Activists and Artists Call for Criminal Justice Reform

Giving Compass' Take:

• At the Apollo Theatre, artists and activists took to the stage during the "At What Cost" event to call for criminal justice reform. They shed light on the rate at which people of color are being arrested and incarcerated for years because they cannot afford to make bail. 

• One activist talks about how individuals that want to help should become public prosecutors instead of public defenders to have a better chance at making change and disrupting the current system. 

• Read about programs striving to reduce recidivism rates and unemployment of incarcerated individuals. 

Though it accounts for just 5% of the world’s population, the United States holds 25% of the planet’s incarcerated people in its jails and prisons. Nearly half a million of those people have not even been convicted of a crime yet, but they remain in detention for days, weeks, or even years because they cannot afford to make bail.

People living in poverty and people of color — often overlapping demographics in the US — are arrested and incarcerated at disproportionate rates, perpetuating a cycle of struggle that not only changes the lives of those incarcerated but dramatically impacts the lives of their loved ones and communities.

“If we don’t all get together as a team to try to make a change … we’re going to keep hearing the same stories, seeing the same activities, and getting the same results,” Geneva Reed-Veal — whose daughter Sandra Bland was found dead in her jail cell in 2015, days after being arrested for a traffic violation — said during a panel at the event.

“We need to start being honest about what bail is and what it is not,” Adam Foss, a criminal justice reform advocate and former assistant district attorney. Foss added that the system was created as a collateral system for the court to ensure people show up for their court dates, but has become “another way for the government to incarcerate people and break their backs.”

Foss highlighted a need for better public prosecutors, who have immense power over the kinds of crimes that get prosecuted and the level of bail that is set for those crimes. He pointed out that many young lawyers who want to protect the rights of those involved in the criminal justice system become public defenders, when they could have equal if not greater influence over change as public prosecutors.