Nov 7, 2022
Toronto Star – Kelly Skjerven
GO Transit union says bus drivers to strike if no deal reached with Metrolinx – Metrolinx said there will be no bus service on Monday if strike action is taken.
Observers are wondering if the threaten strike after the union rejected the latest Metrolinx offer is also the beginning of widespread labour unrest kick-started by the education impasse and Bill 28 in Ontario. The union has an 81% mandate from members to strike today unless the offer is sweetened. The union represents GO Transit workers which include station attendants, bus operators, maintenance workers, transit safety officers and office professionals and at this point involves GO buses but not the trains. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2022/11/04/go-transit-union-says-bus-drivers-to-strike-if-no-deal-reached-with-metrolinx.html?source=newsletter&utm_source=ts_nl&utm_medium=email&utm_email=404CAADEF7EB839FC77B1B04F0C251E1&utm_campaign=bn_152482 Related article: Toronto Star – Tess Kalinowski, Ben Mussett, Kristin Rushowy, Kris Rushowy CUPE warns parents to prepare for school closures on Monday – The union says it will talk about escalating its fight against the province at a Monday press conference “It is expected that CUPE and its labour partners will announce a massive labour rally at Queen’s Park on Saturday, with the threat of a broader, general strike on Nov. 14, according to Toronto Star sources, who said the job action was approved by the Ontario Federation of Labour at a weekend meeting of leaders.” https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2022/11/06/cupe-warns-parents-to-prepare-for-school-closures-on-monday.html?source=newsletter&utm_source=ts_nl&utm_medium=email&utm_email=404CAADEF7EB839FC77B1B04F0C251E1&utm_campaign=bn_152745 Related article: Toronto Star Tess Kalinowski, Ben Mussett, Kristin Rushowy, Kris Rushowy Premier Doug Ford says government willing to rescind legislation, return to bargaining if CUPE calls off strike – Ford said the government is willing to repeal Bill 28 but only if CUPE agrees to show a similar gesture of good faith by stopping strike. https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/2022/11/07/ontario-government-union-await-labour-board-ruling-as-school-support-staff-strike-continues.html
CBC News –
‘Enough is enough,’ premier says as Manitoba promises crackdown on criminals, unit targeting violent offenders – Bail, probation programs intensified to break cycles of criminal activity, says Premier Heather Stefanson
Manitoba is creating a new (?) task force of 12 – 6 officers from the Winnipeg Police Services and 6 from the RCMP – to address multiple incident violent offenders. The province will also strengthen bail laws and parole conditions. Critics see the same plan whose funding was cut by the Conservatives in 2017. Opposition NDP Leader Wab Kinew: “The most important thing for us to understand is that the PCs cut this program in 2017. There was an integrated task force, and that funding was cut by this premier,” he said, referring to cuts made to two joint units that year.” https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-police-unit-targets-high-risk-offenders-1.6639289
USA Today – Chris Kemmitt and Premal Dharia
Plea bargaining and mass incarceration go hand in hand. We need to end both. Our legislatures and courts have armed prosecutors with so much power that they can – and often do – determine the trajectory of people’s lives.
Many people think that the US legal system operates in a court room with defendants and prosecutors, a defense lawyer and a judge. In fact, it does not. Plea bargaining is the route for settle most criminal matters. The inescapable reality is also that plea bargaining is the major factor in mass incarceration. The plea bargaining is titled in favour of the prosecutor and there is little accountability for the pressure on defendants to capitulate for fear of worse consequences. “Of course prosecution can lead to incarceration, and the United States has an especially problematic record with regard to incarceration. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, “Every single U.S. state incarcerates more people per capita than virtually any independent democracy on earth.” Black people are incarcerated at nearly five times the rate of white people, according to The Sentencing Project.” https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/policing/2022/11/03/plea-bargaining-lea ds-mass-incarceration-little-oversight/9950184002/?s=03 Related report: Vera Institute – Lauren Jones, Sandra van den Heuvel, and Amanda Lawson The Cost of Incarceration in New York State: How Counties Outside New York City Can Reduce Jail Spending and Invest in Communities (Ed note: pretrial detention is a large part of jail crowding, jail deaths and repressive control measures. The realization is spreading across the country and illustrating that there are few on bail who re-offend.) Related article: Blogger Alex Karakatsanis – A Warning to Journalists about Elite Academia – Two Harvard professors propose the greatest expansion of the police bureaucracy in Western history. https://equalityalec.substack.com/p/a-warning-to-journalists-about-elite?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
N.Y. Times – Emily Badger
Most Candidates Running on Crime Don’t Have Much Power to Solve It – Your congressman doesn’t control the police budget. Your senator probably doesn’t know where the worst hot spots are.
So far, we know that the FBI just changed the standards on how to report crime, that the reporting is through the various police forces and many do not in fact report, that the perception of crime is more determinant of the fear of crime regardless of the stats. Now comes Badger’s revelation: those running for office in the midterms – assembly persons and senators alike – have little power or even knowledge of crime nor the ability once in office to do much about crime. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/upshot/crime-midterms-election-2022.html Related article: National Public Radio (US- NPR) – Sandhya Dirks Rising crime statistics are not all that they seem https://www.npr.org/2022/11/03/1133790735/rising-crime-statistics-are-not-all-that-they-seem (7 min audio with transcript) Related article: JSTOR Daily – Morgan Godvin Voting Rights for People Convicted of Felonies – Formerly incarcerated people comprise the largest group of disenfranchised American voters. The American Prison Newspapers collection offers fresh insight into the issue. https://daily.jstor.org/voting-rights-for-people-convicted-of-felonies/ ABC News (US) Keri Blakinger, The Marshall Project/Associated Press US jails rife with violence, abuse and overcrowding – Jails across the U.S. are suffering from overcrowding, violence and abuse https://twitter.com/KathyMorse0914/status/1589263780931899392?cxt=HBwWgMC4zaG_mY4sAAAA&cn=ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjcw%3D%3D&refsrc=email Related article: NBC News with Lester Holt: Midterm campaigns are focusing on crime and bail reform. What are the facts? https://www.nbc.com/nbc-nightly-news/video/midterm-campaigns-are-focusing-on-crime-and-bail-reform-what-are-the-facts/NBCN588357883
CNN (US) – Michelle Watson and Dakin Andone, CNN
The Iowa teen who killed her alleged rapist and was sentenced to probation has escaped from custody
A fifteen year old teen Pieper Lewis in Iowa has been reported as escaped from a residential correctional facility. Lewis pled guilty to manslaughter in a plea bargain after she was charged with first degree murder for killing her rapist, Zachary Brooks. The article is an example of the legal gender bias and the crippling fines and conditions that can be put in place when a woman kills her assailant: self defense is not available and the persuasive power of the deal bargain rules. https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/06/us/iowa-teen-killed-alleged-rapist-escape/index.html Blogger Russell Webster: New book: Reimagining Probation Practice: Re-Forming Rehabilitation in an Age of Penal Excess by Emma Cluley, Fergus McNeill, Lol Burke, Nicola Carr, Steve Collett https://www.russellwebster.com/re-imagining-probation-practice/ (The book tackles the usual limitation for rehab when the focus is largely between the probation officer and the probationer and advocates for a far wider context for the rehab “exploring probation practice in a diverse range of settings, including courts, individual and group work interventions, unpaid work, resettlement, public protection work, partnerships, approved premises, education and training and probation inspections.”) https://www.russellwebster.com/re-imagining-probation-practice/
Tweet from Universal Basic Income Works (Canada): Basic Income can grow BC’s economy $16B/year, add 118,000 jobs https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ubiworks.ca%2Fbc (A 1min29sec Youtube video) https://www.ubiworks.ca/bc
Tweet from Dr. Nicole LePera On Healing “Healing means you’ll leave some people behind. It also means there will be space for people more aligned.” (https://twitter.com/Theholisticpsyc/status/1589324675947335680?s=03
Blog from Alex Karakatsanis On Copaganda:
When Good Journalists Get Lost https://equalityalec.substack.com/p/when-good-journalists-get-lost?utm_source=direct&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Gizmodo (US) – Dell Cameron
Fake Terrorists for Trump – A new Homeland Security report details orders to connect protesters arrested in Portland to one another in service of the Trump’s antifa imaginary plot
“An internal investigative report, made public this month by Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon, details the findings of DHS lawyers concerning a previously undisclosed effort by Trump’s acting secretary of homeland security, Chad Wolf, to amass secret dossiers on Americans in Portland attending anti-racism protests in summer 2020 sparked by the police murder of Minneapolis father George Floyd.” https://gizmodo.com/donald-trump-homeland-security-report-antifa-portland-1849718673?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=_twitter Full report: Office of Intelligence and Analysis Operations in Portland April 20, 2021 https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/I&A%20and%20OGC%20Portland%20Reports.pdf
(Ed note: The following poem by Susan Zalatan was quoted by Carole Ann Leonard in her Prison Reform Movement tweet recently. It is a worthy reflection at a time when there is so much finger pointing based on angry mis-information.)
Those in prison… https://twitter.com/PrisonReformMvt/status/1470886381455306753?s=03