Apparently this freshman representative thinks we should close down prisons and let criminals back into the community…
We’re putting too many people in prison. So it’s time we talk about shutting down corrections facilities across the country.
At least… that’s what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez thinks.
In a series of tweets this week, the freshman rep compared our system of so-called ‘mass incarceration’ to that of slavery, calling for an end to locking people up.
Mass incarceration is our American reality. It is a system whose logic evolved from the same lineage as Jim Crow, American apartheid, & slavery.
To end it, we have to change.
That means we need to have a real conversation about decarceration & prison abolition in this country. https://t.co/9E9NTAmBNi
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 7, 2019
“A cage is a cage is a cage. And people don’t belong in them,” she posted.
I know the term “prison abolition” is breaking some people’s brains. The right is already freaking out.
Yet the US incarcerates more than anywhere in the world.
We have more than enough room to close many of our prisons and explore just alternatives to incarceration.
/1
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 7, 2019
She went on to say that the United States “incarcerates more than anywhere in the world,” saying we had “more than enough room to close many of our prisons and explore just alternatives to incarceration.”
Ocasio-Cortez said that many prisons are currently being used for individuals who belong in “mental hospitals, homeless shelters, & detox centers,” and that federal funding for the facilities could be directed elsewhere for alternate methods of rehabilitation.
She inferred that taking people out of the cage would greatly decrease criminal activity.
“If we invested meaningfully, what do you think would happen to crime?” she questioned.
Secondly, our prison & jail system is so large bc we use them as de facto mental hospitals, homeless shelters, & detox centers instead of *actually* investing in… mental health, housing, edu, & rehab.
If we invested meaningfully, what do you think would happen to crime?
/3
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 7, 2019
Seems she had our next question pinned, but didn’t exactly have an answer for it.
“People tend to say ‘what do you do with all the violent people?’ as a defense for incarcerating millions,” she tweeted as she skirted around an actual answer to the question. “Our lawmaking process means we come to solutions together, and either way we should work to an end where our prison system is dramatically smaller than it is today.”
First of all, many people in jailed or in prison don’t belong there at all.
Whether it’s punitive sentencing for marijuana possession or jailing people for their poverty & letting the rich free through systems like cash bail, we wrongly incarcerate far, far too many people.
/2
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 7, 2019
To ‘prove’ her point, AOC cited a man her who been jailed for 10 days for oversleeping his jury duty as well as a woman who claimed to have been ‘tortured’ by being ‘force-fed pills’ and being placed in solitary confinement for months while in Rikers Island.
Yesterday morning I spoke with a woman who was thrown in Rikers as a teenager. Put in solitary confinement for MONTHS, aka torture. Force-fed pills.
The conditions were so bad, she too had drank out of toilets.
A cage is a cage is a cage. And humans don’t belong in them.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 7, 2019
As we’re sure many people are aware, there are changes that could be made to the criminal justice system in our country to help it improve. The same could be said about anything that we’ve created as a society. Policies that could be changed to help decrease recidivism, steps we could work on to help rehabilitate instead of furthering a lifestyle.
But does that mean closing down prisons from coast to coast?
Not a chance.
Her comments come on the heels of a New York Times editorial that absolutely slammed police officers, blaming them for putting people in cages.
Instead of looking at the criminal actions that landed suspects behind bars, they straight up blame the cops for enforcing the law.
And now, officers are standing up to set the record straight.
The title of the op-ed piece was, “Police Can’t Solve the Problem. They Are the Problem.”
It was written by attorneys Derecka Purnell and Marbre Stahly-Butts and published in the New York Times at the end of September. The article largely focused on the 1994 crime bill signed by Bill Clinton, which provided funding for additional police officers as well as crime reduction programs.
The authors wasted no time at all using cops as a scapegoat for crime rates and civil unrest throughout the country.
“The reality is this: The police fill prisons,” the authors wrote. “We can’t repair the harm that the 1994 crime bill has done by promoting mass incarceration without reducing the size and scope of the police.”
So not only are police to blame for putting people in jail for…. you know, breaking the law… but in order to fix it, we should put less cops on the street.
Right.
They continued by saying that the criminal justice system was a ‘system of oppression’ and needed to be reduced and abolished. They say police are the problem.
“Systems of oppression, like slavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration, must be reduced and abolished — not reimagined,” the article reads. “Police officers, who primarily put people in cages, are the enforcers of mass incarceration. We must reckon with the reality that the police are part of the problem and stop investing money, power and legitimacy in them.”
Former Arizona police officer Brandon Tatum appeared on Fox & Friends to offer his feelings on the attitude toward police in the U.S.
He said that calling the police “the problem” is “absolutely ridiculous” and “damaging to the reputation of law enforcement.”
“I feel like, in this country, it has gone too far,” Tatum said.
The authors “proved” their point that cops were to blame by saying that an additional 100,000 officers being added to the force from a federal crime bill only helped reduce crime by 1.3 percent.
But when overall crime dropped by 26 percent between 1993 and 2000, police didn’t get the credit. The authors instead cited pre-school and job programs for the reduction.
So what should we do to change the system? They say less police and more free stuff for people.
“Free public transportation, living wages and quality housing would be better responses to these issues than increased policing,” the article argued.
The cops can’t win. If something bad happens, we blame the officers. But if their presence leads to positive change, we chalk the win up to other factors.
Give us a freaking break.
“When you’re having a problem, you call the police, when you are the problem, you blame the police and that’s exactly what they’re doing,” Tatum said. “Police officers have become the scapegoat of everybody’s problems.”
Instead of blaming the criminals for committing crimes, we’re blaming those who enforce the laws that were created by elected leaders.
What a ridiculous statement that is when you think about it… but it couldn’t be further from the truth. We task our police with upholding the law and keeping our streets safe. They don’t get to decide what’s illegal and what isn’t.
We elect the leaders. They create the laws. And we tell the cops to enforce them.
But sure… let’s blame the police for everything.
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