I have been informing the American people about issues which have been ignored by our government during the last three decades from several separate newspapers and blogs for about six years. Possibly the single most important of these issues is America’s failed judicial system. Fact; the United States has just four-percent of the world’s population, and 25 percent of all men and women incarcerated in our nation’s prisons. Fact; minorities are more likely to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, while whites receive lesser sentences for the same crimes. Fact; poor Americans are more likely to be imprisoned than Americans with higher incomes. The last comprehensive study completed in 2014 revealed that the average income of men and women in our prisons, prior to their incarceration, was $19,185 per year, which was 41-percent less than men and women not in the penal system.
Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin are among several other men and women indicted for attempting to purchase their children’s education from some of the finest higher learning institutions in America. After a judge sentenced Huffman to between four and ten months in jail, with a recommendation for the lesser sentence, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded with a statement which is 100 percent accurate.
“Our country has a ‘justice’ system that criminalizes poverty + disproportionately targets race, yet routinely pardons large-scale crimes of wealth and privilege.”
The truth is that we need look no further than Trump’s pardon of Joe Arpaio to learn that she is completely accurate, and our system has failed completely and is now a system of “injustice.”
Arpaio was the sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona. For decades his support of extreme racism was ignored as he punished minorities severely; a fact proven by the deaths of many of these men. Arpaio refused to or delayed response to child rape in his jurisdiction when the charge originated from a Hispanic man or woman. His deputies were instructed to harass minorities when operating a vehicle in his county and demand to see their “papers.” The number of these and other inhumane crimes committed by Arpaio is hundreds of pages long.
Arpaio was eventually convicted of violating a direct order from the federal court system. He never spent one minute in jail; Trump pardoned one of the biggest criminals in our failed system of jurisprudence. They share a hatred for all Hispanics.
The documentation regarding greater punishment for low-income men and women, Americans living below the poverty line, and minorities is especially frightening when compared to the punishment, or lack of, for more affluent, white Americans.
Every elected official in Washington is aware of these facts and have chosen to ignore the truth. Trump, his former Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, and his current AG believe that punishment should be more severe for non-whites.
Is this your idea about what America should be? If it is, you are too ignorant to be reading an article which is based entirely on facts such as this. Go raise your right arm and shout “heil Trump” at his next hate rally.
Tell your friends, “The Truth Lives Here.”
Op-ed by James Turnage
Image courtesy of DonkeyHotey
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