REPORT: AOC floats ‘prison abolition’ to end ‘American apartheid’
As the most reliable and balanced news aggregation service on the internet, DML News App offers the following information published by WASHINGTONEXAMINER.COM:
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the U.S. needs to start a “conversation about whether to abolish prisons in the country” to disentangle itself from a history of “American apartheid.”
“Mass incarceration is our American reality. It is a system whose logic evolved from the same lineage as Jim Crow, American apartheid, & slavery,” the New York Democrat said Monday on Twitter. “To end it, we have to change. That means we need to have a real conversation about decarceration & prison abolition in this country.”
The article goes on to state the following:
The freshman representative expanded on her comment, saying that the country needs to find “just alternatives to incarcerations.”
Over a series of tweets, Ocasio-Cortez explained her position:
“Mass incarceration is our American reality. It is a system whose logic evolved from the same lineage as Jim Crow, American apartheid, & slavery. To end it, we have to change.
“That means we need to have a real conversation about decarceration & prison abolition in this country. Yesterday morning I spoke with a woman who was thrown in Rikers as a teenager. Put in solitary confinement for MONTHS, aka torture. Force-fed pills. The conditions were so bad, she too had drank out of toilets. A cage is a cage is a cage. And humans don’t belong in them.”
Another series of tweets continued:
“I know the term ‘prison abolition’ is breaking some people’s brains. The right is already freaking out. Yet the US incarcerates more than anywhere in the world.
“We have more than enough room to close many of our prisons and explore just alternatives to incarceration.
“First of all, many people in jailed or in prison don’t belong there at all.
“Whether it’s punitive sentencing for marijuana possession or jailing people for their poverty & letting the rich free through systems like cash bail, we wrongly incarcerate far, far too many people.
“Secondly, our prison & jail system is so large bc we use them as de facto mental hospitals, homeless shelters, & detox centers instead of *actually* investing in… mental health, housing, edu, & rehab. If we invested meaningfully, what do you think would happen to crime?
“Lastly, people tend to say “what do you do with all the violent people?” as a defense for incarcerating millions.
“Our lawmaking process means we come to solutions together, &either way we should work to an end where our prison system is dramatically smaller than it is today.
Mass incarceration is our American reality. It is a system whose logic evolved from the same lineage as Jim Crow, American apartheid, & slavery.
To end it, we have to change.
That means we need to have a real conversation about decarceration & prison abolition in this country. https://t.co/9E9NTAmBNi
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 7, 2019
Yesterday morning I spoke with a woman who was thrown in Rikers as a teenager. Put in solitary confinement for MONTHS, aka torture. Force-fed pills.
The conditions were so bad, she too had drank out of toilets.
A cage is a cage is a cage. And humans don’t belong in them.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 7, 2019
I know the term “prison abolition” is breaking some people’s brains. The right is already freaking out.
Yet the US incarcerates more than anywhere in the world.
We have more than enough room to close many of our prisons and explore just alternatives to incarceration.
/1
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 7, 2019
First of all, many people in jailed or in prison don’t belong there at all.
Whether it’s punitive sentencing for marijuana possession or jailing people for their poverty & letting the rich free through systems like cash bail, we wrongly incarcerate far, far too many people.
/2
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 7, 2019
Secondly, our prison & jail system is so large bc we use them as de facto mental hospitals, homeless shelters, & detox centers instead of *actually* investing in… mental health, housing, edu, & rehab.
If we invested meaningfully, what do you think would happen to crime?
/3
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 7, 2019
Lastly, people tend to say “what do you do with all the violent people?” as a defense for incarcerating millions.
Our lawmaking process means we come to solutions together, &either way we should work to an end where our prison system is dramatically smaller than it is today.
/4
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 7, 2019
To get more information about this article, please visit WASHINGTONEXAMINER.COM. To weigh in, leave a comment below.
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