Hello. I'm Daniel Bryan and whomever is watching this has probably at one time or another broken the law. Jaywalk forgot to use your blinker
Played music too loud carried some marijuana and some point in your life before it was legal.
Which means you could and according to the law should get arrested?
But does that make it right or even legal in the eyes of our own constitution note in the eyes of the law?
Yes, which means our laws are breaking our own laws and should be arrested should be over is that how it works laws arresting laws?
Now unless you have been avoiding any type of news for the last seven years you probably know that our country is currently dealing with
a mass incarceration problem. Mass incarceration actually got kicked into gear during the introduction of the war on drugs by
Ugh, Nixon in
1971 and which a Nixon Adviser Openly admitted was a tactic that the Nixon administration used to harm communities that would oppose him he said
Quote the Nixon campaign in 1968 in the Nixon white house after that had two enemies the anti-war left and black people you understand what
I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black
but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin and then
Criminalizing both heavily we could disrupt those communities
We could arrest their leaders raid their homes break up their meetings and vilify them night after night on the evening news
Did we know we were lying about the drugs of course we did. I guess?
People decided to ignore that because the war on drugs which was said to focus on drug Kingpins and
Mastermind led to 25% of the world's prison population currently residing in U.S. prisons
We have the highest prison population in the world
one in five of incarcerated folks are imprisoned for a drug offense and 88 percent of the 8 million marijuana arrests made between 2001 and
2010 were for simple possession. These are not kingpins or
Masterminds these are citizens to add a substance on them that is less harmful than alcohol and a consistent plot point in that 70s show
Those lovable Goofballs look at them
acting
Silly in a circle like you do when you're high I guess? Anyway roughly 65 million people had criminal records as of 2010
And tens of millions of Americans have been arrested, but never convicted of an offense
So do that many people really deserve to be arrested if you said yes to that question
Then you are saying I'm all for a police state
And I disagree with the constitution of the United States
Your being dumb with your hands like that when you say it because the fourth fifth and sixth eighth 14th and 15th amendment
they're all broken by this that's so much amendment to break. So
how are these important laws that make our country what it is getting broken in several terrible ways.
War on drugs has allowed police to use minor infractions to be able to harass and arrest people without a probable cause.
This is protected by the courts creating laws like stop and frisk which allow the police to stop and then first people as their discretion.
Based on the numbers those people stop and frisk tend to be African Americans or Latino in
addition please can pull people over in their cars based on minor driving violations or
Suspicions. Maybe you've heard the term
"driving while black" well that's because the majority of people pulled over are Black or Latino
Then a lot of times when folks are pulled over the police will search people's cars even if they have a minor suspicion there could
Be drugs although legally the police aren't allowed to search a person's car without permission on many occasions if people refused permission
They have been arrested anyways you know for driving or parking violations which can be very hard to disprove in court in
Addition to the law allowing for mass raids and huge task forces that can break into people's houses or schools if there is a suspicion
of drugs
state and local law enforcement
Agencies were granted the authority to keep for their own use the vast majority of cash and assets seized while waging the drug war. Even
when people are found innocent their property can still be subject to forfeiture because their property might have been involved in a crime.
And when that innocent person goes back and says "That's not fair!" and challenge government's actions the government can legally retaliate by filing criminal charges.
Baseless or not the person now charged still has to deal with that in court and then try and clear their record so a lot
of people just don't bother. Imagine your middle school hall monitor stealing your lunch money and when you go to the principal about it the hall monitor tells the principal you've
been skipping fourth period every day
Even though it's not true the principal is going to look into this and you have to somehow prove you weren't skipping class.
It's like that. But bigger and more terrible,
because prisons and racism.
And now Jefferson f**king
Beauregard f**king Session the f**king third has issued a directed increasing police seizures of cash and property.
Purely based on suspicion which means it's even easier now than ever for the government to take your money home car or general
things you own if they think you might be involved with anything drug-related this has been happening for forty years.
And it's only happening more now, but why would police do that aren't they supposed to serve and protect not take and collect?
You're welcome for that off the cuff word play.
Well, here's the thing the police are not only incentivized with all the things they can legally take but they are pressured to get a
specific number of arrests or the government won't properly fund their unit. Even though in several states quota
arrests are illegal. On numerous occasions police
have come forward saying that there was pressure from higher-ups to get more arrests for their department. In
2016 Edwin Raymond recorded NYPD officers pushing to get their quota arrests targeting poor young people of color and filed a class action lawsuit
along with 11 other officers.
And he's not the first or the last cop to come forward about this. Bigger
cash grants have been given to law enforcement agencies that are willing to make drug law enforcement a top priority even though
participation in the drug war takes away resources for more serious crimes like murder rape grand theft and violent assault. Yes,
I am far more afraid of a kid
carrying some weed than a person who wants to kill me definitely was the swat team in high schools because
the principal thought he smelled a joint. Anyway all that breaks the 14th amendment.
So why do the courts and government keep letting this slide because the prison industry wants bodies.
No, not bodies for a Matrix-style sex rave.
I don't know why clarified no one thought that. The more people in prison the more money the taxpayers have to pay to
the government to keep those prisons running especially private prisons
but
It's hard to put people in jail who have money and can hire attorneys and maybe fight a wrongful arrest and get out on bail
so again police arrest people in Low-income neighborhoods.
Then when that person is taken into jail the prosecutor
knowingly
throws the book at them which means they charge them with any and every crime you can think of and offer a plea deal of
only a few years in prison versus decades in prison because all those different random charges which means a lot of times people don't even
get that speedy fair trial. A lot of time
they don't even see a defense attorney because it will take longer to see the attorney and schedule a court date
then just be in prison for years.
Now that people have noticed that so much the population is in jail
hard not to
sometimes
prosecutors offer
diversion which means if you have the money you can pay to have your record clean but not have to go to jail.
But it doesn't guarantee that you get your record expunged you still have to pay fees and take classes.
And if you don't have enough money to pay every fee even if over time you paid most of it you go to jail.
So it's pretty much debtors prison which
breaks the Fourteenth Amendment again in addition to this the three strikes law which means you break the law three times and
Mandatory minimums which means you have to serve a mandatory amount of jail time only as the arrest being made.
Now you might be saying but if someone is a repeat offender they should go to jail. Well, let's give you an example.
Let's say someone gets arrested for having a little bit of weed, then they miss a parole date
Then they have a light out on the front of their car and a cop pulls them over and takes them in because that was
their third strike. Yeah,
that happens and people go away for decades for that. Even if your judge thinks you don't deserve to go to jail mandatory minimum
and three strikes means you have to serve that sentence no matter what. And
guess which lobbyists push these law through big private prisons like CCA.
If decades of imprisonment for crimes that hurt no one isn't cruel and unusual punishment, then I don't know what is.
Now once you are arrested and do or don't go to jail having a felony or a record means that people can deny you your
basic rights that everyone as a citizen of the United states is supposed to have.
However people and the government use the fact that people have a record to discriminate, people with records are denied loans,
driver's licenses, housing, food stamps, welfare, jobs,
and the right to vote. And this doesn't just affect those who have been convicted we've gotten to the point where the United Nations human
rights committee has charged that U.S.
disenfranchisement policies are discriminatory and violate international law the rest of the world says the way we are treating our own citizens post arrest is
Inhumane. Especially since if you didn't pick up on this already the way the police and the court systems function is
racist. They don't say "Hey, we are definitely picking on African-Americans and Latinos." But the numbers show it.
African-Americans are between two and five more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession, and if you've missed it
Jefferson f**king Beauregard f**king Sessions f**king the Third has been pushing to re-up the war on drugs
specifically targeting marijuana users and even legal marijuana users. However, when the topic of the Opioid epidemic comes up
which is predominantly a problem among white people.
The discussion is finding ways to help people treat their addictions even though according to findings from the 2009 on household survey and drug abuse
young white professionals are more likely to engage in illegal drug activity, but swat teams aren't breaking into Hamptons parties looking for weed.
Now maybe you're like I have no human empathy.
Why should I care? Well if all you care about is money.
39 billion dollars of your tax money was spent on maintaining prisons in 2010 and the prison population has only gotten bigger. One
trillion dollars has been spent on the war on drugs since its start which is also your tax money. Money not your thing,
empathy not your thing.
You seem fun at parties, most people going to prison are in for nonviolent offenses. Minor drug crimes are rearrests due to the system breathing down
people's necks.
So actual violent crimes are not being focused on. In fact
they're being missed.
So
there are more violent crimes than ever. This is not the case in other countries. Finland designed their prisons to rehabilitate people and treat humans like
humans, and they have fewer people in prison and far fewer people suffering with drug addiction.
So what can you do you know after feeling depressed after watching this video take your time on that one.
There's a lot.
Educate yourself about this, there is a ton of research about mass incarceration and mass arrests, the rise of the drug war and its effect
on our prison system.
Personally I recommend you watch the documentary the 13th and read the new Jim crow to start if you haven't yet.
Then stay educated about the new laws being implemented that affect the prison system.
Specifically,
legislations that affect those being arrested by keeping an eye on drug laws and crime laws. Push for lawmakers and law
enforcers to deal with drug addiction using
rehabilitation instead of just throwing
citizens into cages. If you serve on a jury do your job on the jury and don't send nonviolent offenders or those accused of nonviolent
crimes to prison. Work with companies and hire people who are once in prison if you can hire people don't discriminate against ex-convicts arbitrarily.
Donate or volunteer at organizations like "All of us or None of us" and
"A new way of life" that helps people who are no longer in prison, but trying to get that job,
housing or food stamps since their release. Those of you interested in
reclassifying drug records or following the new policies that will happen moving forward with marijuana should go to myprop64.org
created by The Drug Policy alliance.
In addition
Keep an eye on laws that affect immigrants call your senators about bills that propose to feed directly into this unjust system if you see
an arrest that is clearly a violation.
Step up film it report it if you hadn't noticed all the ice raids and immigrant arrests that directly feed into the prison system
Notice it people are being locked away in to detention centers. Which is just a new word for prison.
Why would they need a new word for prison, because it's pretty hard to rationalize putting children in prison?
But that's what the detention centers are prisons that they're allowed to put children in. Remember the day Trump was elected
I do well the stock market went down in a lot of respects except for one,
prison stocks went way up. However for those of you who are completely opposed to drug use and don't care about immigrants or children?
Being locked up inhumanely think about it like this.
If someone breaks a nonviolent law and they got caught and they go to jail should they have to pay for that for the rest
of their life wasn't jail time enough.
If not frankly overkill should they be denied basic citizen and human rights placed in inhumane conditions because if you said, yes
then it looks like you're disagreeing with our own American constitution created by our own forefathers. Wow, real unamerican of you our
forefathers probably think you're a dick now. They're like "Hey
Jerk we worked hard on those amendments. What's your deal bro slash sis." Anyway
go be a good citizen and do something about this.
Hey, everyone
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Check out the description under this video for links to all those things that I mentioned. Where you can donate
volunteer and help fix this problem.