🚨NEW REPORT🚨 from the team at @finesandfeesjc.bsky.social - reforms our allies and we have achieved through #EndJusticeFees and #FreeToDrive, and related fine-and-fee reform efforts across the country, provided at least $37.5 billion in financial relief for families and communities. $37.5 *billion*.

🥹🩵🎉 #pusb

I've waited for this day for so long. I've wanted it for so long. And today, it happened. Welcome back to the #PremiereLeague, #CovCity. #SkyBlues forever! Let's go! #PUSB

This week in #FreeToDrive and #EndJusticeFees - navigating federal reform opportunities in a very tough Congress; refusing to back down while #Iowa lawmakers push bad policy; and preparing for deeper engagement with conservative allies who want states to move away from #finesandfees. #advocacylife

The goal here is...what? To make the lives of workers at Home Depot—who are probably already working a lot for a little and who likely aren't working at #HomeDepot because of some deeply-held fidelity to the brand—more difficult? So that people who can afford to spend time doing this can feel good?

If Person A says that tyranny and oppression are wrong and Person B says that Person A needs to stfu, that says everything you need to know about Person B. #PopeLeo #Trump

If you're a policymaker relying on revenue from #criminaljustice fees, then you're a policymaker who's hoping that your constituents are victims of #crime. That's just one way fees are wildly inhumane, ineffective, and counterproductive to #publicsafety. Learn more: @pdefenselesspod.bsky.social👇🏽.

It's #Friday, which means it's time for *This Week in #FreeToDrive and #EndJusticeFees*! Looking back on the release of a new #podcast episode and challenges that arise from the current media landscape, and preparing to run through the finish line in legislative sessions that end soon. Let's go!

It doesn't matter which side of the cell door you're on. Incarceration is violence. Oppressed through punishment that amounts to torture, or traumatized through coerced, unsafe, inhumane labor. Either way, it's forced erasure of dignity—and hope. From incarcerated journalist Antoine E. Davis👇🏽

A nearly-blind man survived genocide. And dreamed of something better. What he and his family could never have imagined is how powerless he'd be to defy the lethality of neglect in the land of immigrants. Give me your tired, your poor—so we can murder them. #ShahAlam #abolishICE

It's #Friday, which means it's time for *This Week in #FreeToDrive and #EndJusticeFees* — presenting to legislators in #NorthDakota, navigating the politics of state legislatures in a hectic election year, and preparing for some mid-session strategizing with our #conservative allies.

Every time advocates demand change, we have to justify the cost. It'll take money or time or resources—is it really worth it? But the system...the status quo...never has to justify the cost of doing nothing. In #California, as in many other states, that cost—in dollars and inhumanity—is undeniable.

The ugly: billionaires spreading their toxic concoction of puritan punitiveness because they can—and because they have a plan to shape this country in their image. The bad: the tactical mastery of blitzing legislators. The good? These ideas won't last if we keep building power from the ground up.

#SocialMedia absolutely sucks sometimes.

For a lot of people, something included in the "everything else": Debt from unpaid fines and fees imposed through the criminal legal system. Economic harm that's levied often without any consideration of a person's ability to pay—and that leads to cycles of debt, incarceration, or worse. #justice

Now get out and vote in the midterms like your life depends on it, because it does. #NoKings

At the intersection of injustice, oppression, and environmental degradation, you find people. Human beings whose lives have been scarred by entrenched neglect. Voices from Mule Creek were systemically ignored. Now local residents suffer alongside them. #California #prisons #health

This. 👇🏽

Talked to an HVAC guy who's working two jobs to pay rent. He has no savings and worries about retirement. Tariffs have made it hard for him to import parts. Then this big strong guy who never cries, he said, he said to me, "I just wish Trump's signature was on the dollar." Then he burst out crying.

States across the country try to extract wealth from people who simply don't have it—using #fines and #fees as a way to raise revenue off of people who are fighting just to survive and make ends meet. #Delaware just took a huge step forward in ending that injustice. Other states should do the same.

Understanding a problem is step one in figuring out how to address it. That's why this victory in #Kentucky - two years in the making - is such an important milestone for the #EndJusticeFees movement. Grateful to the allies who've been in this work from day one.

He's been on a racist crusade throughout his career and now his allies are all-but ensuring he gets more power, and more of an opportunity to decimate people's lives. This is what happens in a system that tolerates prosecution as a hunt and rewards its hunters. #elections #justice @propublica.org👇🏽

The latest in what's been a systematic dismantling of protection & support for the most vulnerable people—isolating them in the midst of chaotic processes with generational consequence. This, while people who hold power leverage it to insulate themselves from accountability. #immigration #Trump #DOJ

Last Monday, I noticed a jarring addition on ICE's 287(g) program: a K-12 school district police department. How did the Caney Valley Public Schools briefly end up on ICE's list of 1,315 law enforcement agency partners? Here's what we know so far 🧵 cc: @austinkocher.com

It starts with a ticket or a fine. Then it cascades. Debt, debilitating choices, and the threat of having your license suspended—of having your life and livelihood destroyed. The #RoadToOpportunityAct can end this, and can be another step forward in the #FreeToDrive movement. #Massachusetts #mapoli

This is how corrupt and corrosive #immigration detention and #incarceration can be: Victory means limiting private vendors to a *35 percent* markup in their efforts to profit off of the most vulnerable and scared people in our country. @vanguardnewsgroup.bsky.social👇🏽

Here it is. The latest in *This Week is #FreeToDrive and #EndJusticeFees*. #advocacylife #justice

Nearly 1 in 3 U.S. adults has a criminal record. Many are trapped in underpaid, unstable, and unsafe jobs. NELP’s new fact sheet unpacks the evidence and explains why we need to center job quality for #workers with records. www.nelp.org/insights-res...

I was hired as a prosecutor—straight out of law school. At the *local* level. And I wasn't anywhere close to ready for that kind of power. Now we're gonna turn that up? And encourage a sharper, unethical tilt toward adversarial "justice"?! #AUSA #DOJ @bloomberg.com👇🏽

You're not as safe as you think. The carceral system continues to evolve—it will find new ways to use #technology to target. To punish. To oppress. And the legal protection intended to guard you, and the people who have far fewer resources, are thin. At best. Excellent piece by @yberger.bsky.social.

It’s crystal clear now that Trump has lost control of this war. He badly misjudged Iran’s ability to retaliate. The region is on fire. 1/ I’m going to explain to you in this🧵what I’ve learned - in part from closed door briefings - about the four biggest current crises.

#Advocacy is, often, chaos. And there are always a thousand decisions to make. You're gonna spend time trying to find the "best" decision? Cool. You do that. Your opponent just made a good decision, and they're getting ahead. Welcome back to The Struggle and the Joy. #advocacylife #leadership

If it's #Friday, it's time for "This Week in #FreeToDrive and #EndJusticeFees"! This week: expanded fee elimination work with conservative allies in #Oklahoma, an alarming trend in automated traffic enforcement, and looking ahead to a convo with #Missouri partners about ending pretrial fees.

Slavery never ended. It evolved. When Nadia Reed and Harold Mortis and Richard Lilgerose refused to risk their health for the pennies they're "paid" for their labor, #Colorado assaulted them. Shackled them. Threw them into solitary. After a judge ordered this to stop? Nothing changed. @boltsmag.org👇🏽

A jury of your peers. Unless you're Black. Because then those peers are deemed unintelligent or biased or just too different to be fair. And if your life is on the line? Even more reason to isolate you. Masterful reporting from @mississippitoday.org👇🏽. #deathpenalty #criminaljustice

Victims support matters. Funding that support through #finesandfees is failed policy. Excellent new essay from @rachelbarkow.bsky.social unpacks how '80s ideologies—defined by racist stereotypes and states' consistent push to minimize their responsibility—have failed everyone. Especially victims.

The science of racism with Professor Keon West

Americans can tolerate a genocide in Gaza, ICE killing and kidnapping people, Trump's racism and cruelty, but I do think high gas prices - in addition to all the other chaos - might be a bridge too far.

Prosecutors want "finality"? I get it. As a prosecutor, I did, too. But finality at the cost of someone's life? Marcellus Williams wanted finality. Lance Shockley wanted it, too. Patty Prewitt can't get it. Why doesn't their closure matter? @themarshallproject.org👇🏽 #DNAtesting #justice

Jack Smith: "My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted. The rule of law is not self-executing. It depends on our collective commitment to apply it."

"These are the fun ones." 👈🏽what a probation officer once told me about arguing a #supervision violation. Due process & rules of evidence barely apply. It's laughably easy to get someone locked up—for years. Now Neil Gorsuch is planting the flag, alone: Jaron Burnett deserved due process. #SCOTUS

Looking back on the week that was... Here's the latest in *This Week in #FreeToDrive and #EndJusticeFees* #advocacy #justice

Government weaponizing language against its own citizens. Labeling people to instill fear. And sow seeds of distrust. Despite the law acquitting people of the things they're accused of being. Anyone—me, you—could be their next target. #immigration #Trump #DHS

A tried-and-true tactic in our nation's history—find the people you don't like for reasons you can't say aloud, then weaponize the law to label them as "criminal," "less-than," or "other." And let the people you do like, for reasons you can't say aloud, win the game you've rigged for their benefit.

Alabama is set to execute Sonny Burton on March 12, even though he never killed anyone and the state admits that. Sonny has stayed on death row for 33 years while his health deteriorates. Governor Ivey must commute his sentence.

I too remember the earlier, woke wars. tons of spent microaggression munitions strewn about everywhere, friends crying out for God as they were slowly cancelled...look, if you weren't there, you'll never understand

For incarcerated people, #books are power are hope. #Bookbans are acts of oppression. Challenging them requires understanding them. 3/18. 1p EST. 👇🏽 @themarshallproject.org hosts a virtual event teaching you how to investigate book bans.

Few organizations I've worked alongside for as long as, and respect as much as #Minnesota Justice Research Center (MNJRC). And few states have been at the center of this work the way Minnesota has been—for years. Check out this incredible conversation from the MNJRC about the future of their work.

Cutting off visits isn't just neglect. It's exploitative. Revenue generation—malicious wealth extraction—dressed up as concern for incarcerated people and their families. 2.7 million kids who want to talk with mom or dad are the customer base for these predatory private companies. #EndJusticeFees

We’re launching Redemption Songs, a limited-run newsletter that spotlights one song each week by incarcerated artists. Starting March 22, we’ll tell the story of mass incarceration over almost a century, one song at a time. Sign up now to get a new song each Sunday afternoon over 25 weeks: