Everyone’s like just now watching 13th (a 4 year old documentary that Netflix is suddenly recommending people to watch to learn about black American history). We been talking about this shit for years, but now that y’all are caught up finally, let’s move past the fact that slavery was never technically abolished–cuz duh. ‎ Most criminal cases end in plea bargains, not trials. ‎ More than 90 percent of state and federal criminal convictions are the result of guilty pleas, often by people who say they didn’t commit a crime. This broken criminal justice system is a symptom of mass incarceration. ‎ On average, 94 percent of state-level felony convictions are the result of plea bargains, as well as around 97 percent of federal convictions. Plea bargains may help cases move along quickly, but they also make it easy for prosecutors to convict defendants who may not be guilty, who don’t present a danger to society, or whose ‘crime’ may primarily be a matter of suffering from poverty, mental illness, or addiction. ‎ In New York, for example, 98 percent of felony arrests that end in convictions are the result of plea bargains. New York is 1 of 10 states where prosecutors can wait until a trial to share evidence, meaning many people plead guilty to crimes they didn’t commit without even knowing what evidence prosecutors have against them. There are often few options for low-income New Yorkers who find themselves caught up in the criminal justice system. Some choose to plead guilty without seeing all the evidence prosecutors have against them. ‎ Even for those who maintain their innocence, pleading guilty can be preferable to waiting for their case to be heard and risking the possibility of a prison sentence that could run much longer than the time they’d face under a plea. ‎ Join us tonight @ 4pm EST talking more on the topic: crowdcast.io/e/racialjustice (available for replay) Venmo/CashApp: MohawkGreene Patreon: /therebeleducationist pics via @theslowfactory