Congress’s Criminal Justice Reform Act boosts privatization, fails to dismantle mass incarceration, nor does it implement sentencing reform. We speak to Eddie Conway and Natasha Pratt Harris about the proposed reform
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America is out of control its a police state. They make money off of incarcerating people. We lock up more people than china does and thats an authoritarian country with 4 times the population of america. I was sent to state prison for 3 petty misdemesnors 2 low grade and 1 mid grade for a year i had a sentence of 1 to 2 years that is the max out of my charges. To the people who dont know how the justice system works they usually dont throw you in state for misd they usually put you on probation but for a while there in my county they were throwing the max sentence at everyone because the judges and the county was getting money and kick backs for sending people to state and putting them on programs that involved going to state. I think one of my the judges in that county i used to live in is under investigation for sentencing people to illegal sentences that means he was senting people outside of the sentencing guidelines meaning he was sentencing people for far more time than they should of got out of their charges. My brother who also got sentenced in the same county as me got an illegal sentence he spent over 2 years in state for a second DUI. People think america soo great and that their lenient on people. Well guys their not. America is a authoritarian country in disguis of a democracy. CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM!!!
If you don't commit the crime you won't need reform. These people are fake experts. Could our prison system use some reform? Yes. Is it my fault people are in Prison. Nope.
When the slave owner let’s the house slaves speak at the dinner table…
I'm sorry. This is bull. My city has high crime. It's 75% Black. The calls for criminal justice reform I see being called for is rooms full of Black people demanding the Black youth that make it hard to fill your gas tank safely, start getting hard time instead of wrist slaps. While I may agree with the wider complaints of the economic system I have to wonder where these people were when Obama was in charge for 8 years, two with a Dem Congress, and nothing was done. Just like I have to ask where the protesters were when Obama was globally deemed the "Deporter-in-Chief. Just as I wonder where the protesters were when Obama and Hillary "We came. We saw. He died." Clinton were selling weapons to the Saudis and destroying Libya, the most widely prosperous country in Africa.
The core root of this issue comes down to the due processes of law and the collusion of the DEFENSE attorneys not the prosecuting attorneys. You cannot get a fair(all persons are considered equal) hearing in the united states because the judges rule with tyrannical impunity this is a inherently corrupt system. Everyone needs to learn and stand up for their due processes of law and NEVER accept a judge's shill(defense attorney) they serve the judge and by extension the prosecution as they are all on the same side, not yours. Also learn the constitution you are allowed to have any legal council(advisors and notary) you'll hear these scumbag keep moving the goalpost to representation, you don't need to have representation to have legal council those are two entirely different things and the tyrant slavers that call themselves honorable know this and are acting in bad faith with the intention to deceive you into agreeing to an unfair hearing and put their crooks on your side of the bench so they can control the whole hearing.
The young lady is correct if I understand her correctly, the actual problem is in the roots of where the incarcerated come from. I've seen questioners filled out by thousands of inmates. Number one is education or lack of it among them. 90% of those polled didn't finish high school or had graduated, only 10% had some college and less than 1% had graduated from a 2 or 4 year college program. Poor economic conditions follow this trend and lastly parents with law and drug issues while the child was growing up. This is nothing new, the establishment elites know all about and what are the causes. The bulk of the inmates come from the impoverished ghetto areas of the major cities where little or no investment is made to get people proper housing and education which enables further positive growth. Instead this areas are blatantly ignored with only a few having very weak efforts to fix these core issues. The establishment knows this and went with turning lemons to lemon juice and turning jail and prison services by corporatizing the criminal system into a money making operation paid for taxpayers at the end of their process. Had the investments been made at the beginning we might be looking a $12k per year per person for a limited time of 5 years, yet in their operation it ends up costing us over $43k per for an indefinite amount of time. Too bad America's sole existence is based upon profits for the elites otherwise it really could be a nice place for everyone of any color.
Greetings to all. What is a crime in the Republic. The Constitution says there must be a victim for there to be a crime in our republic form of government. The problem is the Law is not taught in our schools by design and we should know, one can not be ignorant and free. Most people in prison are there because they violated a statue, code, rule or regulation of a corporation styled "The United States" . How many laws can you make 'CREATE" and be a legitimate crime when there is no victim? 'think"
I would just like to comment on the subtitle of the video. It is never “meaningless” for a con artist or a magician to use a smokescreen. It’s always intentional. I suggest reframing the “Act” more truthfully… “The Criminal Justice Reform Act is really the…. “ Perhaps the, “Act To Remove Constitutional Rights To… “
Lil Joe: To justify the empirical apparatus that is the State (government, bureaucracy, courts, police, soldiers, prisons) that is really an instrument of class politics and class domination, The working classes and toiling masses are taught to subordinate their interests to the interests of the appropriating classes and submit, not just to the power but also the authority of the State: revolution and even rebellion against the possessing classes and their political association [the State] is inevitable. So, the function of religious authority is to manipulate oppressed people to internalise a belief system in which rebellion is not just criminal (illegal) but also a sin. This is Bible based. Saint Paul wrote in his Epistle to the Roman proletariat and slave converts to Christianity concerning submission to State power:
"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour."
The appropriating classes are the possessing classes and thereby the ruling classes and the State is their physical power agents of special bodies of armed men, police, soldiers and prison guards. Everything these killers, torturers and State terrorists do is legal. Armed men and women wearing badges abducting oppressed people and rebels or revolutionaries is called a legal arrest. Tossing them into a cell is called justifiable incarceration, street killings of oppressed people and protestors is called justifiable homicide and prison killings called public executions. Sanctioned abductions and killings are legal because politicians legislate the laws and appoint the judges.
Legislators and courts are the political and legal agents of the State that make laws and authorize jailing, decapitating, assassinating and executing those among the producing classes and dispossessed masses who rise in rebellion. Let a homeless person enter a vacant house or building and he or she will be considered not just immoral but tried and jailed for the 'crime' of breaking and entering or shot and killed for stealing or 'resisting arrest'; these victims of State violence are denounced as sinners by priests and preachers along with politicians and the press. The entire official world is a collaboration that is the division of labour for the repression of rebels and revolutionaries.
So-called criminals are the rebels. It is rebellion to break the law. The hungry person who steals bread from merchant capitalists is called a thief because it is legislated against the law by politicians and religion that theft is a 'crime' as well as a 'sin'. What is called 'justice' is punishment by the State for violation of the law. Laws are written, decreed or legislated by the political representatives of the possessing classes. The interests of the possessor and dispossessed are mutually exclusive. In the final analysis terms like crime, justice, good, evil, morality, immorality, bad guys, sin and sinner are just so many ideological notions to corroborate authority for State laws that legalise repression. Repression is required by the possessing classes to keep the masses of the dispossessed 'in line'.
Thomas Aquinas presented ideology rather than an empirical analysis because an empirical analysis of relations of production and appropriation would expose the basis of State power and repression. This would lead the dispossessed masses to recognise that gods and laws are nothing but ideological tools manipulating them to accept 'authority'.
It's a political issue. I have nothing to do with and resent being associated with reactionary and conservative 'New Atheists" __ viz. the likes of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher and the late Christopher Hitchens. They are just as much conservative partisans of legitimacy of State Power as are the Reverends Pat Robertson, Al Sharpton, Michael Huckabee, Michael Eric Dyson, John Hagee, Cornel West, Hal Lindsey, and James David Manning. Colour and creed or lack of creed is irrelevant. Religion or lack thereof is not the issue. Profits of capitalist appropriating classes and wages of producing classes are inversely related. The respective class interests are mutually exclusive. There can be no reconciliation. Whether masquerading as Republican or Democrat __ or as Atheist or Christian __there is no such thing as 'economic justice' and is irrelevant. State power and its apologists are the enemy. Reactionary and conservative ideology must be refuted. State Power, along with the capitalist mode of production and appropriation itself must be destroyed. That's right!, Destroyed!
Wilhelm Reich: "Everything, without exception, which today bears the name of morality and ethics serves the oppressors of working humanity. We can prove both in theory and in practice that our new order of social life, just because it will be an amoral one, is capable of replacing the chaos of today by real order. Lenin's attitude to the question of proletarian ethics was unambiguously connected with the interests of the proletarian revolution. Whatever serves the revolution is ethical, whatever harms it is unethical. Let us try to formulate the question in another way. Everything that contradicts the bourgeois order, everything that contains a germ of rebellion, can be regarded as an element of class consciousness; everything that creates or maintains a bond with the bourgeois order, that supports and reinforces it, is an impediment to class consciousness."
Slavery never ended they just gave them a new name criminals.
Legalize pot & repeal 3x rule for jail time. Non-violent crimes should be evaluated, most could be on work/ home (or group home) release with ankle bracelots & daily calls plus AA, NA daily. etc. Unemployed should be given government infrastructure jobs at minimum wage with increases possible upon review. One sure thing, can't put prisoners back into an unhealthy environment. Good point re loss of rights for family & friends.