Finally, America has an Attorney General who “gets it”.
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Finally, America has an Attorney General who “gets it”. In this video address, Atty. Gen. Eric Holder unveils his new plan to scale back the widening gulf of disproportionate impact of America’s punitive and unfair criminal justice policies on minorities relative to their white counterparts.
First, he laid out the worrisome statistics:
“A recent study reported that half of African-American men have been arrested at least once by age 23. Overall, black men were six times, and Latino men were 2.5 times, more likely to be imprisoned than white men in 2012. It’s overrepresentation of young men of color in our criminal justice system is a problem that we must confront, not only as an issue of individual responsibility, but also as one of fundamental fairness.”
Then, he unveiled his solution:
“We are heeding the President’s call. This month, the Justice Department is launching a new initiative – the National Center for Building Community Trust and Justice – to analyze and reduce the effect of racial bias within the criminal justice system. The Center will be funded through an initial competitive grant award totaling $4.75 million and is jointly supported by the Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs, the COPS Office, the Civil Rights Division, the Office on Violence Against Women, and the Community Relations Service. This effort will encompass a broad range of areas in which fairness and trust can come in to question – from stops and searches to wrongful convictions.”
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Of course, to be successful in reducing both the experience and the perception of bias, we must have verifiable data about the problem. As a key part of this initiative, we will work with grant recipients and local law enforcement to collect data about stops and searches, arrests, and case outcomes in order to help assess the impact of possible bias. We will conduct this research while simultaneously implementing strategies in five initial pilot sites with the goal of reducing the role of bias and building confidence in the justice system among young people of color. This work will likely include anti-gang and mentoring projects intended to empower young African-American and Latino males and break the vicious cycle of poverty, incarceration, and crime that destroys too many promising futures each and every day.”
This post originally appeared at Occupy Democrats. Reprinted with permission.
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Photo: AP/J. Scott Applewhite
“Overall, black men were six times, and Latino men were 2.5 times, more likely to be imprisoned than white men in 2012.”
“the Office on Violence Against Women”
There’s more than one way to close the gap.
Seriously? Eric Holder is being held up as a paragon of virtue? Eric Holder?! ?
This is just bald faced shilling at this point. Those buckets have to be getting HEAVY.