While state prison populations are finally slowly going down, the federal prison system continues to grow with non-violent drug convictions. Also, Judge Shira Scheindlin, a federal district judge in New York, has ruled that New York City’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy was clearly biased in stopping Black and Latino people out of proportion to the initial behaviors that made police instigate their searches. Thousands of innocent young Black and Latino men were being prejudged by the police, losing their Constitutional rights and liberties based more on their race than on evidence.
These two events will give extra meaning to the upcoming March on Washington, taking place to renew the national conversation sparked 50 years ago by the March for Jobs and Justice in 1963.
