QUOTES
“Society
has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away
people.”
“Our
justice system is one of the few unaccountable systems in the country. It doesn’t
make decisions based on best practices…or in the best interest of the young people
and families involved. As a result, there is a 70 percent recidivism rate. The
decision makers can administer this misery and not take any responsibility for
the outcome.”
If
you want to address racial disparity in the juvenile justice system, everybody
has to have a role in it. Everybody has some responsibility."
We
live in a country that is addicted to incarceration as a tool for social control.
As it stands now justice systems are extremely expensive, do not rehabilitate
but in fact make the people that experience them worse and have no evidence based
correlatives to reducing crime. Yet with that track record they continue to thrive,
prosper and are seen as an appropriate response to children in trouble with the
law. Only an addict would see that as an okay result.
There
is a multi-headed, multi-tentacled monster out there devouring blacks who live
in certain neighborhoods. Incarceration is just one aspect of this menace, but
it is an overwhelmingly damaging aspect. Our job, in working to achieve fairness
and equity, is to sound the alarm about the unjust criminal justice system and
demand that our leaders and those in power act now to halt this destructive, unfair
treatment of our brothers and sisters, especially of our children.
Together
we must challenge individuals, communities, cities, counties, regions, states,
and the nation to be accountable for the outcomes of the justice systems at every
level of government.
