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Did you know that most of the people in our jails are innocent?
Under America's cash bail system, if you are rich, you’re innocent until proven guilty and you prepare for trial at home. If you aren't -- you're "innocent until proven guilty" -- but you're stuck in jail until trial, because you can't pay bail.
As @AriMelber points out: being in jail doesn't feel very innocent. It also hampers your ability to prepare a defense.
Most people in our jails are awaiting trial and ninety percent can't afford bail.
The system disproportionately discriminates against Black Americans, from how judges apply bail to higher poverty rates driving higher incarceration...
Most criminal cases never go to trial, and you can see why: if defendants are held in jail beforehand, losing their job and cutting them off from the outside world, with no money for a top lawyer, facing pressure to plea bargain against long odds...
Most take the plea deal. In a system that is tilted by race, studies show that Black defendants were 19 percent more likely than whites to be offered deals that included jail time.
When they are sentenced, Black Americans get more time for the same crime, especially on drug offenses that have so clogged our system.
. @AriMelber: "take it all together and they end up imprisoned at over five times the rate of white Americans."
While those shocking police brutality videos are important, they are just the most violent and shocking part of a wider system that is harder to catch on video and harder to show to America.
Many have tried. The iconic film-maker @ava's documentary "13th" charts how America's systems of slavery and racism are the foundation for mass incarceration and a particular type of law and order.
Why is @arimelber going through this with you, in the middle of the campaign home-stretch? For a reason! We need to take it all together.
It’s no accident that these protests have been met with fierce government crackdowns and Trumpian claims that they amount to "looting, violence and chaos" when most were peaceful- this is the playbook.
As @AriMelber stresses, civil rights leaders have emphasized that more violence comes from the state than the people. And stopping state violence -- through even meager civil rights measures - protects white elites more than anyone else.
While Democratic politicians don't admit it, there are elections where there's not a huge contrast between the two parties on really ending systemic racism. This 'history' is the news tonight, however, because this year is not one of those draws…
. @AriMelber: "This time it's a fundamental reckoning. As the people rise up and demand change, as a movement grows, diverse in race, age and geography, confronting a man who fomented racism long before he was in politics... this is what is on the ballot now."
So @AriMelber asks: are you for or against this? What are you going to *do* about it?
