Parisa Dehghani-Tafti

2/x My name is Parisa and the reason is simple: The American criminal justice system is now a mass incarceration machine set on auto-pilot. As a public defender, I know all too well how this machine dismantles communities, destroys families, uses bad science, and wastes money

3/x For some, the mass incarceration machine operates out of sight and out of mind but for far too many communities, it is all too present. It disproportionately catches in its gears Black & Latino people, the poor, kids, and those who suffer from mental illness or addiction.

4/x The machine is so efficient that the US imprisons people at a higher rate than any other country on earth. Though 5% of the world's population, we have nearly 25% of the world's prison population. If our prison population was a city it would be the fifth largest in the US.

5/x As the most important piece of the machine, prosecutors have great discretion to classify nuisances as crimes, demand cash bail from the poor, treat kids as adults, stack up charges, compel plea bargains, seek the death penalty, and advocate against legislative reforms.

6/x In Arlington, the machine cycles thousands of people through its jail each year. Black people are 9% of the county population but 66% of the jail population. About 3/4 of those in jail haven't been convicted but can't afford bail. And 60% of them are on psychotropic drugs.

7/x The current CA sees nothing wrong with any of this: She's been a prosecutor in the same office for 30 years and CA for the last 8. She has opposed real bail reform and restoring voting rights for returning citizens; she supports the death penalty and civil asset forfeiture.

8/x But perhaps nothing exemplifies the current CA's unsuitability for meaningful reform than the fact that she has publicly denied that mass incarceration even exists and has argued that the system is working perfectly.

9/x I'm offering an alternative. I want to dismantle the mass incarceration machine and replace it with policies that pursue justice, increase accountability, prevent crime, prioritize serious crimes, and protect civil rights.

10/x I'm not a lifelong prosecutor but my experience in the system runs deep. I've stood in a small southern courtroom to argue for the release of a Black man convicted by a racist jury. I've sat across from clients who couldn't understand me because of the voices in their heads.

11/x I've waited at prison gates with mothers and children for the release of their sons and fathers who spent decades incarcerated for crimes they didn't commit. And what I know is that we deserve a better system than the current mass incarceration machine.

12/x I also know that we can no longer hope for reform from the very same lifelong "lock'em up" prosecutors who've spent their careers building this flawed machine. And I know this above all else:

13/x No social reform aimed at making us a more perfect union - be it employment, housing, voting, mental health, education, family well-being, or the ever pressing work for racial justice - can happen without a fair and humane criminal justice system.