California Just Passed New Limits on Police Use of Force. Not Everyone Is Happy With the Compromise.
California Gov. Gavin NewsomAssemblymember Shirley Weber/Facebook California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law one of the country’s most substantive police use-of-force bills on Monday. The legislation nominally attempts to narrow the parameters for when officers are allowed to use deadly force on the job—marking a significant turning point for the state, which is the country’s…
When Your Rapist Demands Custody
Before her son began school last year, Tiffany Gordon showed his father’s mugshot to school administrators. “If you see this guy, you have to call the police,” she told them. Ten years earlier, when Tiffany was 12, a young man she knew invited her, her sister, and a friend on a late-night car ride. “I…
What If Courts Treated Young Sex Trafficking Victims Like Cyntoia Brown as People, Not Perpetrators?
Maia Boakye One morning in February, Brittney, a baby-faced 17-year-old with short black braids, stands in front of a juvenile court judge in Compton, California, talking about kittens. Brittney had been in and out of the justice system since she was 14, after the state removed her from her physically abusive mother. Diagnosed with post-traumatic…
The Government Can Make You Legally “Dead,” Even When You’re Very Much Alive
Mother Jones illustration; Getty In 2010, Dana Gallop, a Boston gang member accused of murder, was waiting for his trial in a Rhode Island prison when a fellow inmate assaulted him with a razor. The attack left scars across Gallop’s face. He tried to sue, alleging that the inmate had warned a correctional officer about…