The United States imprisons more people than any other country. But In California, the money is finally running short, and a new policy aims to reduce the number of people in state prison. It’s called ‘re-alignment’ and the state says it’s working. On this edition, Making Contact producer George Lavender investigates: is re-alignment the answer to the prison crisis? Could the incarceration nation finally be slowing down?
Thanks to the Omnia Foundation for partially funding this program.
Featuring:
Alisha Coleman, San Francisco County Jail inmate; Ruthie Wilson Gilmore, City University of New York Graduate Center professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences; Matthew Cate, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation secretary; Jennifer Prince, San Mateo County Women’s Jail inmate; Wendy Still, San Francisco Chief Probation officer; Don Horsley, San Mateo county supervisor; Greg Munks, San Mateo County sheriff; Daniel Macallair; Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice executive director; Emily Harris, Californians United for a Responsible Budget statewide coordinator.
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We’ve borne witness to a chaotic first few months in Trump’s presidency.
Over the last months, each executive order has delivered shock and bewilderment — a core part of a strategy to make the right-wing turn feel inevitable and overwhelming. But, as organizer Sandra Avalos implored us to remember in Truthout last November, “Together, we are more powerful than Trump.”
Indeed, the Trump administration is pushing through executive orders, but — as we’ve reported at Truthout — many are in legal limbo and face court challenges from unions and civil rights groups. Efforts to quash anti-racist teaching and DEI programs are stalled by education faculty, staff, and students refusing to comply. And communities across the country are coming together to raise the alarm on ICE raids, inform neighbors of their civil rights, and protect each other in moving shows of solidarity.
It will be a long fight ahead. And as nonprofit movement media, Truthout plans to be there documenting and uplifting resistance.
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