While I’ve always been against the militarization of U.S. police forces, and in favor of more transparency, accountability and civilian oversight, I have to confess that I’ve never taken calls to “defund the police” very seriously. When, in the past, I’ve heard people say that we should abolish the police, I’ve thought that they were […]
Tag Archives: prison industrial complex
It’s not as catchy of a slogan, but “Let’s Incentivize Communities to Start Creatively Shrinking Police Forces, Collecting Data on What Works and What Doesn’t, and Go from There”
Members of the Ypsilanti community talk with city officials about living in fear of the police and how we can work together to make things better
Following are my extremely rough, admittedly incomplete notes on tonight’s meeting of the Ypsilanti Police-Community Relations / Black Lives Matter Joint Task Force. If you were also in the audience, and have something to add, please leave a comment. And, of course, feel free to weigh in on whatever you read below. As you’ll soon […]
Bestselling author Shaka Senghor on redemption and atonement, the making of the Commie High documentary, and civil rights attorney Dick Soble… on this weekend’s edition of the Saturday Six Pack
On this Saturday’s show, we’ll be joined by Shaka Senghor, the author of the New York Times bestseller Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison. A recent Detroit-based fellow at MIT’s Media Lab, Senghor was released from prison in 2010, after serving 19 years for second-degree murder, a crime which he […]
Will Potter on the existence of secret prisons in America
On episode 26 of the Saturday Six Pack, I spoke at length with journalist Will Potter, formerly of the Chicago Tribune, about his work to bring the criminalization of free speech to light in post-9/11 America. Well, as you may recall, Potter, who is now a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, mentioned during […]
Disturbing video surfaces of Davontae Sanford being forcefully subdued by prison guards at the age of 16
Yesterday the folks at the Huffington Post released a gut-wrenching expose on the treatment of kids sentenced to adult prison in Michigan. The report, titled Cruel and All-Too-Usual, begins with a graphic video accompanied by the following warning. Warning: The following video, obtained by The Huffington Post, shows the rough treatment of a minor by […]