Rep. Ayanna Pressley Unveils Sweeping Plan To Reshape American Legal System
Under the proposal, localities would be incentivized to significantly decrease prison populations.
Democratic Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts unveiled a sweeping resolution today calling for state and local governments to decrease prison populations, abolish cash bail, and end the system of charging people fines and fees to fund local court systems, among a host of other proposals.
Pointing to the scale, racial disparities, costs, and harms of the United States’s vast prison system, Pressley’s resolution lays out dozens of concrete proposals that would result in a smaller prison system and would allow for more alternatives like diversion and restorative justice programs. The resolution, which she is calling The People’s Justice Guarantee, would redefine the national debate on criminal justice in the same ways the Green New Deal is intended to shape discussion of climate change.
“The criminal legal system is racist, xenophobic, rogue, and fundamentally flawed beyond reform,” Pressley told reporters on a call Wednesday. “It must be dismantled and radically transformed through a large-scale decarceration effort.”
In recent years, localities across the country have worked to dismantle mass incarceration by electing progressive prosecutors and passing reforms, like the end of mandatory minimums and cash bail. Pressley’s proposal would extend that momentum as the most comprehensive, progressive vision for reform on the federal level.
https://theappeal.org/rep-ayanna-pressley-unveils-sweeping-plan-to-reshape-american-criminal-legal-system/
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