Daily Archives: January 19, 2021

INDIANAPOLISRep. Carolyn Jackson spent 30 years as a probation officer at the Cook County Adult Probation Department.

Now her experience informs her legislation. In House Bill 1128, Jackson, D-Hammond, calls for mental health checks for police officers. She was emotional as she said a friend was shot on duty.

They came back to work after a couple of days and, and everybody seemed to think that he was OK, but as it turned out, he was not OK, Jackson said. And, you know, things just kind of spiraled out of control.

The bill requires the Indiana Law Enforcement Training Board, which oversees the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy, to establish a psychological fitness test, which officers would be given following potentially traumatic events.

A lot of times, they dont want to come out and say, You know what, Im really hurting, or, This is really bothering me, and sometimes you dont know, Jackson said. And theyre suffering. And not only are they suffering, but those individuals around them are suffering as well because they dont know how to deal with it.

This is just one of many bills being introduced this session involving policing in Indiana. Other members of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus are introducing legislation along with Republican lawmakers and former police officers.

In a separate bill, Jackson, who serves as the chaplain of the Black Legislative Caucus, hopes to establish a database of police misconduct. It would give police departments background information on officers in order to prevent departments from unknowingly hiring officers with a history of malpractice, Jackson said. She said officers often resign upon committing a fireable offense, and without shared information between departments, the officer can be easily hired to a new agency.

What if there is no way for another law enforcement department to know that these different things have transpired, that you have this long record of doing things? Jackson said. Then they think you are the greatest person to hire because you have experience, you have training, and you have a lot of quantifications behind you.

Jackson said that when an individuals history of misconduct is revealed, supervisors say they had no knowledge of the offenses because the officer was at a different department. This database would not only protect citizens, Jackson said, but protect police departments from hiring incapable officers.

Rep. John Bartlett, D-Indianapolis, also a member of the Black Legislative Caucus, authored another bill requiring Indiana State Police oversight in cases of excessive use of force.

So if a local policeman shoots someone, he doesnt go before his buddies and they say, No, it was justifiable, Bartlett said. I want the state standard to be set, and I dont care if you live in a small town or a big city, in a rural community, urban community. Everyone goes before the same commission, and everyone has to abide by the same rules.

Bartlett denounced the idea of defunding the police, an approach that has gained support in some cities in the wake of the George Floyd killing in 2020.

I tell the folks in my district, thats not what you want to do. Defunding the police, thats not an answer, he said. We need to do some fine-tuning with the police.

Bartlett said more energy needs to be focused on decreasing the number of homicides in Marion County.

We need to take a long hard look at ourselves, and its that time, Bartlett said. We ended up with 255 murders in Marion County. And we marched in protest because the police kill one person. One person is wrong, and Im not downplaying that.

The person Bartlett referred to is 21-year-old Dreasjon Reed, who was shot in May 2020 after being pursued by police for reckless driving. The incident was partially caught on Facebook Live. IMPD found a weapon at the scene and believe it belonged to Reed. Bartlett publicly denounced Reeds murder.

Its now time that we begin to look at not only the police but look at ourselves as well, he said.

Bartlett said he is hosting town halls to find the solution to this problem. At 72 years old, he said things have changed since his youth, and he wants to sit down and take notes from citizens on how crime can be decreased in Indianapolis.

Some advocates dont believe reform is enough

Jessica Louise, a community organizer for Indy Ten BLM, said the group pushed for mental health checks for officers before transitioning their goal from reform to defunding as a means to abolish the police. She said this would consist of pulling money from police department funding and using it for community projects and services with the goal of eventually disbanding police departments.

I think the legislation is just one piece of the puzzle, Louise said. Legislation can offer itself more to reform that abolition, and were students and studiers of abolition.

Working off the idea that people commit crime because their basic needs havent been met, Louise said working to address these needs would decrease criminal activity in the city.

Our hope is to reallocate any funding that comes into community initiatives that serve peoples basic needs, and as that happens, study and watch the level of activity and police response, and then utilize that to push forward with abolition, Louise said.

The national Black Lives Matter website does not discuss abolition, but does prioritize defunding police.

Initially, her organization sought reform.

Seven years ago, under former Indiana Metropolitan Police Department Chief Rick Hite and former Indianapolis Mayor Gregory Ballard, Louise said the group called for cultural competency and implicit bias training along with mental health checks for officers.

We attempted to be consistent with those suggestions, she said. We took them to two organizations as well as the chief of police and the mayor at the time, and those arent things that they found to be of benefit or that they wanted to devote their energy to.

A recent example cited by Louise was the police killing of 19-year-old McHale Rose in Indianapolis in May 2020. IMPD Chief Randal Taylor ordered the four IMPD officers involved returned to duty after being placed on administrative leave for three months.

Chief Taylor had an opportunity to navigate that process with more grace than he has, and he chose not to, Louise said.

A separate bill that would require de-escalation training, make chokeholds illegal in most instances and have mandatory record-sharing between departments passed unanimously in a House committee Tuesday.

The bill was authored by Rep. Greg Steuerwald, R-Avon, and co-authored by three other legislators, including Robin Shackleford, D-Indianapolis, chair of the Black Legislative Caucus. In testimony before the committee, the lawmakers said they aim to use reform measures to build trust between police officers and their communities.

However, Louise said its too late for police departments to gain trust.

Weve had to shift our energy from reform again to defunding and abolition, she said. Unfortunately, that trust is gone, and every opportunity that theyve had to rebuild that trust and every opportunity theyve had to build transparency and accountability, theyve shied away from.

Jackson said that a lot of the legislation introduced for police reform isnt new, but a summer of protests and discussions with their constituents highlighted that it is overdue.

Republican lawmakers are seeing state oversight of IMPD

With Indianapolis hitting a high in homicides with 245 killings in 2020, former police officer Sen. Jack Sandlin, R-Indianapolis, introduced legislation to create an advisory board over the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. Sen. Aaron Freeman, R-Indianapolis, is a former member of the Indianapolis City-County Council and is also an author of the bill. The bill has 10 Republican co-authors.

Sandlin, a former councilman, said the bill came about because he saw no action plan from IMPD or the City-County Council.

Something bold needs to happen to address the crime and violence and the response to the police morale, Sandlin said.

The five-person board would consist of Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett and four members appointed by Gov. Eric Holcomb. The board would appoint a police chief, serve as the merit board, and create and execute rules for the department.

Bartlett called this idea crazy.

If youve got a flat tire, you dont get rid of the car. You change the tire, he said. Instead, he said the Indianapolis City-County Council should continue to oversee the department.

In a press release, Rep. Cherrish Pryor, D-Indianapolis, a member of the Black Legislative Caucus, said this was an attack by Republicans in an attempt to gain control of the local government in Indianapolis and encouraged the Indiana General Assembly to instead focus on passing criminal justice reform bills.

Sandlin said he didnt want to create government oversight of IMPD, but he has been getting calls from people in the community, businesses and law enforcement officers telling him something needs to be done.

I spent a career in policing. I think I grasp the concepts and whats going on, and I hate it that were here, Sandlin said. But, you know, theres really nothing going on to address the issues.

Sandlin said the appointment of the police chief by the board, rather than by the mayor of Indianapolis, would remove political aspects of the job. Under the current state and city leadership, members appointed by Holcomb, who is a Republican, would be serving on the board with Hogsett, who is a Democrat.

There are some agencies in the U.S. where they appoint a police chief for a determined period of time and then that chief can be removed only for cause, which eliminates some of the political nuances that go on in policing, he said.

Louise said its troubling that the Republican Party, which typically advocates for smaller government, is advocating for extending state government to a city police department.

It kind of seems ironic that, now that we have two civilian majority boards, that now theyre wanting to step in and take that power from, you know, civilians and community members, and give it to the state, she said.

Sandlin said the board would still allow the current Citizens Police Complaint Board to operate and that members of the board would be primarily selected out of the City-County Council.

If you have a board thats working toward the professional operation of the Metropolitan Police Department and makeup such that it represents the community, Sandlin said, I think you have the opportunity for better communication and less nuts-and-bolts political influence.

Sandlin emphasized he hopes this change will increase communication between law enforcement and the Indianapolis community.

We used to have great communication between law enforcement and in the community, and its just almost nonexistent at this point, Sandlin said.

Sandlin repeatedly acknowledged that the bill is not necessarily in its final form and modifications may come. If signed into law, the changes would begin in 2023.

Taylor Wooten is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

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Following a year filled with racial tension, 2021 could be time for criminal justice reform in Indiana - Washington Times Herald

The legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. carries special meaning today as our nation wrestles with the unthinkable acts carried about by a violent, conspiratorial mob opposed to foundational elements of our democracy. Dr. King understood that, in spite of the challenges America faces, the most patriotic thing we can do is one day rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.

Dr. King recognized that Americas founding principles are so profound that, if you look at every great cause in our history abolition, womens suffrage, the Civil Rights movement he led, and beyond you see that each great stride toward justice came from an appeal to those ideals.

Governance in this country must be aimed at realizing these principles. As legislators, we are tasked with carrying forward Dr. Kings work and doing just that securing justice, bringing about the common good and, in particular, preserving the essential dignity of the human soul. That dignity rests on three elements: access to a loving family and rich community; a nourishing faith that keeps us connected with God; and economic opportunity to provide for ourselves and others through safe, decent work.

At this moment, those ideals may seem quaint and even naive, but we cannot allow the most insidious actors white supremacists, armed militia groups, and dangerous, conspiracy-driven groups like QAnon to determine Americas future. Instead, that task falls to those of us who share Dr. Kings vision and pursuit of what he called the Beloved Community.

The success of our shared future depends, in large part, on American children growing up in stable, two-parent households, with flourishing neighborhoods waiting for them just outside their doorstep. This must not be limited by race or zip code.

Human dignity is also predicated on our freedom to practice our faiths as dictated by our conscience. As a Baptist minister, Dr. King understood the greater Christian context in which his work took place, which, when properly acted out, eagerly seeks to overturn injustice. All men and women are equal as children of God born with rights endowed to them by their creator, not their politicians and America as a nation must reflect that.

And to do so, we must also recognize the importance of maintaining our connection with the almighty and our freedom of religion for Americans of all spiritual backgrounds. Runaway secularism leaves us adrift, deprived of guiding values and vital notions of forgiveness or mercy in our disputes. The gnashing of our culture wars grows all the more frenzied, our political fights uglier. To invoke Dr. King, (t)he old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding. ... It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible.

And, in particular, policymakers must recognize that human dignity today is contingent on opportunity, especially when it comes to work. As Dr. King repeatedly noted, all forms of labor have dignity. That dignity cannot be reserved for those on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley. Fair wages, strong benefits, and general stability must be available to sanitation workers and metalworkers, teachers and cashiers alike.

For far too long, too many in our government ignored that fundamental truth. Recognizing this mistake, we should strive to preserve and extend that dignity to those who have suffered from reduced economic opportunity through short-term decision-making. As political and corporate elites chose to hollow out and offshore Americas industrial base to China, millions of Americans were left stripped of their vocation and ability to provide as a result.

That process of deindustrialization has affected Americans all across the country. But as factories shut down in places like Chicago, Baltimore and Detroit, neighborhoods of color were among the hardest hit hard right as they were beginning to feel the economic gains of the Civil Rights era. Realizing Dr. Kings vision of the Beloved Community will require recognizing the challenges facing Americas families, places of worship, and workers today and committing to substantive action to fix them.

Ultimately, we must remember that America is not a government, or a president, or a Congress. America is something much larger something much more tangible and intimate. It is your family, your congregation, and your community. And this is what Dr. King understood so well: that our pursuit of a more perfect Union requires unity and recognizing the inherent dignity in all Americans in that endeavor.

Marco Rubio, a Republican, is the senior U.S. senator from Florida.

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Dr. Kings message is more important today than ever | Column - Tampa Bay Times

The past year saw a major uprising across the United States as people mobilized against racist state violence in the wake of George Floyds killing by police in Minneapolis in May. Drawing on a divest/invest framework that abolitionists have been using for years, defund the police became a common demand at protests. The demand is a first step toward abolishing the prison-industrial complex by dismantling its infrastructure and shifting resources toward things people need like food, housing and community-based safety practices. From an abolitionist perspective, the events in the U.S. Capitol on January 6th have only made it clearer why more policing does not equate to more security: From their foundation, the police have always been on the side of white supremacy.

Woods Ervin, communications director of Critical Resistance, a nationwide abolitionist organization founded in 1997 by a group that included Angela Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore, put it this way: The way that the prison industrial complex (PIC) is pitched is a one-size-fits-all model to address a variety of kinds of concerns that actually require specialized attention attention that doesnt involve bringing in more punishment, more violence, or removing people from those communities, which is what the PIC does.

Abolition is not about standardizing, points out Miski Noor, co-director of Black Visions in Minneapolis. Abolition is liberating precisely because it is not homogenous and is not a pre-designed program. Imagination plays a big role and therefore is not necessarily easily mass marketed.

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But abolition is also a broader concept, encompassing the abolition of borders and imperialism, systems of social control including foster care and many kinds of social work, and the erasure of the concept of criminality itself. Everything has to change in order for us to actually realize abolition because so much of how we live is embedded in punishment systems, says PG Watkins with 313Liberation Zone and the Green Light Black Futures coalition in Detroit.

Recent comments made by former president Barack Obama and other Democrats claim that the call to defund the police does not have enough appeal or power. Speaking to activists reveals how much these comments miss the point. The movement to defund the police is making a constant and explicit commitment to center the people who are most impacted by policing and, in particular, those who Noor refers to as having been failed over and over again. The movements approach brings the margin to the center, putting into practice threads of Black feminist theory and traditions of Black liberation in which the abolitionist movement is rooted.

Unfazed by establishment Democrats opposition, organizers in cities across the country are working actively on a wide variety of abolitionist projects. Some are experimental, like Black Visions Transformative Black-led Movement Fund, which is redistributing resources they received after the uprising in Minneapolis. Noor sees the fund as a way to till the soil and invest in an ecosystem of arts and culture and organizing and power-building to recover from the divestment that has harmed Black communities and Black people. Money is being distributed to healers, organizers, artists, Black businesses building community wealth, and mutual and legal aid initiatives, to name a few. In Minneapolis and other cities, projects include defunding the police, working on emergency releases from COVID-infested prisons, taking chunks out of the prison-industrial complex like life sentences without parole, creating cop-free zones, and embodying and building up other practices of abolition in their communities, including critically centering voices usually left out of political conversations.

Although organizers have been working on divestment campaigns for years, there is new energy behind efforts to reduce policing budgets. Noor characterizes the difference as exciting because all of this years proposed budgets in the city are more than what activists felt they could demand just two years ago.

In Chicago, the city just wrapped up its budget process with the mayors budget which did not substantially shift funding away from the police passing by only a small margin, thanks to the efforts of the defund movement. This is historic, because the budget vote is typically a process of rubber stamping the mayors agenda, according to Asha Ransby-Sporn, a member of the Black Abolitionist Network and the steering committee of Defund CPD.

What we certainly have won is a great deal of people over to our side when it comes to not just defunding the police, but also connecting that to other issues that affect Black and Brown, and poor and working people in the city, Ransby-Sporn says, citing a recent city-sponsored survey where an overwhelming 87 percent of Chicago residents said they wanted to reallocate money away from the police and move it to other city services. Highlighting that its not all about austerity, Ransby-Sporn says Democratic mayor Lori Lightfoot has threatened council members with divesting from city services in wards where council members voted to divest from the police.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., organizers aim to cut the citys policing budget in half over the next three years, while looking to increase taxes on the rich.

Our agenda for next year is really going to be about ways to make sure that our state governments and our social safety nets do not go bankrupt and that were not tightening budgets in ways that are going to hurt the Black people in the working class, Makia Green, an organizer with an autonomous chapter of Black Lives Matter and the Working Families Party, says. Black Lives Matter DC is also focused on supporting public campaign financing so that regular people can run for office, like Janeese Lewis George, who just won a seat on the D.C. city council on a defund platform.

In Detroit, the budget cycle is coming up in 2021 and a major goal, according to PG Watkins, will be to make the defund demand real. Organizers are targeting not only the police themselves but also the surveillance program Project Greenlight, which has posted cameras at just under 700 local businesses, residential buildings, clinics, and other places in the community. The program provides real-time camera surveillance to the Detroit police department in exchange for preferential police response time.

Kamau Walton, a member of Critical Resistance, says its clear that defunding will be a multi-year push in most places. Walton says Critical Resistances role is to support strategic planning and other needs as activists continue to push for defunding nationally.

Divestment, Walton says, is about chipping away at the reach of the PIC in communities. Abolitionists sometimes refer to practices of chipping away as non-reformist reforms, or changes that get the movement closer to abolition instead of reforms that simply make policing seem more palatable to those who are not really affected by it.

Ervin with Critical Resistance highlights that organizing for releases is at the top of the list for 2021, because its such a red alarm emergency. COVID, of course, makes the already toxic conditions in the prison even more dangerous. They point out that theres been a surprising lack of releases, even from high-powered Democratic governors like Gavin Newsom (California), Andrew Cuomo (New York) and Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan) who have received a lot of praise for how they have handled the pandemic.

In California, Aminah Elster with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) says the group is engaged in this urgent effort to push for releases as well as several efforts to change sentencing and improve conditions within prisons. One key effort is ending life without parole which in the state of California is essentially a death sentence.

At the national level, the Peoples Coalition for Safety and Freedom seeks to repeal the 1994 Crime Bill, co-written by President-elect Joe Biden, and to replace it with legislation written by people in communities most directly affected by the bill. They describe this as a revolutionary process of peoples movement assemblies through which people will propose and implement their own solutions at the policy level rather than having legislative solutions prescribed by those who sit outside of their (harmful) impacts, including an acknowledgement of wrongdoing in the original 94 Crime Bill.

Watkins from Green Light Black Futures says that for organizers, a major goal for 2021 is to normalize abolition. Defund the police is a launching point to discuss and deepen organizing against all the ways that the prison industrial complex organizes and targets people on the street, in the prisons, in social services, and through the very ways our lives our organized.

Abolitionists often thread their policy proposals, plans and analyses with the principles of care and love. When Makia Green talked about defunding police in D.C. the city with the highest police per capita they talked about how such a change would decrease the number of interactions their younger cousins have with police and stop them from being pushed into the prison system. In particular, abolitionists prioritize deep care and respect for the people who are often forgotten, marginalized, invisible and most directly harmed by the police and the prison industrial complex.

The core of Black Visions mission is to show this love by making Black queer and trans people and their experiences visible so they can receive the care they need and deserve. The organization actively holds space for queerness, for family, and for joy in the fullness of our humanity. Its about practicing the love and care now so that we can actually be in practice of it, so that we can create a world in which all of us can be free, Noor says.

Elster says CCWP is also working to wrap up our efforts to maintain communication with folks on the inside, and also fighting to make sure that they are not overlooked in this pandemic. The group is growing their pen pal training program since there is currently no in-person visitation, continuing their survival and release advocacy work, and raising money in response to COVID to help currently and formerly incarcerated people with their necessities.

We need to double up, on taking care of each other and creating things, says Watkins in Detroit, especially with the pandemic. They continue, I think part of the fight for abolition is showing people in real time, what types of systems of care we can create, and actually doing that experimentation in small- and large-scale ways. As an example, Watkins describes the 313Liberation Zone project, which has set up several police-free liberation zones in the middle of the city for several hours or days with music, cookouts, arts and crafts, community meetings, free stores and political education. They describe the 313Liberation Zone project as a way for Detroiters to be embodying liberation and practicing liberation in our spaces.

Abolitionist organizers want to turn this spark from last year into a fire, Ervin says. From California to Detroit, people are refocusing on the importance of political education as a tool to keep the momentum going from this summers uprisings. In Minneapolis, Black Visions has been holding Sunday Salons to answer questions about abolition, while Elster says shes really excited about the possibilities that may grow from the new coalitions that have formed this year with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners.

Ransby-Sporn says she believes political education is fundamental to building a base and growing a movement, because thats where you get people on the same page about what were actually fighting for. In political education spaces, we can work together to build a new common sense of how we think the world should look.

One reason there is so much investment in political education as local campaigns transition into 2021 is because they fear cooptation as the new Democratic administration enters the White House. Biden and Harris are actually well versed at being able to absorb radical movements, says Ervin, and emphasizes that activists need to be aware of this in our organizing. The new administration is expected to present false alternatives of 21st century policing 2.0, as Walton put it. Examples of these include body cameras and bias trainings, which only expand the resources being given to the PIC rather than shift resources away into community-controlled, noncarceral alternatives. Meanwhile, these initiatives do not deter the very things they aim to prevent; chokeholds were already banned in New York City when Eric Garner was murdered by the NYPD. Organizers and scholars have repeatedly shown such reformist reforms are ineffective at best.

Abolitionists remind us that the Black Lives Matter movement itself became necessary and began under the Obama/Biden administration. These activists are skeptical about the Biden/Harris administrations openness to non-reformist reforms. Regardless, organizers will continue to target city and state budgets, to demand non-policing resources that support communities in flourishing, and refuse to shrink their political imaginations. This movement is not backing off once Trump leaves the White House.

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The Movement to Defund the Police Won't Go Away When Biden Takes... - Truthout

By Richard A. Johnson III| Austin American-Statesman

Would the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. recognize the civil rights movement of today92 years after his birth, and more than 57 years after his famous I Have a Dream speech?

I dont believe he would. The just goals he fought for, equal opportunity for all and a color-blind society, have been set aside by modern critical race theorists, in favor of divisive identity politics and collective grievance.

The logical outcome of these progressive policies wont be the world King dreamed of where the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

It will instead be a dystopia not far removed from the reality that so deeply disappointed King, with segregation that is at once educational, societal and economic.

Let me explain.

Kings calls were for integration and justice. Separate was never equal, he knew. He also knew that integration wouldnt be easy.Segregation is a cancer in the body politic which must be removed before our moral and democratic health can be realized, he said in a speech at SMU in 1966.

And its here he loses the critical race theorists. They are in fact, advocating a new segregation. At Rice University, for example, some students are demanding a designated space for Black students to hold gatherings. The National Association of Scholars has a report detailing 173 colleges and universities acquiescing to similar demands for segregated centers, spaces and programs.

The quality of education is also becoming resegregated.In the San Diego public school district, where three-quarters of the students are non-white, critical race theory and its nom de guerre, anti-racism, arelowering the expectations for a generation of young learners.

Students there will no longer see their academic grades penalized for disrupting class, turning in work late or not turning it in at all. Those issues are reflected, instead, in students' "citizenship grades." But the real world requires punctuality and efficiency. These requirements should be reflected in academic standards.Without them, I fear that students will be put at a severe disadvantage.

The civil rights movement of today is also out of touch with justice. While the theorists calls for defunding and the outright abolition of the police, Black families dont agree. A full 81% of Blacks surveyed say they dont want fewer cops; some want an increased police presence to make their neighborhoods safer.

And these two demands of the new civil rights movement a separate and unequal education system, along with lawless neighborhoods to grow up in will lead to my third point, worsening economic segregation. When children of color cant compete in the job market, when businesses fear opening and operating in lawless neighborhoods, we will be further than ever from the mountaintop that Kingenvisioned.

My own life has been spent in the arena of civil rights. Ive seen much progress, and Ive seen some setbacks. But Ive never lost sight of the true goal: equality. Critical race theory threatens all that leaders like King achieved.

Johnson is the director of the Texas Public Policy Foundations Booker T. Washington Initiative, which examines the effects of public policy on African American communities.

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Two Views: Critical race theory threatens what King achieved - Austin American-Statesman