We start today’s show with our weekly State Terror Round Up.
New elements of California’s Racial Justice Act for All went into effect on January 1st of this year. The new state law could have tremendous impact on the criminal justice system by empowering individuals serving felony convictions in the state to challenge racist conduct against them in criminal court proceedings. To discuss, we’re joined by Chesa Boudin as well as Morgan Zamora. Chesa is the Executive Director of UC Berkeley’s new Criminal Law & Justice Center, as well as the former District Attorney of San Francisco. Morgan is the Prison Advocacy Coordinator at the Ella Baker Center. In-prison and community education on the Racial Justice for All Act are some of the ways that advocates like Zamora are helping defendants access the relief promised by the new law. The Ella Baker Center has also produced this free guide in English and Spanish, which the organization plans to continue updating: https://ellabakercenter.org/rja-info/
A two-year Marshall Project investigation examined 12 years of New York State Department of Corrections disciplinary records. The investigation found that a staggering three out of four prison guards who were once fired for prisoner abuse, were later reinstated through the arbitration process. Joseph Neff, staff reporter for The Marshall Project, joins us. His piece, co-authored with Alysia Santo titled, ‘A Crazy System’: How Arbitration Returns Abusive Guards to New York Prisons was co-published by the Albany Times Union, NYSFOCUS and The Investigative Post.
Read the article here: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/12/14/new-york-prison-correctional-officer-abuse-arbitration
Our Resistance in Residence Artist this week is poet, poverty scholar, activist, author, organizer, daughter of Dee, and a co-founder of both Poor Poets and homefulness, Lisa Tiny Gray Garcia.
Check out Tiny’s website: https://www.lisatinygraygarcia.com/
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This episode featured music by Kofy Brown.
Check out her website: https://www.kofybrown.com/
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