A serious human rights crisis has been ongoing in our nation for some time, with a clear starting point in 1994, and Bill Clinton's 1994 Violent Crime Control Act. With the Bush administrations and the aftermath of 9/11, there was a clear shift in the way policing and mass-incarceration were to be carried out. Another shift came about in the aftermath of the Great Recession, with no let up in budgetary demands by the prison-industrial complex, and a steep decline in funding to maintain it. In parallel to that, additional powers were added with the establishment and growth of the national security complex, and a not insignificant amount of those powers were conferred onto police jurisdictions, adding an additional layer to what already existed. These trends have been happening alongside a return of Jim Crow, and at a time of deep economic decline and high national anxiety. The killing of Trayvon Martin marked a watershed moment in race relations in America, and life hasn't been the same since. One cannot deny that the number of deaths at the hands of the authorities has risen exponentially from previous decades, even with a lack of accounting from any government agency. The most conservative estimates place the number of police deaths in the last decade at near ten thousand, with an expected 1200 police killings to take place in 2015, at current trends. Below, are several curated articles that illustrate the depth and severity of a nationwide problem:
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#Exceptionalism: mass-Incarceration, hunger…
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A serious human rights crisis has been ongoing in our nation for some time, with a clear starting point in 1994, and Bill Clinton's 1994 Violent Crime Control Act. With the Bush administrations and the aftermath of 9/11, there was a clear shift in the way policing and mass-incarceration were to be carried out. Another shift came about in the aftermath of the Great Recession, with no let up in budgetary demands by the prison-industrial complex, and a steep decline in funding to maintain it. In parallel to that, additional powers were added with the establishment and growth of the national security complex, and a not insignificant amount of those powers were conferred onto police jurisdictions, adding an additional layer to what already existed. These trends have been happening alongside a return of Jim Crow, and at a time of deep economic decline and high national anxiety. The killing of Trayvon Martin marked a watershed moment in race relations in America, and life hasn't been the same since. One cannot deny that the number of deaths at the hands of the authorities has risen exponentially from previous decades, even with a lack of accounting from any government agency. The most conservative estimates place the number of police deaths in the last decade at near ten thousand, with an expected 1200 police killings to take place in 2015, at current trends. Below, are several curated articles that illustrate the depth and severity of a nationwide problem: