Kim Tso: I based my analysis on one simple principle: Children should not be made to pay for the mistakes of grown-ups. With that in mind, this is what I decided.
LAPD 2012 LGBT Community Police Academy Starts in April
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The Los Angeles Police Department’s 2012 LGBT Community Police Academy every Thursday night, beginning April 19 thru June 14, 2012.
Dead Under the “Custody and Care” of…
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Bruce Reilly: Christian Gomez was one of thousands in California struggling for things such as food, sunlight, and changes to the segregation policies — the everyday torture in America’s prisons.
The Torture of Mumia Abu-Jamal Continues Off Death Row
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Hans Bennett: Abu-Jamal has asked for supporters to not just call for his release from the hole, but to challenge the very practice of solitary confinement and what are called in Pennsylvania “Restricted Housing Units.”
The Cooler Bandits: The New N-Word Is Felon
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The Cooler Bandits follows four friends struggling to re-enter society after 20 years in prison, only to confront their future in the old neighborhood.
California Ending Funding of Child Prisons
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Bruce Reilly: I am not too troubled possible financial bankruptcy due to prisons, particularly child prisons. The possible moral bankruptcy, however, runs much deeper than any bottom line.
Hawaii’s Radical Drug Use Experiment
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Kevin Sabet: A revolutionary program in the Pineapple State is shattering myths about how to deal with drug offenders who violate probation. If only the rest of the country would catch on.
Occupy LA: A Salt Lick for Bullies
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Stephen Box: The bullies embedded within the LAPD found freedom to exercise their demons, to act on the rage they felt when they were denied the opportunity to unleash their skills on a violent enemy.
Bull Connor 2.0: The Police Response to #OccupyWallStreet
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David Love: The police response to the Occupy Movement flies in the face of the reputed tenets of American constitutional democracy, and contravenes the precepts of international human rights law.
Detained LA Occupy Protesters Punished Out of Sight
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Yasha Levine: The police attack on Occupy LA was much more violent than reported, with most of the abuse happening while the protesters were in police custody, completely outside the range of the media.
California, Like Oregon, Has a “Compromised and Inequitable” Death Penalty System
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Andy Love: The only way to end the death penalty in California is by a ballot initiative, and the statewide signature‑gathering effort to place such an initiative on the November 2012 ballot is well underway.
Can Civilians Arrest Cops?
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Jeff Norman: Maybe the top cops and mayors of other American cities should visit Los Angeles, enjoy a few bong hits with Chief Beck and discuss how to treat peaceful demonstrators humanely.
Occupy the Bill of Rights
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Stephen Box: The students who witnessed the pepper spray assault began to chant “Shame on you!” while maintaining their distance.
America’s Shame: Troy Davis, Hank Skinner, and a Cast of Thousands
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Andy Love: The death penalty, as legendary capital defender Steve Bright has said, is often reserved for the case with the worst lawyer not the worst crime.
Learn the Facts on Secure Communities: Tuesday, 8 November
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A Law Enforcement Threat to Immigrant Communities. WHAT: ACLU Pasadena-Foothills Chapter Public Forum WHEN: Tuesday, November 8th, 7 p.m. WHERE: Neighborhood Church, 301 No. Orange Grove Blvd., Pasadena.
Ending California’s Wasteful Tinkering With The Machinery Of Death
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Andy Love: California’s death penalty needs to be abolished. Putting aside the philosophical and spiritual questions about the immorality of the death penalty, it is costly, arbitrary, discriminatory, and unworkable.
Tech Tip Tuesday: Brown OK’s Search of Cell Phones
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Tech Tip Tuesday: Today’s Tech Tip: Don’t leave anything on your cell that you wouldn’t want to see in court. Until the law changes, erase questionable texts as soon as you have read them.
My Opposite
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Andy Love: I told him that one of the most compelling aspects of my work was delving into their life histories to understand how it was they ended up on death row. I found humanity in all of them.
Final Hours
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Christine Meuris: It is impossible to imagine what this is like, as impossible as finding the right words to say, when a man in this position, in his last hours, calls on the phone.
Where America Stands on the Death Penalty
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Richard C. Dieter: The public is deeply skeptical of the capital punishment process, shocked at its enormous costs, and quite ready to replace it with alternative sentences.
SB 490: Let the Voters Make an Informed Death Penalty Decision
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James Clark: No one is surprised to learn that California’s death penalty is a broken and dysfunctional system. After all, you don’t have to go far in California to find any government bureaucracy that’s broken or dysfunctional – it’s finding a functional government program that might take a while.
Sheriff’s Department Supervising Parolees?
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Anthony Samad: Los Angeles County’s best option is to overhaul the Probation Department. Put it in receivership like they did the Health Department and Children & Family Services.
“Very Young Girls” — I Had Answers!
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Nikki Junker: I was able to tell them that one of San Diego’s law enforcement agents had begun that very day training all of the judges in California on sex trafficking.
Nikki Haley Signs Draconian Anti-Immigrant Bill
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Seth Hoy: Farmers in South Carolina are also worried that the new law will hurt the agriculture industry, making it harder for farmers to find workers
Private Prisons Spend Millions to Put More People in Jail
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Andrea Nill-Sanchez: In Arizona, 30 of the 36 legislators who co-sponsored the state’s controversial immigration law that would undoubtedly put more immigrants behind bars received campaign contributions from private prison lobbyists or companies.
California Prison Typify the Incarceration Society
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Sherwood Ross: If you want a glimpse into the soul of a nation, visit one of its prisons. California is no exception. It’s typical.
Prisons or Higher Education, Which Do We Fund?
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Sharon Kyle: Either large segments of the American population suddenly decided to engage in criminal activity or there were changes in sentencing law and prison policy that dramatically increased America’s prison population. Whatever the reason, states are spending more on prisons and less on higher education.
More Black Men in Prison Than Were Enslaved II
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Prison Based Gerrymandering Vote ecently we ran a piece written by Dick Price entitled, “More Black Men Now in Prison System Than Were Enslaved“. Tens of thousands read it. Many left comments. The popularity of his article and the comments posted lead to this follow-up. The article Dick wrote was a recap of a talk [...]
The Message Is Clear; Half The People Got It
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Anthony Samad: Election night in the 8th District served as an opportunity to send a message to a politician who has lost his respect for constituents and of his constituents.
PCL offers monthly Open House Events on the 2nd Saturday at 2pm and 3rd Thursday at 6pm. Click here to learn more.
Is California Reducing Prison Overcrowding Without Fixing Its Cause?
Sharon Kyle: In a relatively short period of time, our nation has incarcerated enough people to create the second largest city in the United States. Releasing a few tens of thousand prisoners for overcrowding won’t change much or will it?