Assignment task:
The required reading for this week was written by Angela Davis over a decade after the passage of House Bill 3355, The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. Also known as the "1994 Omnibus Crime Bill," this was the largest crime bill in US history. Davis' reflections on the criminalization of blackness, the punishment industry and what has come to be termed, the "prison industrial complex" continues to characterize the state of our penal system more than two decades after this legislation was passed by the Clinton administration.
PART 1: The chapter by Angela Davis offers a thoughtful meditation on how we arrived at our present state of the "prisonization of the California landscape." Find and review the summary of House Bill 3355: The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (Google it) and reflecting on the Davis piece discuss how the 1994 crime bill facilitated the mass incarceration of black and brown people in California.
PART 2: Reflecting on the video by Hasan Minhaj, talk about how certain criminal justice policies incentivize police misconduct.
IMPORTANT: You are encouraged to incorporate any relevant analysis from this week's readings: