“CRIME AFTER CRIME” – THE STRUGGLE TO FREE BATTERED WOMAN, DEBORAH PEAGLER
The feature-length documentary film, “Crime After Crime,” traces the legal battle to free Deborah Peagler from a California prison 20 years after she was connected to the murder of the man who had abused her and forced her into prostitution.
It premiered Thursday night on OWN, the Oprah Winfrey network, but it will encore, so power up your DVRs. It’s an incredible California criminal justice story and points beyond itself to a discussion we should be having about whom we incarcerate.
Here’s what WitnessLA posted about the case of Deborah Peagler two years ago.
And here’s an interview with Yoav Potash, the film’s director.
ICE SHATTERED FAMILIES
In the first six months of 2011, the US government removed more than 46,000 mothers and fathers of U.S.-citizen children.
Some of those kids stayed with other family members. But, many end up in the foster care system.
In a new study, the Applied Research Center estimates that there are approximately 5,100 children living in foster care whose parents have been either detained or deported.. If the same rate holds true for new cases, writes ARC in their report, in the next five years, 15,000 more children will land in the foster care system when their moms and/or dads are detained or deported.
Here’s what ARC recommends:
Federal, state and local governments must create explicit policies to protect families from separation. These polices should stop the clock on the child welfare process and the immigration enforcement process to ensure that families can stay together and allow parents to make the best decisions for the care and custody of their children.
The whole study is a worthwhile read.
CAMERAS, COPS AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT
Journalists and activists and citizens have the Constitutional right to photograph or video officers making an arrest as long as the picture taking doesn’t interfere with the police. But a lot of law enforcement see the matter otherwise.
The Crime Report has an interesting story by Jeremy Kohler about the conflict over this right that is being played out on many streets in the U.S.
Here’s a clip:
Walking by the Boston Common one afternoon in October 2007, Simon Glik saw three police officers forcing a young man face down on a park bench and heard a bystander say, “You’re hurting him.”
Concerned that officers were using unreasonable force to arrest the man, Glik, a young lawyer, used his cell phone to film the incident from 10 feet away.
After placing the suspect in handcuffs, an officer told him he’d taken enough pictures. Glik responded, “I am recording this. I saw you punch him.”
An officer asked Glik if his cell phone recorded audio. Glik said yes. The officer cuffed Glik, and arrested him on a charge of violating Massachusetts’s wiretap law, aiding in the escape of a prisoner, and disorderly conduct.
They also erased some of the recording, according to news accounts.
Glik was part of a trend that is riling journalists and activists…..