criminal justice

Julie Pearson was found dead in Israel last November, allegedly beaten to death by her boyfriend. Her family in Scotland has waited for the creaky wheels of Israeli justice to turn for Julie. This week marks the one-year anniversary of her death.

Monday we learned exactly who. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy scheduled a debate on Charlie Dent's Dangerous Synthetic Drug Control Act (H.R. 3537) for Monday. It puts 22 synthetic compounds-- including 11 used to create synthetic marijuana (K2 or Spice)-- on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), forcing mandatory minimum sentences on violators.

A day or two ago, Bill Clinton insinuated-- in his snide way-- that Bernie supporters might go on a rampage and shoot every third person on Wall Street, hitting a lot of Clinton attack themes they're always inserting into the zeitgeist about Bernie and his supporters. His wife can't win the presidency-- if the Democrats are stupid enough to nominate her-- without those millions of Bernie supporters...

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA)-by Dorothy ReikDebtor’s prisons may be outlawed but don’t tell that to the 450,000 or so poor people sitting in jail right now because they are too poor to pay their bail, not because they have been found guilty of anything. They might as well be in a debtor’s prison-- there’s very little difference. They are there because they can’t pay.

Corey Robin, a political science professor at Brooklyn College, wrote a phenomenal book I read some years ago-- and talked a lot about here at DWT-- The Reactionary Mind. Musing aloud last month for Salon, Robin let his readers know what Bill and Hillary Clinton mean to him: "Sister Souljah, welfare reform, Ricky Ray Rector and the crime bill." Yeah, not a fan.

As a preface here, as I have done many times as my role as writer for DV, I have to default to the local, as in, where you see fault lines and bright lines in a local situation, you can pretty much make the larger microcosmic statement about many things for a state, region, country, culture, what have you.
The School to Prison Pipeline has been written about many, many times, and my hat goes off to some of those writers:
The ACLU has it on its radar: **