Criminal Justice Reform 

Mass Incarceration & Police Brutality

Mass Incarceration

The US imprisons more people than any other country

The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid.

There are more black men in prison today than there were slaves in 1860 before the Civil War 

The U.S. has over 2.4 million behind bars, an increase of over 500% in the past thirty years

We have 5% of the world’s population; 25% of its prisoners

People of color represents 60% of people in cages

One in eight black men in their twenties are locked up on any given day

75% of people in state prison for drug conviction are people of color although blacks and whites see and use drugs at roughly the same rate. In NYS, 94% of those imprisoned for a drug offense are people of color.

The number of drug offenders in state prison has increased thirteen-fold since 1980

5.3 million Americans are denied their right to vote

13% of black men are disenfranchised

Over the past two decades, state spending on prisons grew six times the spending of higher education

From 1997 to 2007 the number of women in prison has increased by 832%

Nearly $70 billion is spent annually on prisons, probation, parole and detention

Our Position: “Mass incarceration and the racist practices of the New Jim Crow as manifested in all the collateral consequences imposed on individuals are communities will be dismantled with a grassroots, bottom-up effort led by those most directly affected and supported by their allies.”

http://www.cflj.org/programs/new-jim-crow/new-jim-crow-fact-sheet/

The New Jim Crow - book by Michelle Alexander

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

https://newjimcrow.com/

Michelle Alexander: Jim Crow Still Exists In America : NPR

The future of race in America: Michelle Alexander ... - YouTube - Ted Talk

FRED Talks | Michelle Alexander Speaks on Reimagining our Legal, Political, and Economic Systems

"The New Jim Crow" - Author Michelle Alexander, George E. Kent Lecture 2013

Documentary on Mass Incarceration

https://youtu.be/krfcq5pF8u8 13th (Amendment) A Documentary

The Sentencing Project. “Report to the United Nations on Racial Disparities in the U.S. Criminal Justice System.” https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/un-report-on-racial-disparities/. Accessed Feb. 5, 2020.

NAACP. “Criminal Justice Fact Sheet.” https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/. Accessed Feb. 4, 2020.

US Sentencing Commision. “Demographic Differences in Sentencing.” https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/demographic-differences-sentencing. Accessed Feb. 5, 2020.

5 Facts Behind America's High Incarceration Rates

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/28/us/mass-incarceration-five-key-facts/index.html

Police Brutality

Nearly 250 women have been fatally shot by police since 2015

Black women are fatally shot at rates higher than women of other races

Since 2015, Black women have accounted for less than 1 percent of the overall fatal shootings in cases where race was known. But within this small subset, Black women, who are 13 percent of the female population, account for 20 percent of the women shot and killed and 28 percent of the unarmed deaths.

Black men, 12 percent of the male population, make up 27 percent of the men shot and 36 percent of the unarmed deaths.