Tags
2016 US Presidential Elections, Criminal Justice Reform, Donald Trump, Gary Johnson, Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein, Mass Incarceration, Racial Justice
In the United States – the land of the free – we hold the highest incarceration rate in the world, beating Cuba (2nd), and Rwanda (3rd). One in five of the more than 2 million Americans locked away in our prisons are nonviolent drug offenders. Learn more about this epidemic in the report “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2016.”
Find out how our candidates plan to address this vital issue destroying our communities.
Hillary Clinton – Democratic Party
People are crying out for criminal justice reform. Families are being torn apart by excessive incarceration. Young people are being threatened and humiliated by racial profiling. Children are growing up in homes shattered by prison and poverty. They’re trying to tell us. We need to listen.
~ Hillary Clinton on Criminal Justice Reform, July 8, 2016
Learn more at http://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/criminal-justice-reform/
Jill Stein – Green Party
End police brutality and mass incarceration. Create a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to understand and eliminate the legacy of slavery that lives on as pervasive racism in the economy, education, housing and health. Ensure that communities control their police rather than police controlling our communities, by establishing police review boards and full time investigators to look in to all cases of death in police custody. Demilitarize the police.
~ Jill Stein on Racial Justice Now
Learn more at http://www.jill2016.com/plan
Gary Johnson – Libertarian Party
How is it that the United States, the land of the free, has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world? The answer is simple: Over time, the politicians have “criminalized” far too many aspects of people’s personal lives.
~ Gary Johnson on Criminal Justice Reform
Learn more at http://www.johnsonweld.com/criminal_justice_reform
Donald Trump – Republican Party
Trump doesn’t address mass incarceration on his party’s official website. Instead he focuses on law enforcement respect.
In a Meet the Press 2015 interview, he said the following about white police officers shooting unarmed blacks:
It’s a massive crisis. It’s a double crisis. I look at these things, I see them on television. And some horrible mistakes are made. But at the same time, we have to give power back to the police because crime is rampant. I believe very strongly that we need police…
~ Donald Trump, August 2, 2015
Learn more at http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Donald_Trump_Crime.htm
Three Worlds One Vision 
Reblogged this on Guyanese Online.
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Thanks for the boost, Cyril. Have a great week ahead 🙂
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Thanks, Rosaliene. I’d be interested in your thoughts about Jill Stein’s recommendation of a “truth and reconciliation commission.” The model for that is South Africa, where it is said to have worked successfully. I wonder, however, whether the situation in the USA is sufficiently comparable, since a large part of the population does not acknowledge the wrongs done in the USA to people of color. Moreover, the institutional racism in South Africa and their apartheid, not to mention the brutality of the harm done there, don’t seem to match up with our situation. I do not mean to dismiss our own problems with racism in saying this. They should not be ignored.
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Dr. Stein, I find her recommendation interesting but not applicable to our situation here in the US since far too many years have elapsed since the abolition of slavery and further abominations during the Jim Crow period.
In June 2014, Ta-Nehisi Coates presented “The Case for Reparations.” By the way, the Caribbean Community has also made a similar case to the British government for reparations.
Following their visit to the US during January 19-29, 2016, the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent has, among several other recommendations, reiterated that
“There is a profound need to acknowledge that the transatlantic slave trade was a crime against humanity and among the major sources and manifestations of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and that Africans and people of African descent were victims of these acts and continue to be victims of their consequences. Past injustices and crimes against African Americans need to be addressed with reparatory justice.”
See the OHCHR Statement to the media by the United Nations’ Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, on the conclusion of its official visit to USA, 19-29 January 2016.
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“The 2.3 million human beings, most of them poor people of color, who are locked in cages across the country provide billions in salaries and other revenues for depressed rural towns with large prisons. They provide billions more in profits to phone card companies, money transfer companies, food service companies, merchandise vendors, construction companies, laundry services, uniform companies, prison equipment vendors and the manufacturers of pepper spray, body armor and the many other medieval instruments used for the physical restraint of prisoners. They also make billions for corporations—Whole Foods, Verizon, Starbucks, McDonald’s, Sprint, Victoria’s Secret, American Airlines, J.C. Penney, Sears, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Eddie Bauer, Wendy’s, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Fruit of the Loom, Motorola, Caterpillar and dozens of others—that collectively exploit 1 million prison laborers.”
~ Chris Hedges, “The New Slave Revolt,” Truthdig, October 11, 2016.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/10/11/new-slave-revolt
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Rosaliene, have you seen Ava Duvernay’s documentary on Netflix? It’s called 13th. If you haven’t, you might find it interesting.
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Thanks for the recommendation, Katherin. I’ll check it out this weekend on my movie night.
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Justice! Justice! JUSTICE!
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I’m with you, Claire.
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