Overcriminalization significantly undermines human flourishing and social well-being by harming the family, social networks, and social citizenship. Additionally, it prevents capable men and women from utilizing their creative capacities in the marketplace. This creates vast issues involving relations with family while incarcerated and reintegration into society after release. On the economic side, draconian cash bail systems undermine justice through basing someone's ability to attain pre-trial release upon their wealth, not their actual threat to society.
“Siwatu-Salama Ra knows what injustice feels like. It’s cold, she'll tell you, and heartless. One year after going through labor while shackled to a bed, forced to give birth during her prison sentence, she can still vividly recall police officers passing time on their cellphones as she cried and screamed through unrelenting pain to push life through her body, with no family at her side.“
Detroit Free Press
October 24, 2019
Read More“At the Detroit Justice Center (DJC), which Alexander founded in 2017, lawyers work with community members to make freedom dreams a reality: a community land trust to protect neighborhoods from gentrification and offer a safe haven for men returning from incarceration; urban gardens that provide neighbors a space for connection and nourish bodies in the midst of a food desert; a bail fund to keep Detroiters from languishing in jail for the crime of being too poor to make bond. And, most urgently: imagining safe communities without jails and prisons.“
Detroit Free Press
October 21, 2019
Detroit Free Press
October 21, 2019
Read More“Criminal justice issues center around what to do with those people. Society and elected officials wrestle with how to make rules that are fair, just and workable. The difficulty is in figuring out the best way to protect the innocent, punish the guilty and integrate people back into society after they’ve paid the fine or done the time. For all the seemingly intense and divisive debates about politics, lawmakers, groups and individuals across the political spectrum are in agreement on some of the most significant and important reforms in the criminal justice system. The latest reform deals with expunging criminal records.“
The Detroit News
September 30, 2019
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