If justice means locking away tens of thousands of Americans who have been systematically marginalized, denied equal rights and opportunities, and subjected to abhorrent discrimination in matters of housing, education, and employment, then we’ve got the right attorney general in office to carry it out. And if justice means punishing people who are struggling to feed their families, living in crippling poverty, or suffering from the acute pain of addiction, rather then helping them live in dignity, than we’ve also got the right man for the job. But if this is not your idea of justice, then it’s time to tell Jeff Sessions that you don’t buy his lies or support his vision.
Sessions claims tough-on-crime policies are needed to make our communities safe, yet these same policies popular in the 80’s and 90’s failed to reduce crime and recidivism and wasted millions in taxpayer dollars. Reinstituting mandatory minimum sentencing for people who commit low-level, non-violent crimes will not make us safe, but it will perpetuate and extend an egregious pattern of disproportionately locking away people of color in our country.
Some of these non-violent offenders will be sentenced to the harshest punishment in the land short of execution, regardless of the desperate circumstances that led to many of their crimes. A 2013 ACLU report found that 3,278 people were languishing in prison without the chance of parole for small offenses like shoplifting a $159 jacket from a department store or selling miniscule amounts of illegal drugs.
Take, for instance, the case of Fate Vincent Winslow. Winslow is 50 year-old Black man currently serving a life sentence for acting as a go-between in the sale of two small bags of marijuana worth $10. He was homeless when an undercover police officer arrested him in 2008. Winslow will spend the rest of his days in jail because of Louisiana’s four-strikes law, which counted decades-old, non-violent prior convictions against him. He spends his days waiting to die in prison, while the White man involved in the sale, who was never even arrested, lives free. An estimated 65% of those permanently torn away from their families are Black like Winslow.
Here in New Mexico, Governor Susana Martinez is marching lock in step with the same outdated, tough-on-crime policies that have failed to increase public safety while managing to produce new inequities and injustices for the state’s most vulnerable people.
Here in New Mexico, Governor Susana Martinez is marching lock in step with the same outdated, tough-on-crime policies that have failed to increase public safety while managing to produce new inequities and injustices for the state’s most vulnerable people.
She recently vetoed House Bill 175, which would have prevented inmates under the age of 18 as well as inmates who are pregnant or mentally ill from being placed in solitary confinement. She insisted it was for the safety of corrections officers and inmates.
But how does locking prisoners away for up to 24 hours a day in cells with no natural light protect them? Research shows that prisoners endure extreme suffering under these conditions including chronic depression, self-mutilation, decreased brain function, hallucinations, and suicidal thoughts. What’s more, the vast majority of the 80,000 people kept in solitary in this country are mentally ill or cognitively disabled and their conditions are severely worsened in isolation.
The overuse of solitary confinement actually endangers the wellbeing of inmates and the safety of the general public, as most prisoners in solitary will eventually be released back into society with heightened aggression and mental instability.
Martinez and Sessions are cut from the same outdated cloth. They both want to keep our communities mired in the same discriminatory criminal justice system that has failed to increase public safety, ignored the root causes of crime, and made the country’s most marginalized people more vulnerable. And they both rely on the same empty scare tactics that fly in the face of evidence.
The ACLU of New Mexico believes it high time to bury the criminal justice failures of the past and institute a new system that holds offenders accountable in smart, fair, and cost-effective ways. More importantly, we must provide people access to social services, such as behavioral health and substance abuse treatment programs, that address some of the root causes of crime. If we do this then we reclaim the true meaning of justice - as fairness and dignity for all people - that should be at the heart of the criminal justice system.
