hachyderm.io is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
Hachyderm is a safe space, LGBTQIA+ and BLM, primarily comprised of tech industry professionals world wide. Note that many non-user account types have restrictions - please see our About page.

Administered by:

Server stats:

10K
active users

No, I don't want Hunter Biden to be in jail. My life is not improved either way if he's pardoned or not pardoned. Stop centering him.

I'm centering the 2 million+ people unfairly in prison and jail under racistly applied and excessively harsh drug and weapons sentencing laws put in place by Biden.

2/N

There are 8.2 billion people on planet earth. Some other countries are supposedly draconian, and police states.

So tell me why 1 in every 5 prisoners on planet earth, is locked up in the US?

And why most US prisoners are locked up pre-trial?

Mainly for low level drug charges, pushed for by Biden?

3/N

@mekkaokereke how much of a role do for-profit prisons play in this?

mekka okereke :verified:

@rainynight65

Huge role.

In some states, private prisons have a "required occupancy quota." If the prison is below that occupancy, then the state has to pay the prison corporation a penalty per empty cot.😮

And these corporations lobby against sentencing reform and decriminalization.

eji.org/news/private-prison-qu

They lobby against it, in part because the most profitable prisoner, is not a career criminal. It's a hard working, honest, non-criminal Black person with a family that loves them.

Equal Justice Initiative · Private Prison Quotas Drive Mass Incarceration and Deter Reform, Study Finds

@mekkaokereke I didn't even know that bit about required occupancy. That sounds... like a very macabre and ruthless form of rent-seeking. And there would be little incentive to actually tackle causes of crime and reform sentencing unless those kinds of companies and prisons get abolished first.