Why It's Time to Repeal the Infamous 1994 Crime Bill | Opinions | NowThis скачать в хорошем качестве

Why It's Time to Repeal the Infamous 1994 Crime Bill | Opinions | NowThis

‘Putting more people in prison hasn’t made us safer’ — Congressional candidate Jamaal Bowman wants to repeal a 25-year-old crime bill that sacrificed communities of color to a radical expansion of mass incarceration. » Subscribe to NowThis: http://go.nowth.is/News_Subscribe » Sign up for our newsletter KnowThis to get the biggest stories of the day delivered straight to your inbox: https://go.nowth.is/KnowThis In US news and current events today, congressional candidate Jamaal Bowman sat down with NowThis News to talk about Bill Clinton's 1994 crime bill and the effects it's had on the criminal justice system, mass incarceration, and more. Bowman: It’s now been 25 years since the 1994 crime bill. It’s time to repeal it. And it’s abundantly clear -- putting more people in prison hasn’t made us safer. What it has done is decimate communities of color and ripped families and communities like mine apart. The 1994 crime bill was written by a bunch of politicians who wanted to show that they were ‘tough on crime.’ So they passed mandatory minimums and tougher sentences, three strikes and you’re out laws, and many more arrests for drug offenses. The bill gave states billions of dollars to build more prisons, and keep people in prison longer. The result -- the crime bill has filled our nation’s prisons and jails with our fellow Americans – most of them black or Latino. We spent and keep spending billions of dollars on incarceration and enforcement, instead of prevention. In the 1990s, politicians -- Democrats and Republicans -- literally supported cuts to welfare and social services while building more prisons as a response to poverty and disinvestment in communities of color. We’re still living with the consequences today. We were building more prisons at a time when we needed better schools, libraries, and community centers in places like the Bronx, and Yonkers and Mount Vernon. It was just a few years after the Central Park 5 Case. I was a teenager. And as a young black man living in New York, I remember very well when Donald Trump bought full-page ads in the city’s newspapers calling for the death penalty for my young brothers. I’ve been an educator for the last 20 years, and a principal in the Northeast Bronx for the past ten years. And I’m running for Congress in New York’s 16th District. My opponent – Eliot Engel – helped pass the 1994 crime bill. It’s definitely time to repeal it. For over a decade, I’ve worked directly with the people most impacted by mass incarceration. As an educator and principal — you see the impact on children and their families everyday. How can you concentrate in school when your father, sister, aunt, or brother is locked up because they can’t afford bail? How can you focus on learning, when you have to walk through metal detectors, and when there are more police officers in your school than counselor? Can a child truly thrive when her school resembles a police state? One of the things the ’94 crime bill did was put more police officers in schools – directly funding what’s known as the school to prison pipeline. Black and brown families were overpoliced in our communities, and now overpoliced in our schools, too. That’s why I decided to open my own school, and do things differently. The Cornerstone Academy for Social Action is a middle school in the North Bronx, located in a historically oppressed community that’s been impacted by racist policies like redlining, disinvestment, and the ‘94 crime bill. We are a restorative justice school that educates the whole child. And we guide them toward becoming transformative agents of change in their own communities. Our former students have gone on to great trade schools and prestigious institutions like MIT, Cornell, and Howard university. We have conquered the school-to-prison pipeline. I’m proud of what we have done. But CASA is just the beginning. It’s just one school. If we want to cure our addiction to neglect and torture, we have to start at the top. We can’t rely on the same politicians who created our broken criminal justice system to be the ones to fix it. We need leadership that reflects our communities and our experiences. #Crime #CrimeBill #incarceration #Politics #Opinions #News #NowThis #NowThisNews Connect with NowThis » Like us on Facebook: http://go.nowth.is/News_Facebook » Tweet us on Twitter: http://go.nowth.is/News_Twitter » Follow us on Instagram: http://go.nowth.is/News_Instagram » Find us on Snapchat Discover: http://go.nowth.is/News_Snapchat NowThis is your premier news outlet providing you with all the videos you need to stay up to date on all the latest in trending news. From entertainment to politics, to viral videos and breaking news stories, we’re delivering all you need to know straight to your social feeds. We live where you live.    / nowthisnews   @nowthisnews