Let's Collect the Evidence!

INVESTIGATING RACIAL DETERMINISM IN NJ CRIMINAL “JUSTICE”

Decarcerate the Garden State wants to collect evidence of racial determinism in NJ’s criminal justice system.   It was rently revealed by the Sentencing Project , that a NJ Black resident is 12 times as likely to end up incarcerated as a white.  This is the worse disparity of probability for incarceration in the nation – most states have a ratio around 6:1.  We call upon elected officials to make a priority to figure out who is incarcerated in NJ and who caught longer sentences based upon racial determinism in NJ’s criminal prosecution, and then to take legal action to immediately commute their sentences and to release those who were impacted by such racial decision making in criminal justice immediately or reduce their sentences.

If you have information about someone who might have been subject to arrest, prosecution, conviction and sentencing based upon racial decision making, please contact us at Decarc@DecarcerateNJ.org or 908-881-5275.  

We will keep the sources of information private and we are prepared to work with you to demand immediate or earlier release of those who were subjected to racial decision making by police, prosecutors and courts.

We call upon government at the local and state level to actively pressure and to assist in legal action toward such sentencing commutation relief for those targeted for heavier prosecution and sentencing because of their race.   We call upon government to launch the same sort of investigation and to use its vast resources to take over this evidence gathering effort that we are initiating.  We need your help to make this happen.  Also if there are organizations that are better equipped than we are to follow through with this sort of evidence gathering effort and related advocacy for the over sentenced – we can assist you and hand this effort over.  We are not trying to be the cog in the wheel of this effort – only to jump start it.

PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS CAN BE USED TO FIND THE ROOT OF RACIAL DETERMINISM IN NJ CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Most of us have heard of PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS.  It is a means of capturing every bit of data possible and statistically analyzing it to predict behavior – purchasing, voting, and police even think they can predict future criminal behavior.

If industry can do this sort of analysis based upon every single key stroke, every link you share and every network interaction . . . then there is a tremendous ability to use the information provided by The Sentencing Project as a starting point for research and evidence gathering about the administration of criminal “justice” in NJ.

We need to call upon every level of NJ government to immediately take up the call.  The question is – does the 12:1 NJ stat indicate that something is wrong?  Most people I would ask would probably say yes.  However, the lack of action by state legistlators, the governor and local elected officials to the results of this report suggests that instead, the elected political office holders of NJ have basically a “turn your back on it” attitude to how criminal justice is enforced.

While a law has passed one legislative body calling for “racial impact statements” before the creation of new criminal justice legislation in NJ – and that is possibly a good thing – no action has been taken to our knowledge toward addressing the results of these policy in ruining people’s lives who are in prison and maybe should not be or in prison for much longer than they should be.

I would suggest that elected officials now have to own up to their hands off – look the other way policies while obviously racial factors have been applied to criminal justice, enforcement, prosecution, judgment and sentencing in the state of NJ.  If they do nothing about the impact it has had on their constituents it means they support it, condone it and believe that everything is just right and the way it should be.

Has their been one elected official to come forward to say that they will do what needs to be done to provide relief to those who are incarcerated in part due to racially motivated decision making by police, prosecutors and courts?  Has their been any call for an investigation to see who is inside that needs to be outside?  Has their been any echo to our call for sentencing commutation relief for those who have been victimized by such racial decision making?

So yes – lets call for the investigation.  Call for a quest – an inquiry.  How did NJ end up with this 12:1 ratio?  What were the factors?  How are decisions motivated to produce these racialized results?  And who among the incarcerated is deserving of relief?  Those should be some of the goals of such an official inquiry.  However – fact be known – it is not going to happen any time soon.

So. . . .

Let us conduct our own investigation!  Let us gather the evidence.  Families, communities, friends, attorneys, if you have data – contact us today and let’s get this process started!

If you have information about someone who might have been subject to arrest, prosecution, conviction and sentencing based upon racial decision making, please contact us at Decarc@DecarcerateNJ.org or 908-881-5275.