June 21, 2016 (Asbury Park) – Help Not Handcuffs today announced its solidarity with the “September 9th
Event to End Mass Incarceration and Enslavement” organized by Decarcerate the Garden State.
Help
Not Handcuffs seeks to remove arrest and coercion from programs, policies and
laws impacting recovering and drug using populations. We accomplish our mission
through community education and engagement, which empowers recovery, promotes harm
reduction and fact based approaches to drug policy and social justice issues.
Our
goals are in alignment with the “September 9th Event to End Mass
Incarceration and Enslavement.” Unfortunately, New Jersey relies too heavily on
its criminal justice system, which is inherently violent and dangerous. New
Jersey’s recent expansion of the failed “War on Drugs” which is known by the
surge in drug possession arrests[1],
forcibly separates families, engenders social disabilities which cripple
communities (especially communities of color) and feed into the forced
treatment, Prohibition/Prison Industrial Complex.
With
the recent release of the Sentencing Project’s report showing that African
Americans are imprisoned at a ratio of 12 – 1 compared to Caucasians in New
Jersey this event couldn’t be timelier. While New Jersey has taken steps to
reduce its prison population, we stand in solidarity against the human rights
abuses and the over-reliance of the use of our criminal justice system and its
racially disparate impacts on September 9th.
Help
Not Handcuffs encourages New Jersey residents and organizations to support,
attend and promote this event to raise awareness of prison conditions - end the
recent expansion of the probationary regime via drug possession arrests, forced
treatment and other dangerous punishments – and end mass incarceration and
enslavement.
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