Restorative Justice,
Not Vengeance
End the school-to-prison pipeline
Over the past generation, police officers have become a regular part of school staff and school discipline has gravitated into the court system. Detention, intervention, and suspension have been replaced with expulsion and criminal charges and narrowing the possibilities for teenagers.
We call on elected officials to support separating schools and the criminal justice system, and to end disciplinary practices that resemble prisons.
Bail Reform
In our society liberty is the norm, and detention prior to trial should be carefully limited. Yet many people who are neither a flight risk nor immediate danger are held for an excessive amount, or no bail at all. Furthermore, people who are innocent are forced into paying for programs and monitoring in order to be released. This destroys lives and fills up our local jail, while providing profits to few.
We call on elected officials to support an end to unaffordable bonds, forced programming, and prison profiteer influence.
Sentencing Reform.
Louisiana is the global leader of mass incarceration. This only benefits industries that profit off of our people’s pain. Sentences are excessive at all levels, while parole releases are few, with only a few minutes of attention paid to the lives involved in each plea “negotiation.”
We call on elected officials to support the creation of a Post Katrina Trauma Assessment tool, to assess impacts prior to any sentencing, to clearly inform people charged with a crime about specific impacts a conviction will have on voting, employment, education, housing, professional licensing, and potential future criminal allegations.
No Jail Expansion
Louisiana incarcerates people accused of crimes at a record rate, double the next highest city, with no correlation to the crime rate. Police take too long to file reports, the district attorney takes too long to file or dismiss charges, and too many people awaiting this process in jail. Hundreds of people are held in local jails because their bond is too high. The average time in jail is more than a month, and most people leave with charges either dismissed or a probation sentence settled, and their lives in disarray. Some elected officials advocate for jail expansion to provide social services in the name of mental health, homelessness, addiction recovery, and rehabilitation.
We call on elected officials to support a reduction in local jails throughout the state, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. No public health interventions should be used to justify an expansion of mass incarceration.
