unburdened by what has been

Harris faces calls to address mass incarceration, drop prosecutor vs. ["]criminal["] line , 1 Aug

More than 160 leaders directly [affect]ed by incarceration and criminalization have sent a letter to Vice President Harris calling on her to create a campaign platform plank that addresses mass incarceration.

STAINS, no apology, no accident

"First, we believe you have been and will be a criminal justice reform leader. And, also, words like "criminal" and "felon" paint with a broad brush that stains more than 70 million Americans with criminal records including the one-in-three Black men who have felony convictions," the letter reads.

50% attrition over 16 years, or 3 POTUS admins and 8 sessions of congresses

[...]
Though the total number of people incarcerated has dropped significantly [fed, state, county, municipal?] since the 2008 peak of almost 2.4 million people

Together, these systems hold over 1.9 million [yeah US!] people in 1,566 state prisons, 98 federal prisons, 3,116 local jails, 1,323 juvenile correctional facilities, 142 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian [sic] country jails, as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories—at a system-wide cost of at least $182 billion each year.

, according to FWD.us, a bipartisan political organization [eNTiTy] focused on reforming the criminal justice and immigration systems. Mass incarceration and the subsequent consequences disproportionately affect black and brown Americans.

Over-Incarceration Hurts Us All
America's criminal justice system locks up too many people for too long, preventing millions of Americans from reaching their full potential.
...
2.2 million Americans are currently behind bars. Over-incarceration causes lifelong damage, especially in communities of color.
...
On any given day, there are more than 1.5 million people behind bars in state or federal prisons in the United States.

Harris, who was an attorney general and a prosecutor. She has leaned into [her] history since she announced her bid candidacy for the presidency last week.

"Before I was [s]elected as vice president, before I was elected as United States senator, I was the elected attorney general, as I've mentioned, of California. And before that, I was a courtroom prosecutor," Harris at a campaign event in Wilmington, Del., the day after President ["We love you, Joe"] Biden announced he was dropping out and endorsed her.

"In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds—predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So, hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump's type,"

wut

But the letter argues that Harris can hold Trump accountable for his conduct and the impact of his actions and policy proposals without the "outdated fear-mongering" rhetoric that "dehumanizes us and opens the door to the ridicule and slander that has long plagued us since the < wipes tears > Black Codes."

Equity Now!
< wipes tears >