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THREAD: When politicians talk "reform" of racist systems, remember the story of how New York politicians used "reform" after Kalief's death to perpetuate violence against Black children. (1) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/06/before-the-law
Kalief committed suicide after three years of pretrial detention at Rikers, falsely accused of stealing another child's backpack. He spent 18 months in solitary confinement. (2)
His mother Venida died shortly afterward--died from a broken heart. (3) https://www.theroot.com/mom-of-kalief-browder-dies-of-a-broken-heart-1790857266
Invoking Kalief and standing next to Kalief’s brother as he announced “Kalief’s Law,” NY Governor announced what officials called major “reforms,” including raising the age of prosecution in some cases and barring children from being caged with adults. (4)
But after that announcement, those “reforms” reinforced the punishment bureaucracy. MORE money was spent by New York to cage children in SEPARATE locations, leading to a boom in construction of child prisons and more prison guards. (5) http://correctionalnews.com/2017/09/27/harriet-tubman-residential-center-gets-new-life/
Many thousands of children were excluded from the reforms altogether. Kalief himself would have been excluded because of his supposedly "violent" crime. New forms of government control over children’s bodies are expanded. (6) https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/11/andrew-cuomo-juvenile-justice-carceral-humanism-kalief-browder
When elites talk "reform," remember this: Kalief’s Law led New York to spend $12 million in 2017 to re-open the “Harriet Tubman Center”—a jail for children named after an abolitionist icon. The jail created eighty-five new jobs and cages disproportionately black children. (end)
