Does Overzealous Use of Stop & Frisk in NYC Explain Lower Crime Rates?

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Avril

By Wally McElwain, a Spring 2012 Intern

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly support and advocate for stop-and-frisk policing, a strategy that authorizes police officers to randomly stop and frisk pedestrians without probable cause – despite concerns that the practice can lead to racial profiling.

In 2011, New York City police officers stopped a record 685,724 civilians. A report published by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) found that 87 percent of those stopped were African American and Latino. Arguably the most disturbing part of the NYCLU report was that NYPD officers stopped 168,126 Black men between the ages of 14 and 24, exceeding the total population of young Black men (158,406) living in New York City.

In addition to a disproportionate number of stops, the NYCLU report also found racial disparity in who police choose to search after stopping someone. More than 57 percent of those stopped and frisked by police were Black and Latino, compared to 44.2 percent for Whites. The report also revealed that a smaller percentage of Black and Latino stopped-and-frisked resulted in weapons charges than Whites.

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Transgender People of Color Face Extreme Discrimination

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Avril

Last year, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force released a groundbreaking report, Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Study. The report reveals that transgender and gender non-conforming people face injustice in many places, including: childhood homes; in school systems that promise to shelter and educate; in harsh and exclusionary workplaces; at the grocery store; at the hotel front desk; in doctors’ offices; and at emergency rooms.  Transgender individuals face:

  •  Alarmingly high rates of harassment and discrimination while in grades K-12: harassment (78%), physical assault (35%) and sexual assault (12%).
  • Direct housing discrimination – 19 percent reported having been refused a home or apartment and 11 percent reported being evicted because of their gender identity/expression.
  • Harassment, mistreatment or discrimination: 90 percent of those surveyed reported experiencing harassment, mistreatment or discrimination on the job or took actions like hiding who they are to avoid it.
  • Double the rate of unemployment: survey respondents experienced unemployment at twice the rate of the general population at the time of the survey, with rates for people of color up to four times the national unemployment rate.

Since then, the Task Force has released a series of factsheets designed to specifically shine a light on the experiences of transgender people of color.  While discrimination was pervasive for all respondents who took the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, the combination of anti-transgender bias with racism and anti-immigrant prejudice was especially devastating for Blacks and Latinos.

  • Transgender people of color disproportionately live in extreme poverty, with 34 percent of Blacks and 28 percent of Latinos reporting an annual household income of less than $10,000. The rate for transgender people of all races is 15 percent and the general U.S. population rate is 4 percent.
  • Black and Latino/a transgender people are affected by HIV in devastating numbers. More than one in five Black respondents and one in twelve Latino/a respondents were HIV-positive. This compares to rates of 2.64 percent for transgender respondents of all races and 0.6 percent of the general U.S. population.
  • Forty-six percent of Black transgender people were harassed, 15 percent were physically assaulted, and 13 percent were sexually assaulted at work.
  • Fifty-four percent of Latino/a transgender people were harassed, 16 percent were physically assaulted, and 14 percent were sexually assaulted at work.
  • Nearly half of Black (49%) and Latino/a (47%) respondents reported having attempted suicide.

This is a serious issue that must be addressed publicly. On Tuesday, May 22, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D. Ore., a lead sponsor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, is holding a briefing on the prevalence of discrimination against transgender people. The briefing will feature:

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Ad Describes Devastating Impact of Alabama’s Anti-Immigration Law, HB56

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Avril

The following ad ran in the Montgomery Advertiser today:

On the last day of the Alabama senate's regular session, HB56 should be repealed.

 

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Nicholas Katzenbach – A Long and Well-lived Life

Posted on May 15, 2012 by admin

By Kenneth Zimmerman
Special to UnfinishedBusiness.org

With the passing of Nicholas deB. Katzenbach on May 9, this country lost a remarkable man who helped shape the foundation of this nation’s commitment to civil rights.  As a Senior Advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, U.S. Attorney General, and Deputy Attorney General, he played a major role in the critical events of the 1960s that spurred this country to overcome the legacy of Jim Crow and segregation.  In one of the iconic images of that era, he personally faced down Alabama Governor George Wallace in the legendary “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door” which resulted in the peaceful registration of the first two African Americans to attend the University of Alabama.  Among his many other contributions to furthering the cause of civil rights, he helped frame and led the efforts to pass the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, and oversaw the initial enforcement of these and other civil rights statutes.

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Far from Home with Nowhere to Turn – The Violence Against Women Act is Vital

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Avril

This week, the House of Representatives will vote on a bill (H.R. 4970) to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

But while the bipartisan Senate bill passed a few weeks ago protects Native American victims, immigrant victims, LGBT victims and victims from other marginalized communities, H.R. 4970 actually rolls back protections for victims of violence.

How can this happen? Shouldn’t a bill about domestic and sexual violence expand protections for all victims?

It can certainly happen when one of the top lobbyists on this issue id reported to have a major conflict of interest. Natasha Spivack is an official at an anti-domestic violence advocacy group called Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE) … and is also the founder of a ‘mail-order bride’ company, Encounters International.

Guess who has been encouraging representatives to roll back protections for immigrant victims in order to curb ‘false accusations’ of domestic abuse?

VAWA’s provisions for abused immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens enable victims to escape violent marriages without fear of automatic deportation. Under the current system, allegations of abuse are rigorously reviewed and a VAWA application is only approved after a strenuous review process by specially-trained lawyers.

It turns out that Spivack has a personal bone to pick with VAWA’s immigration provision. In 2004, a federal jury awarded $430,500 to Ukrainian-born Nataliya Fox in a unanimous verdict. The Tahirih Justice Center brought the lawsuit against Spivack’s company “in response to Spivack’s pattern of repeatedly pairing abusers with foreign women whose English was limited, who did not know American laws and who lacked resources to get help.”

Fox was viciously abused by the husband to whom she had been introduced by Spivack. He beat her repeatedly, withheld food from her, held a gun to her head and used their infant child and threats of deportation as tools of control.

This is one woman’s horrifying story. With a weakened VAWA, there is no telling how many more victims will be left alone, far from home with nowhere to turn, as they face abuse, fear, violence, pain, and death.

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Don’t Count Out the American Community Survey

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Avril

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a budget bill that included language to eliminate the American Community Survey(ACS)  and impose a cap on spending for the 2020 Census.

Eliminating the ACS would severely undermine the collection of data vitally important to civil rights and human advocates, schools, businesses, lawmakers, and others who rely on its detailed information to help make critical decisions affecting millions of U.S. residents.

“No one can deny that we are a data-driven society,” said Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “The public sector depends on these data to understand the people it is tasked with serving.  By the same token, no business would make important decisions without objective, accurate data as guideposts.  Why would some members of Congress want to run the government without the most accurate information available to guide their decisions?”

Since 2005, the ACS has functioned as a companion to the national census conducted every 10 years. While the census asks only a few basic questions, the ACS is a longer-form survey that asks a smaller sample of the population more detailed questions about their demographic, social, economic, and housing characteristics. These detailed questions allow public and private decisionmakers and advocates to gain a more accurate understanding of the needs and challenges facing a diverse range of communities.

Target uses statistical information on housing, home value, income, and other demographics in order to better understand and serve their customers.

 

Executive Director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund Arturo Vargas also described what’s at stake in a Huffington Post op-ed:

“For the sake of the safety of communities that depend on federal funding for police and fire departments; for the families whose chance at economic mobility rests on availability of vocational education, Head Start programs, and improvement of failing public schools; for the citizens who participate in elections because they believe that each person has an equal vote and voice, Congress must give the Census Bureau the resources it needs to sustain the American Community Survey and to plan for and conduct an accurate, efficient 2020 count.”

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Wouldn’t You Want to Call Your Mom on Mother’s Day?

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Avril

Mother’s Day is a time to cherish the special connections in our families. Yet for the over 2 million people in our prison system, those connections are only maintained through a phone.

Making calls from prison are expensive and up to 60 percent of what prisoner’s families pay to speak to their loved ones behind bars have nothing to do with the cost of the phone service provided. The high rates of prison phone calls are the result of contracts between prisons and telephone companies that are awarded based on which company can provide the highest kickback to the prison and not who can provide the cheapest rates.

Tomorrow, Friday May 11th, the Prison Phone Justice Campaign is hosting a Mother’s Day of Action asking the Federal Communications Commission to use their power to address the high cost of prison phone calls. The campaign is collecting 1,000 stories from people speaking up for the rights of prisoners and families to stay connected.

Share your story. Fill out this online postcard and we’ll submit your story to the Federal Communications Commission.
http://bit.ly/K9iPux  (If you would rather record your story call 877-518-0606)
After you’ve shared your story, help us reach the goal of 1,000 stories by sharing the postcard through social media.  #phonejustice

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