criminal justice reform
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The Curious Case of the NFL’s Endorsement of Criminal-Justice-Reform Bill
The NFL, the proverbial messy bitch that loves drama, just a week after announcing that team owners would revisit rules about player conduct during the playing of the national anthem, has now decided to throw its weight behind a criminal-justice bill. NFL spokesman Joe Lockhart announced Monday that the NFL will endorse a bipartisan bill…
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La. Sheriff Furious at New Laws Allowing for Release of ‘Good,’ Nonviolent Inmates Because ‘We Use Them to Wash Cars’
In case you ever wondered about the way (some) correctional officers see their inmates, I lead you no further than to Caddo Parish, La., Sheriff Steve Prator, who is ranting and raging mad about new criminal-justice reform laws that will go into effect next month—because it will mean getting rid of cheap labor. But don’t…
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Influenced by The New Jim Crow and 13th, Art Collector Sells Painting for $150,000,000 to Start Criminal-Justice-Reform Fund
Agnes Gund is an art collector who sold her prized 1962 Roy Lichtenstein Masterpiece for $150 million, one of the 15 highest-known prices ever paid for artwork, in order to start a fund that supports criminal-justice reform and seeks to reduce mass incarceration in the United States. Gund, who is president emerita of New York…
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The Liberator: Susan Burton on the War on Drugs, Black Motherhood and Freedom [Retracted]
RETRACTED (6/12/18): This story has been removed because we have discovered it was in breach of our editorial standards. If you’d like to know more, you can read an editor’s note here. A cached version of the story is available here for transparency.
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Google Just Dropped $11,000,000 to Make Sure #BlackLivesMatter
Of course, the company didn’t phrase it that way because it would have to spend another $11 million cleaning up all the mess from the white people’s heads that exploded. But according to USA Today, Google just pledged $11.5 million in grants and funding to help organizations fight racial bias. Specifically, Google’s philanthropic division wants…
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President Obama Pens 55-Page Article on Criminal Justice for Harvard Law Review
President Barack Obama returned to his Harvard Law Review roots (he was the first black president of the 100-plus-year-old journal in his last year at the school) as he penned a 55-page-article on our justice system, how his administration has moved the needle and how far we have to go to make substantive change. Entitled…
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What Exactly Will Policing Look Like for Blacks Under the ‘Law and Order’ President?
A South Carolina judge on Monday declared a mistrial in the murder trial of a white South Carolina police officer after a jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict. Now-former North Charleston Police Officer Michael Slager was accused of shooting unarmed African-American motorist Walter Scott in the back five times as Scott fled after a…
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U.S. Justice Department Says Poor Defendants Can’t Be Held If They Can’t Afford Bail
The U.S. Justice Department said that holding defendants in jail because they can’t afford to make bail is unconstitutional—the first time the government has taken such a position before a federal appeals court, reports NBC News. On Thursday, Loretta Lynch’s DOJ filed a friend of court (amicus) brief in federal court saying that mandating inmates pay…
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#M4BL: New Policy Agenda Centers Black Demands as Presidential Campaign Hits Full Stride
August will mark the two-year anniversary of the killing of Michael Brown and the uprising of black youths in Ferguson, Mo. Many of us are asking ourselves, “What has changed?” Black people and our allies have since taken to the streets by the thousands, and a massive online movement proclaimed that “Black lives matter.” But two…