly in his own home, […]
Plea to Prison Pipeline: Assessing the Feasibility of Mass Plea Refusal
In the American criminal justice system, more than 90 percent of all criminal charges are resolved through plea bargains. A plea bargain is an agreement wherein the defendant pleads guilty to a crime, usually a lesser crime than the original charge, and as a result, waives his or her right to a jury trial. What […]
The Death Knell for the Death Penalty: Gavin Newsom’s Execution Moratorium
In March, California governor Gavin Newsom declared a moratorium on executions, effectively ending any chance of execution for the 737 California prisoners still on death row. While it is obvious that this move is important for the future of the death penalty in California, the significance of Newsom’s declaration lies in its potential ramifications for […]
Understanding US Prisons as State-Sanctioned, Discriminatory Torture
Prisoners shiver in the dark. They are wearing short-sleeves— not enough to cover their bare skin from the bite of two-degree freezing temperatures. They have endured without water, food, heat, electricity or sanitation for over a week. In desperation, they bang on the windows of their cells, hoping someone, anyone, hears them. Finally, they are […]
Barred from the Ballot Box: Felon Disenfranchisement in America
Six million American adults are legally ineligible to vote, members of a group whose ranks have roughly quintupled over the past 40 years. In Kentucky and Tennessee, this group now comprises more than a fifth of the African American population; in Florida, this group composes more than 10 percent of the adult population. But these […]
Progress, or Merely Reshuffling?: The Criminal Justice Reform Movement’s Shortcomings
Try getting opposing politicians to agree on an issue, and you probably won’t have much success. Yet, criminal justice reform has become the unifier to bridge the divide. President Barack Obama, at the 2015 N.A.A.C.P. Conference in Philadelphia, outlined criminal justice reform as the last great mission of his administration when he remarked to thunderous applause […]