Thanks to @BillForry for spending a day observing arraignments & violations in #Dorchester, doing some reporting to humanize the people involved in grinding through the system.

We want to offer a different take & context for some of the pieces of this story. #storiesfromcourt https://twitter.com/BillForry/status/1116028576921522176

1/ You were there for a murder arraignment, something you've done several times before.

In FY2018, the last available data, the entire state of Massachusetts saw 273 homicide charges.

By comparison, that same year: more than *85,000* non-homicide, non-DUI DRIVING charges.

2/ MA courts see *300X* as many criminal driving charges as homicides. But we read about murders.

We hope this experience alerts local outlets/journalists that devoting resources to only the most serious/salacious crimes skews the public's perception of crime & of the courts.

3/ It's not entirely clear from @BillForry's article whether the young man in question was on probation or parole.

Those are different!

Because this man spent time incarcerated on the underlying charge, it seems he is serving parole and this was a parole violation.

4/ Probation: a sentence to be served out under community supervision with specific court-mandated conditions *instead of* being sentenced to incarceration.

Parole: a component of a sentence of incarceration that allows for early release to condition-based community supervision.

5/ We'd emphasize: this young man was appearing in court for a technical violation: not checking in with his assigned officer or submitting to court-mandated drug & alcohol tests.

None of those behaviors are *criminal*, yet the law contemplates sending him back to a cage.

6/ That our baseline is JAIL or PRISON for what is essentially an administrative issue says much more about US than it does about this young man.

Technical violations of probation & parole are huge drivers of incarceration, & mass supervision is a crisis. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/correctionalcontrol2018.html

7/ Yes, Judge Georges - who we know often shows leniency from our own volunteer experiences (e.g. he often downgrades criminal driving offenses to civil matters) - did not send this 22-yr-old back to a cage.

We do breathe a sigh of relief on that.

8/ But he DID give him a GPS ankle shackle; an 8PM to 7AM curfew, 7 days a week; an additional *YEAR of supervision*; and once-a-month court appearances.

Those. Are. Onerous. Conditions.

And it's literally going to cost him (h/t @PrisonPolicy): https://www.prisonpolicy.org/probation/ma_report.html

9/ All this NOT for even being arrested on a new crime (which itself is just an accusation - an arrest does not mean someone committed a crime).

This man will have constant surveillance for an additional year for not complying with court mandated conditions of social control.