April 6, 2023 – On Funding Alternatives…
Tweet from Justin Pinché On Funding Alternatives…
1/4 Contrary to popular belief, very little of what the left has called for has been implemented by any of the three levels of government in this country, including upstream prevention, as well as diversion and decarceration supports.
Quote Tweet – Tom Stamatakis@StamatakisCPA https://nationalpost.com/opinion/blame-
2/4 Meanwhile, police force budgets continue to rise. New prisons continue to get built and existing ones sites of human caging continue to get expanded. These investments in criminalization and punishment have occurred while community supports have been largely neglected.
3/4 And it’s those calling for alternatives to policing and prisons that are being blamed for increases in violence in a context where people are facing greater precarity and insecurity due to organized abandonment and neglect, where all our social support systems are collapsing?
4/4 You get what you pay for @ZivoAdam. Find other scapegoats, starting with those that continue to champion demonstrably costly and ineffective institutions, policies and practices of the punitive injustice system.
(https://twitter.com/JustinPicheh/status/1642923335880245249?t=IhJKdXOvpmYiSyjuVuV-Mg&s=03) Cf go back on thread
The Maple (Canada) – Simon Rolston
What Does A Major Drop In Detained Youth Mean For Canada’s Carceral System? The drop in the number of young people in custody during the pandemic “suggests we are over-using custody in the first place.”
Stats Canada has reported a major drop in the number of incarcerated youth during the pandemic, contrary to other prison populations. Noting that Indigenous youth are incarcerated at far higher rates, Rolston says: “Fewer youth in custody matters because incarceration, which is often a disorienting and violent experience, removes young people from family, school and other support networks in their communities. Moreover, custody acclimatizes youth to the criminal justice system, making reintegration harder and recidivism more likely.” Rolston wonders if the change is temporary. https://www.readthemaple.com/what-does-a-major-drop-in-detained-youth-mean-for-canadas-carceral-system/?ref=the-maple-newsletter
Centre for Mental Health (UK) – Dr. Graham Durcan
Prison mental health services supporting one prisoner in seven, finds new report
Mental health services in UK prisons seems to be reaching more incarcerated persons male and female. The services to women are one in four to the men’s one in seven. “The most common mental health needs were depression and anxiety, but many prisoners had multiple and complex needs for support. Almost 40% of people using prison mental health services also had substance use problems. More than half had histories of self-harm and 40% had attempted suicide.” https://www.centreformentalhealth.org.uk/publications/prison-mental-health-services-england-2023 Full report: Prison Mental Health Services in England 2023 Prison & Young Offender Institution https://www.centreformentalhealth.org.uk/sites/default/files/publication/download/Prison%20mental%20health%20services%20in%20England%202023%20%281%29.pdf Blogger Russell Webster Vulnerable Prisoners Spend Weekends Suffering Behind Close Doors https://preview.mailerlite.io/emails/webview/257467/84612191929501491
Dallas (TX) Daily News
Why won’t Texas ban executions for people with severe mental illness? The Legislature should pass Rep. Toni Rose’s bill because it’s the right thing to do.
March 7 is the scheduled execution of Andre Thomas “whose attorneys say gouged out both of his eyes — eating one of them — because of severe mental illness, was delayed by a judge on March 7. But the resistance to a law proposed by state Rep. Toni Rose, D-Dallas, is also alive and well in spite of Thurgood Marshall declaration in 1986 that the execution of the mentally ill is unconstitutional. Said Marshall at the time: “And the intuition that such an execution simply offends humanity is evidently shared across this Nation.” https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2023/04/02/why-wont-texas-ban-executions-for-people-with-severe-mental-illness/
The Marshall Project –
Most New Yorkers Don’t Get the Trump Treatment at Arraignment – The 31,000 people arraigned for felonies in New York each year have very different experiences in court than the former president.
The Marshall Project offers a comparison of the legal process involved in an arraignment for former President Donal J. Trump vs the process for persons of less public notoriety. “We asked people what the experience is like when you’re not a high-profile White defendant, arrested for a white collar crime, with access to top-flight lawyers, campaign donors, crowds of well-wishers and thousands of supporters. Some were indicted before their arrest, some after. The picture they give — as mostly defendants of color, mostly arrested for violent crimes — is of disorientation and hopelessness.” https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/04/04/indictment-arraignment-meaning-new-york-trump?utm_source=TMP-Newsletter&utm_campaign=e0f27a116e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_04_04_09_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-e0f27a116e-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D
Toronto Star – Brian Bradley
She was among those purged from Canada’s military. Today, Michelle Douglas looks back on the pain and the progress – Thousands were driven from Canada’s military for their sexual identities. Thirty years later, the military is working to change and soldiers are healing.
Not so long ago gays and lesbians in the armed forces and the RCMP were typically outed and forced into discharge. The article illustrate in part at least the scope of the struggle to address the gender issues in the military today. “An estimated 9,000 were surveilled, interrogated and purged from the armed forces, RCMP and public service between the 1950s and mid-1990s. Expulsion left victims traumatized and adrift, with many carrying the weight of unceremonious public outings in a world often unsupportive for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or intersex people. Many reported long-term mental-health and substance-abuse struggles as a result.” Michelle Douglas started a lawsuit and put in motion the initial changes for the military. https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/04/02/she-was-among-those-purged-from-canadas-military-today-michelle-douglas-looks-back-on-the-pain-and-the-progress.html?li_source=LI&li_medium=thestar_canada
Tweet from Eric Reinhart (US) on Per capita Cost Policing: “People frequently compare police officers per capita in the US and Europe. What they ignore while doing so is the—relative to European nations—incredibly uneven distribution of police in the US with a huge proportion of total officers concentrated in poor communities of color…. Per capita policing in Chicago’s Black and Latinx neighborhoods, for example, is dramatically higher than in its wealthiest white neighborhoods. And guess which areas are safer? Hint: it’s not the ones with most police.”
(https://twitter.com/_Eric_Reinhart/status/1643019336922062849?t=NKtigubozcjnv9meGfjVRQ&s=03)