Mass Incarceration
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After Shutdown Causes Family Visits to Be Canceled, Inmates at New York City Jail Go on Hunger Strike
As the government shutdown rolls onward, inmates at federal prisons have been unable to see their families, attorneys and, in some instances, have been unable to receive medication. In response, prisoners at a high-security federal jail in New York City have gone on a hunger strike in protest. A group of inmates at Metropolitan Correctional…
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A Pregnant Woman Was Found Dead in a Mississippi Jail After Complaining About Stomach Pains. Her Family Has Yet to See Her
A pregnant mother of two was found dead in a Madison County, Mississippi jail cell sometime last week after complaining to jail officials of stomach pains, her family says. Now, the family of 37-year-old Lanekia Michelle Brown is trying to piece together what happened to her in a death they deem “very suspicious.” “We talked…
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Money Bail Might Be the Most Racist, Immoral Part of America’s Criminal Injustice System
When listing all of the problems in America’s justice system, the racial disparities are too numerous to count, the facts, alone are astounding. The rate of marijuana use is about the same for blacks and whites (although more blacks say they have never used marijuana), but blacks are more than three times more likely to…
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A List of Things the Tenaha, Texas Police Department Can Do With the $70 They 'Seized' In a 'Drug Bust' Last Week
1. Buy five whole orders of the surprisingly filling Vietnamese Shrimp Summer Rolls at The Cheesecake Factory. 2. Catch a Greyhound from Pittsburgh to Hampton, Va., on Friday the 14th—but only if you book the trip in the next two hours and use the code GREY4CHAR. 3. Pay the parking ticket I got last month…
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The One Place Colorblindness Will Benefit Black People: America’s Courtrooms. The Supreme Court Should Take Note
Black people usually recoil when we hear a white person say, “I don’t see color,” and with good reason. It usually denotes a form of racial denialism, at best, and a subtle, yet clear implication that there is something wrong with race, and specifically, something wrong with being black. But there is one venue that…
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Hollow Gesture Alert: Billionaire New England Patriots Owner Robert Kraft Would ‘Very Much Like’ to See Kaepernick Back in the NFL
These are the words of a billionaire owner of an NFL franchise, the words of the most (or second most behind Jerry Jones) influential owner in the league, the man whose team is led by a 41-year-old quarterback and a backup who probably isn’t even good enough to be fourth-string: “I would very much like…
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2 Texas Judges Sent 20 Percent of All Juveniles to State Prisons Last Year
Two Harris County Texas judges accounted for more than one-fifth of all children sent to the state’s juvenile prisons in 2017. Unsurprisingly, the overwhelming majority of the children were black or Latinx. The Houston Chronicle reports: The two courts — overseen by Judges Glenn Devlin and John Phillips — not only sent more teens to…
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Federal Judge Stops New Orleans From Jailing Those Who Fail to Pay Fines, Rules That They Must Have a Chance to Plead Poverty
Instead of being immediately tossed into jail for failing to pay fines or fees related to whatever legal issues you may have, a federal judge has ruled that anyone who owes money from criminal convictions in New Orleans must have a chance to plead poverty in a “neutral forum,” before being put behind bars for…