From: Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu>
> Does anyone know where to find statistics of criminal convictions by
> convicts income or social class in this country?
Ok found it at http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/pji96.pdf <http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/pji96.pdf>
and what these numbers show is criminal. The so called criminal "justice" system in this country is nothing more than a way of railroading the poor to prisons.
^^^^^^^ CB: Yes, Big Uncle Sam's Gulag Archipalego.
What is to be done ? Angela Davis, a real organic intellectual, has been working in prison reform for over 30 years since her own famous imprisonment.
http://streams.wgbh.org/forum/forum.php?lecture_id=1160
In 1998, she helped to organize a national conference at UC Berkeley, "Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex". And more recently she published _Are Prisons Obsolete?_, Seven Stories Press
^^^^^^
Another question - is it possible to refuse to serve on a jury because of a belief that the justice system is fundamentally unfair? A sort of claiming the conscientious objector status in the war on the poor ... errr crime?
Wojtek
^^^^^ CB: If as a potential juror ,when you are voir dire'd by the attorneys in a criminal case , you say you cannot find the defendant guilty if you believe them to be poor, it seems certain that the prosecutor would exempt you for cause, and you would be off the jury.