In numerous situations teens are taken advantage of by not having a lawyer or someone with them while being confronted by the police. This itself is a disadvantage seeing that many are unaware of their given rights and because many officers are aware of this tragedy, they would try to take advantage of them. Not having a lawyer and not knowing your rights could cause an innocent teen to go to prison. Prison has numerous inequalities and one major thing is that they do nothing to address poverty or economic Injustice. These reports speak about the injustice provided by the police and prisons and give reasons and evidence to back why they believe the police and prisons should be abolished.

During this meeting we talked about how some teens were taken advantage of by not having a lawyer or someone with them while being confronted by the police. We had speakers such as Min. Onlenilove and others, Pamela Villa spoke about how the system is set up to make people fail and to protect people with power such as police officers. We then had people share about their experiences with the police and other problems. Some people that come in contact with the police may not know their rights. They also talked about how the police would try to take advantage of you and with this bill you could be safe from these kinds of encounters. We then start talking about working on a bill to help people in this situation. When they were asking about what we thought about the bill I said I agree with this because if you're ever in an encounter with a police officer you would know your rights and know what you should and not do. We started talking about a name for it and they said either youth voices 4 justice or something else. Then we start talking about people who are in Brooklyn that agree with us or something like that. They also talk about how the social media presence and reposting could help in many ways. This is another way to show your support. They said it is good for the Youth to be aware of what is going on and to be a part of this.

—By: Gabriel Moreau

During this zoom meeting we had someone named Jasmine talk about police brutality and prison abolition. We then had a ted talk and it talked about how we have the highest incarceration rate. It also said that black people are five times as most likely to be incarcerated than other people. The same people can be targeted multiple times by the police just because of their skin. Prison does nothing to address poverty or economic Injustice. People come out of prison with a felon which makes it hard for them to get a job or even an education which makes it harder for them to survive . We then start to talk about a way other than prison that can help people. We then talk about criminal justice reform. They said we should try to hold police officers accountable for their crimes. They said that prison is not correctional, it is a cycle. Divesting in police and investing in communities will result in less crime. We then talk about what makes crime. We said that crime happened from how you are raised and your environment. We then start to talk about abolition. crime doesn't happen randomly but in many cases crime occurs when people are not able to meet their basic needs to other means. They ask us what we should do with the money we defunded from the police. I said that we should have programs for kids so they can have a role model to look up to so they don't end up on the streets doing bad things.

—By: Gabriel Moreau

Stay Woke Meeting Report on Prison Abolishment 8/6/2020. The focus for this week's Stay Woke meeting was about the prison abolishment movement. In the meeting we were watching a ted talk video by Maya Schenwar on prison abolishment. Some of Schenwar key points on Prison Abolishment were that there is a systematic racial targeting on African Americans and other races which in the process are filling up prisons. This is a huge issue because African Americans are purposely being marginalized and do not have any way to get around it. The United States of America has the highest incarceration rates compared to other countries and some of the prisoners are there for falsely accused crimes or crimes that fall under a misdemeanor. One of the key points Schenwar wanted to emphasize is that prisoners that are being released end up having a sort of ptsd when they come back to society. They end up turning into a whole new person. Another key point that Schenwar talks about is that approximately 10 million Children experience parental incarceration. This is a huge problem because these children are being left without someone to help them grow as a person and in the process this can cause them to go to prison in the future. This is something that should not be taken lightly. Too many children end up joining gangs, substance abuse and committing other crimes just because their parents are not around for them. In the Stay woke weekly Meeting speaker Jasmine Cuenca wanted to help us picture a society without prison and police. A place where the people can determine how people who commit crimes are dealt with.

—By: Mike Domingue

Could it be possible that Prison as a whole can downgrade the growth of a society? The creation of Prions was made to ironically help regulate the people of its community for any crimes that purposely went against laws. A prison is known as a government institution that carries out orders to felons that have committed seemingly wrongful acts as a whole. The four major purposes are retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, and rehabilitation. However, it is truly evident after today's collective meeting that the prison institutional complex (correctional facility) is solely used a system to be a solution to social political and economical problems by violating human rights, enacting a legal form of slave labor, and unfairly take in felons based off of color/race as its justification. It also includes policing, the media, and courts. The Prison system isn't actually correctional as many of its ways of rehabilitation towards felons go against many human Rights. Within today's meeting, it had been explained that prisons deprive felons of their freedom and mutual human rights, making them pay a form of debt that is retribution to their own crimes. But in modern society it has become more of a racial agenda to who is convicted. As stated by one of the guest speakers Jasmine Cucenca, based off of percentages, the systematic form of prisons have been used to have people unfairly arrested. The people that are consistently unfairly arrested are those of color. However, there has been a move towards reform, having a shift towards cuts on funding for prisons as well as police departments as the entire system has major issues. According to Beyond Reform: Abolishing Prisons, by Maya Schenwar, activists and reformers find it to be a major importance to terminate these prisons and replace them with systems of rehabilitation that do not place a focus on punishing lawbreakers. It is stated within the video how felons that have been given their freedom, are later rearrested within 3 years based on our current systematic prisons, and not one individuals actually realize this information or even see a problem about this. It was also directly stated from the video that “prison is not correctional, it is a cycle.” She then elaborates and talks about how black people in particular are targeted for arrests which is a gateway for them to be easily escorted into prison as they face the unjust cycle of no rehabilitation but only slave labor to pay off their own debt. After being included into this informational wake meeting on abolishing prison movements in the zoom call, I confidently believe that removing the current institutional prison system and replacing it with a more beneficial form of systematic rehabilitation could move felons into a better direction as well as teach them of their wrong doings. This plan is considered a better chance for today's society to develop properly, as our current prison system is predesigned for men and women(mostly of color) to be sent to prison for labor and increase economic gain by the state. By supporting the abolishing of these types of systematic prisons, it would be very much possible to break the abhorrent imprisonment cycle that people of modern day are unknowingly faced with.

—By: Gbenga Akinrosoye

This meeting we talked about how the police tend to take advantage of the criminal justice system . Someone also mentioned how social media allowed us to fight back and get justice for some people . I also agree because with social media a lot of things that were hidden were exposed and talked about more . An example that was brought up was the Breonna Taylor case. Breonna Taylor was a licensed EMT that was fatally shot by police serving a search warrant of her Kentucky home on March 13, 2020. We also talked about how people can help out by reposting on the internet rather than actually going out and protesting . Many people may not know this but this may actually be more helpful than actually protesting because more people can support this and it would be nearly impossible to ignore if a lot of people participate . A Lot of young people don’t worry and are not aware of these problems and need to be aware of their rights especially while being confronted by police . There was a discussion on whether actually confronting the police would be the right thing to do. There have been countless videos of people standing up for their rights being arrested and charged with more crimes . Many people may be too scared to stand up for their rights because of the amount of people being killed , however this shouldn’t stop people from knowing their rights because things eventually need to change and we are working towards that change .

—By: Raphael Moreau

During this meeting we talked about criminal justice and talked about what causes crime . We also talked about the risk for African Americans being incarcerated to be higher than others . They asked us for our opinions on how having a new bill that protects youth from police interrogation and makes things fairer / easier for teenagers to deal with . Most of us agreed with this and we planned to discuss more on this later . We also talked about economic injustice and how hard it usually is for people who come out of jail . This is usually not focused on but the lives for those who came for jail is many times harder than how it was before they went to jail . Many of them are unable to find jobs and some even don’t have families to return to. Although the justice system usually does their job they also favor one side over another . For example such as cops they usually are not punished for their crimes and even if they are the sentence is lesser than what an ordinary civilian would usually receive . The conversation of defunding the police was also brought up and we talked about using the money instead to help out the community , especially after how COVID 19 affected our community with less resources at stores , food shortages and loss of jobs. Someone also mentioned that with the money that there should be a supervised program for kids so they are helped put in the right direction . I said that the money should be used for more education because of how quartile affected education .

—By: Raphael Moreau