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Category Archives: Policing
Children With Incarcerated Parents Played Key Role in Phone Justice Victory!
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted recently to cap the rates of phone calls from prisons and jails after years of profiteering by telecommunications companies that have made millions off of those incarcerated and their families. In her comments before … Continue reading
Posted in African Americans, Community Forum, Human Rights, IMC, National, News, Policing, Politics, Prisoners, UC-IMC, Voices of Color
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This Black Life Matters
Michael Brown was killed a year ago. They used to say, “It’s been a long, hot summer” but it’s been another long, hot, horror-filled year in the US; every single day another Michael Brown. This is someone I know. In … Continue reading
Posted in African Americans, Justice, Policing
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Police Lying
Do Police Lie? The answer is that some police officers do indeed lie. The major conditions under which police lie are three: to frame a suspect, to protect themselves or fellow officers from detection or punishment of misdeed, and to … Continue reading
First Class Justice vs. “the Cattle Call”
By a Courtwatcher Courtwatch is a group of citizens who volunteer to attend criminal proceedings by request of the defendant or a family member of a jailed defendant. We are there as witnesses to criminal justice in Champaign County, to … Continue reading
Posted in African Americans, Community Forum, Justice, Policing
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Work Day: Lament for Darius Graves
The below poem was written by Ryan Collins for the project Lament for the Dead (http://www.lamentforthedead.org/), an online community poetry project which marks the death of every person killed by police this summer, and every police officer who loses life … Continue reading
Posted in Community Forum, Policing
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What Happened New Year’s Night? Black Youth Shot Twice In Back By University Police
On New Year’s night, a Black Lives Matter protest broke out in Savoy after two University of Illinois police officers fired bullets into a carload of African American youth, wounding two people, with one of them shot twice in the … Continue reading
Posted in Policing
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#BlackLivesMatter Protests Locally
Along with others across the nation, people of Champaign-Urbana have held protests, die-ins, and marches. Below are photos from some of the events. On Tuesday, November 25, CU Citizens for Peace and Justice held a demonstration outside of the county … Continue reading
Posted in Policing, Voices of Color
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New MRAP Soon To Be Rolling Down The Streets Of C-U
Earlier this summer, the News-Gazette ran a story that Sheriff Dan Walsh had acquired a Mine-Resistant Armor-Protected (MRAP) vehicle. Titled “Something Big Just Arrived,” the article touted the benefits of the new truck. Yet in the wake of Ferguson, a … Continue reading
Posted in Policing
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Chuco’s Justice Center in Los Angeles: Home of “College Prep, Not Prison Prep”
In August I travelled to California as part of my research into the use of electronic monitoring in the criminal justice system. My first stop was a converted factory along the border between South Central Los Angeles and Inglewood, Chuco’s … Continue reading
Posted in Policing, Voices of Color, Youth
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Six Community Organizations Ask Urbana Council for a Study Session on Racial Disparities in Police Stops
October 7, 2013 The Urbana Police Department (UPD) has been reporting traffic stop data to the State of Illinois for nine years, 2004 through 2012. City data trends and patterns of traffic law enforcement can now be discerned and documented … Continue reading
Posted in Policing, Uncategorized
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21st Century Slavery, Electronic Style
Somewhere in the middle of a November night in 2009 I got a phone call from my then 95 year old mother. She said she had chest pains, had already phoned 911 and thought she was having a heart attack. … Continue reading
Posted in Policing, Technology
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Angela Davis with CUCPJ at the IMC
Angela Davis gave a talk at the University YMCA’s Friday Forum on September 27, 2013 in its series “Beyond Mass Incarceration.” That morning, she spoke at the IMC and talked with members of CU Citizens for Peace and Justice, who … Continue reading
Posted in Policing
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How Privatization Destroyed Award-Winning Suicide Prevention Program in Champaign County Jail
Several years ago, while working at our local Books to Prisoners, I met a volunteer who had formerly worked as a mental health counselor in the local jail. This was just after there had been three jail suicides within a … Continue reading
Fight to Stop New Jail Coming to a Head
I’ve been involved in the No New Jails in Champaign County campaign for over a year. Likely sometime in June or July our efforts will come to a head. The County Board likely will take a vote on whether to … Continue reading
Posted in Policing
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The Negative Impact of the War on Drugs in Our Community
Two Community Dialogues Thursday, Feb. 28, Levis Faculty Center (919 W. Illinois St., Urbana) Friday night, March 1, Salem Baptist Church (500 E. Park St., Champaign) 5:30-8:30 p.m. both nights Keynote Speakers: Neill Franklin, former narcotics officer and executive director … Continue reading
Posted in Community Forum, Policing
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The New Jim Crow Comes to Champaign-Urbana
If there was one constant during my six-and-a-half years in prison (apart from bad food), it was being surrounded by thousands of mostly African-American and Latino men doing sentences like twenty, thirty or forty years for drug-related crimes. One friend … Continue reading
Posted in Policing, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Her Name Was Hadiya, And She Was Killed By A Gun
More than 500 young children have died from being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” (from an anti-gang violence PSA by Hadiya Pendleton and crew) “none among us should feel unsafe moving about/through the world, on the earth, … Continue reading
Posted in Human Rights, Policing, Politics, Voices of Color
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Changes to Police Contract Come from “The Work of the Citizen”
Two out of three proposals presented two years ago by the grassroots organization, Champaign-Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice (CUCPJ), were included in the police union contract approved by Champaign city council on Tuesday night, December 4, 2012. In April … Continue reading
Posted in Policing
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A Tale of Two Cities: Public Access to Police Complaints in Champaign and Urbana
Backstory: Champaign Over the course of 2012, several pieces have been published in the Public i and the News Gazette regarding the city’s continued practice of ignoring Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests regarding complaints against the police and its … Continue reading
Posted in African Americans, Policing, Politics
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Why Does Sheriff of Small Midwestern College Town Need a Drone?
Many have heard of the unmanned aerial vehicles, or “drones,” that the U.S. government has been flying over Pakistan and Afghanistan dropping bombs aimed at suspected militants and all too often killing innocent civilians. Increasingly, smaller versions of these planes … Continue reading
Posted in Policing
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