what does the ciminal justice do to help peoples freedom and rights

So this isn't what we commonly write near, but these aren't normal times. Cities all across the United states (and some around the world) have been in a justified uproar the past week in response to the murder of a black homo George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. The video of Floyd's death is extremely graphic, even compared to other videos of police brutality that seem to come up weekly in America, and now our criminal justice and policing system is under a much needed spotlight the globe over.

When I'm not spending my time on Heddels, I work on pretrial justice and ending mass incarceration. I started as a volunteer court watcher when I lived in New York, then as an investigator with the ACLU of Colorado and helped first Courtroom Lookout Colorado with my ACLU colleagues last fall.

Me in my Kapital denim shirt after the inaugural Courtroom Lookout Colorado preparation session with ACLU of Colorado Policy Counsel Becca Curry, ACLU Advocacy and Policy Counsel Portia Allen-Kyle, ACLU of Colorado Policy Managing director Denise Maes, ACLU of Colorado Community Teaching Manager Jessica Howard, and Elisabeth Epps and Eva Frickle of the Colorado Freedom Fund.

I've observed thousands of arraignments, canvassed hundreds of doors, read countless inmate letters, written legal memos, and ofttimes given public testimony before elected officials to help dismantle our racist, classist, and frequently cruel criminal justice system. I never really thought the Heddels and the criminal justice sides of my life would ever overlap just here we are!

A lot of people have been asking me, "What can I do to aid stop constabulary brutality long term?" I imagine a lot of you are thinking that besides, and so today I'1000 going to use my Japanese pants platform to answer that question. (We'll get back to pants tomorrow, I promise).

1. Protest

If you tin, getting out there is the nigh impactful thing y'all can practise correct now. Police and the criminal justice arrangement have never been under as much scrutiny equally they have been for the past calendar week. The longer it keeps upwardly, the more likely nosotros are to run across major changes.

Protesting tin be a daunting task in normal times, the police we are protesting against are too the ones out at that place with tear gas, condom bullets, and handcuffs. And getting gassed, shot, and arrested sucks! Peculiarly right now when being amidst a big grouping of people puts y'all at run a risk of contracting a highly contagious and lethal virus.

If you feel up to protesting, please prepare yourself and understand the risks earlier going out in that location:

• Go with at to the lowest degree one other friend
  • Protests tin can be somewhat hectic, this can aid center y'all and help make sure both of you lot get home safe
• Wear a mask
  • This volition forbid yous and others from getting sick simply is as well a bulwark betwixt you and pepper spray and tear gas
• Wear thick wear that will minimize the bear upon of projectiles (luckily we've been doing this one for years)
• Wear shatter-resistant glasses or goggles
  • They'll protect you from pepper spray, tear gas, and rubber bullets; at to the lowest degree one person has been permanently blinded at protests this week from existence shot in the eye
• Bring h2o
  • Not only is it of import to stay hydrated simply it also helps wash pepper spray off your face
• Write the phone number of a local attorney on your arm
  • In case you get arrested many lawyers are working pro bono for protestors, await upwardly one in your area

2. Donate to Bail Funds

If you become charged with a crime the judge will frequently set bond, which is a cash value you take to put up as collateral to exist able to leave jail before your case is resolved (trial, example dismissed, or you plead guilty). The amount varies from person to person and example to case, merely there are tens of thousands of presumably innocent people behind bars right now considering they are too poor to pay the amount to go dorsum to their lives. I've seen people held in jail for weeks considering they couldn't pay a $l bond.

Bail is an awful and questionably unconstitutional practice, simply there are many organizations working to stop it including bail funds, which are non-profit organizations that put up that money for people who can't pay information technology themselves. This lets people proceed their jobs, go along their housing, proceed close to their families, and keep their freedom before their day in court.

Here is a comprehensive list of bail funds all over the land (including my friends at the Colorado Freedom Fund). You get your bail money back if you show upwardly for your courtroom date, and then bond funds can use even a small-scale amount of coin over and over and once again to buy people's liberty.

3. Know Your District Attorney

The Commune Attorney (DA) is the unmarried about important position to affect change in the criminal justice system in your customs. DA's are elected officials in accuse of all the prosecutors for a given district. This ways they choose which cases to prosecute and dismiss, what charges to add to each instance, whether they'll contend for bail to be fix and at what corporeality, and much more.

DA'due south are often very lenient on charges against police officers because they need them to serve as witnesses in many other cases. Derek Chauvin, the officer who killed George Floyd, had eighteen prior complaints filed against him including interest in 3 other deaths. If any of those complaints had been prosecuted by i of the DA's during Chauvin'south 19-year career every bit a police officer (including current U.Due south. Senator Amy Klobuchar), George Floyd might even so be alive today.

Google your District Attorney and look at their record. What are the cases they choose to prosecute? Have they prosecuted any cases for police brutality? What are their practices for setting bail?

DA is a locally elected position and you as an individual tin have an infinitely greater impact on its outcome than the presidential election. In that location has been a wave of progressive DA's running for function the past couple of years, Larry Krasner in Philadelphia and Chesa Boudin in San Francisco have both overhauled the criminal justice system in their cities for the ameliorate. Learn about who can make your community the next place for reform.

4. Become Watch Court Sessions or Join a Court Watching Group

You lot should picture police encounters whenever you're able, merely instances of constabulary brutality may happen where y'all're unable to observe them. Our courts, however, operate on regular schedules and are open to the public. You can walk into any criminal courtroom in the United States and just watch. This is crucial because ix times out of x no one is watching and grossly illegal misconduct can become completely unnoticed.

Judges often just do what they want regardless of the law because no 1 volition call them on it. We passed a bond reform beak in Colorado concluding leap that made information technology illegal to fix bail for many low level crimes, many judges notwithstanding, didn't comply with the new law and continued to set bail for weeks after it went into effect. It took people like me and my colleagues showing up to court to document judges violating the police and the ACLU threatening lawsuits before they began to enforce information technology.

Many cities take organized volunteer court watching groups, where people have shifts to ensure the courts are acting appropriately and warning the public, civil rights groups, and elected officials when they aren't. Fifty-fifty if you're totally new to this, court watching groups will train you lot for everything you need to know annihilation nearly the process and connect you with a great group of people—I got my kickoff every bit a volunteer with Courtroom Watch NYC a lilliputian over 2 years ago.

If in that location isn't a court watching group in your community, only get to court. You'll pick it upwardly pretty quickly and fifty-fifty having some other warm body observing in the public gallery will oftentimes brand a judge more likely to follow the rules.

5. Encourage Your Local Elected Officials to Reduce Police Spending

The urban center of Oakland spent 41 percentage of its general budget on policing in 2017. Baltimore spends $772 per resident on constabulary every year. The NYPD paid out $230 million in misconduct settlements concluding twelvemonth lonely.

This is our money as taxpayers.

Constabulary spending continues to increase as every other social service is cut, even though crime is the lowest it'southward been in years. Every fourth dimension I run across a police officer, I tin can't help but remember, "Would we exist better served if that person was a teacher? Was a drug counselor? Was working to repair our infrastructure or edifice public housing?" It's going to take a lot fewer law before I answer "no" to any of those questions.

Law department budgets are usually fix by the city council of your municipality, which similar DA is another hyper-local elected position that you can accept a lot of influence over. Talk to your metropolis councilor and encourage them to spend more money on education, public wellness, affordable housing, and a host of other social services that help us far, far more than militarized constabulary.

half-dozen. Educate Yourself and Those Around Yous

Criminal law and all of its institutions are inherently complex and hard to understand. I've been at it for several years and I still feel like at that place's infinitely more for me to larn. Knowing the basics, though, tin can get a long way to empowering you to affect alter in your community.

Court watching groups provide some of the best crash courses in criminal justice, just if you want to know more than, The End of Policingby Alex Vitale andGold Gulagby Ruth Wilson Gilmore are two of the best books I've read about the state of constabulary enforcement and mass incarceration today.

Stay informed of what's happening in your surface area as well. The reason and then much of this has gone unchecked for and so long is that the bulk of people don't have to interact with the well-nigh savage parts of our criminal justice organisation and don't fifty-fifty know they be. Don't wait away and encourage your friends and family to stay aware as well. What we run into on videos that brand the national news is a driblet in the bucket of what'southward happening every day.

---

That's a jumping off indicate. I hope the protests happening all over the world represent the start of a new era of reform that has been a long, long time coming.

Stay safety out there and I hope we'll return to our normal pants and boots content, although who knows what else this year has in store for usa…

truexsuind1976.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.heddels.com/2020/06/what-you-can-do-to-help-end-police-brutality/

Share this post