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SPP NEWSLETTER - February 2021
MESSAGE FROM COREWhat a year it has been! We hope that you and your loved ones are healthy and well. We hope that you are counting the little wins and the big wins. Over the course of the last year communities and the world at large have grappled with the quadruple crises of a deadly pandemic, a warming planet, intensified economic inequity, and violent white supremacy. The pandemic only exacerbated what already existed and in the face of this, BIPOC communities have risen up and produced incredible networks of care and mutual aid. SPP Core members have been organizing to Defund SPD, operationalize city-wide Participatory Budgeting, expand restorative justice programming, support community-led and -based mutual aid, and shut down the youth jail. We carry over these fights into the new year with renewed energy.
2021 will be a big year for our City! The Mayor and both city-wide city Council seats are up for election. Fights for deeper cuts to the SPD budget are on the horizon. The state legislature has multiple police accountability bills to support plus a prison sentence expansion bill to oppose. SPP will be ramping up our organizing work around these topics and hope that you will join us in this work. Look forward to our newsletter every 3rd week of the month which will contain information from SPP Core on how to get active. We look forward to building with you all in the upcoming months!
In Solidarity,
SPP Core
To some of the work we’ve been up to: Covid-19 Mutual Aid (instagram) Free Them All WA (instagram) SURJ (instagram) George Jackson Freedom Coalition (instagram) Restorative Community Pathways (instagram) Rainier Beach Action Coalition (instagram) Youth Achievement Center (instagram) Creative Justice (instagram) Restitution Relief Fund (instagram)
TAKE ACTION No to HB 1071
WA State lawmakers are considering expanding prison sentences and probation penalties to address hate-based violence. Hate crimes bills like HB 1071 do nothing to actually deter this kind of harm and end up giving prosecutors more power and expanding prison sentences. This is not the way forward, particularly when we are reckoning with the role of police violence and prisons in our society. Contact your state representative today to say NO to HB 1071.
Further information to contact your state representative is here.
Juvenile “Justice” Bills
We demand developmentally appropriate responses to harm rooted in racial equity. Make your voice heard! Email or call your WA State legislator and let them know you support the bills listed here. You can find your district’s legislators: https://app.leg.wa.gov/districtfinder/
HB 1413 Fresh Start Bill for Criminalized Youth / Juvenile Points Bill **CELEBRATE!!! This one passed in the House Committee on Public Safety earlier this week on 2/15. Huge thanks to all who already supported!** During the “tough on crime” era, the distinction between juveniles and adults was blurred, including in the use of prior juvenile adjudications (points) to increase sentence length. This trend was largely driven by misguided fears regarding child “super predators” - the racist myth that children who committed crimes, particularly Black children, were dangerous and unable to be rehabilitated. Still today, children are given points per conviction that follow them into the adult system and wrack up against them. The more points, the more time. Use of a points system has meant that BIPOC youth often receive longer sentences as a result of prior juvenile convictions. HB 1413 seeks to abolish juvenile points both for the future and retroactively which will bring Washington in line with the majority of states that don’t use points.
HB 1344 Second Chance for People Incarcerated as Young Adults In WA state, BIPOC youth are given disproportionately long sentences. For example, while Black people comprise just 4.3% of the population of WA State, they make up 32.4% of those currently incarcerated serving a 15+ year sentence given to them as young adults. Scientific evidence shows that the brain is rarely fully developed prior to the age of 25. In 2014, WA State passed the Second Chance Bill (SB 5064) which granted review to youth who were sentenced for crimes committed prior to their 18th birthday. This new bill (HB 1344) would increase the age for sentence review consideration from 18 to 25. This will help move Washington towards racially just, evidence-based sentencing practices by giving young adults who have demonstrated accountability and rehabilitation a second chance.
HB 1140 Protect Youth Rights: Juvenile Access to Attorney In summer of 2020, The Seattle City Council & King County Council unanimously voted to pass a Youth Right to Counsel Ordinance. This ensured the Seattle Police Department and King County Sheriff’s Office could no longer ask a youth to waive their rights and interrogate them without an attorney present. Rep. Jesse Johnson has put forward this state bill which would expand the youth rights to counsel ordinance throughout WA state ensuring that all youth in WA have an attorney with them before waiving their rights and being searched and interrogated by the police.
SB 5120 Codify Houston-Sconiers Bill: Consider Youthfulness When Sentencing a Youth In the 80s, 90s, and 2000s youth were labeled “superpredators” and handed down excessively long sentences without considering their age. In 2017, WA State Supreme Court decided youthfulness needs to be considered before sentencing children to adult prison, both in cases moving forward and retroactively. Thousands of BIPOC community members have started making their appeals to have their cases reheard and have their age at the time of sentencing taken into account. King County and Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s office are trying to overturn this WA State Supreme Court Decision. This would have catastrophic impacts on BIPOC communities. We MUST protect WA State Supreme Court’s decision by Codifying Houston-Sconiers.
SB 5122 Raise the Age of Juvenile Jurisdiction Young people don’t belong in the criminal legal system for behaviors stemming from developmental changes and service needs - both of which are largely beyond their control. This bill seeks to change the definition of “juvenile” to include young people under the age of 20 and to ensure youth under the age of 13 are not prosecuted in juvenile court.
SB 5123 Youth Registration Bill: End the Failed, Harmful Policy of Youth Sex Offender Registration Research demonstrates youth sex offender registration is a failed, harmful policy, that does not prevent sexual harm or increase public safety. The registration is associated with increased suicide attempts, increased solicitations by adults for sex, and increased sexual assault victimization. This bill seeks to end sex offender registration for youth in juvenile court and to allow the court to dismiss a case following successful completion of a Special Sexual Offender Disposition Alternative by youth.
Support Police Accountability and Reform
Here are this legislative session’s bills for police accountability and reform as detailed by WA State Senator Rebecca Saldaña of the 37th District. Please consider providing feedback or messages of support to your respective representatives. To look up WA State Legislators for your district, click here.
NOTE: We are including all of the below bills because we want to provide our community with a holistic perspective of the reach and depth of policy that is being proposed during this legislative session. Just because we included a bill below does not mean we are supporting that bill. The Seattle Peoples Party is committed to abolition and openly recognizes that not all reforms are good, useful or effective for achieving a world beyond prisons and police. Specifically, rather than putting more money into systems that may expand racist policing, prosecution, and courts, or failed structures of oversight, we should consider making greater investments in community-based, community-led (non-policing or prosecutorial) prevention and responses to harm.
SB 5051/HB 1082 would provide timely and effective enforcement of state standards for law enforcement officers, allowing the Criminal Justice Training Commission to discipline officers who abuse the privilege of carrying a badge and gun.
SB 5066 would establish clear standards for police officers to intervene when fellow officers use force unjustly and to report any wrongdoing by fellow officers.
SB 5259/HB 1092 would establish comprehensive statewide reporting and publication for use-of-force incidents involving law enforcement.
HB 1054 would ban the use of chokeholds, neck restraints, unleashed police dogs, no-knock warrants, military equipment, and the practice of officers intentionally concealing their badges.
SB 5089 would increase minimum age and education requirements for new police officers.
SB 5263 would modify a 1986 law that has prevented people who have been killed or injured by police from recovering damages from police departments.
SB 5055 improves transparency, professionalism and equity of the arbitration process for law enforcement collective bargaining.
SB 5067/HB 1088 would shed light on officers who are not credible witnesses because of their previous conduct.
SB 5069/HB 1089 would bring transparency to investigations into police uses of deadly force.
HB 1267 would mandate the independent investigation of deadly uses of force, custodial deaths, and other officer-involved incidents.
Go deep with Nikkita Oliver’s class “Let’s Talk About Abolition”
In this community syllabus, the course starts with the end in mind. When most people think about abolition they think about dismantling and abolishing oppressive and harmful systems and institutions; which is certainly a portion of our work. But we also must be visioning and working towards the world in which we want to live! The readings, videos, and podcasts help us imagine a world beyond prisons and police as we journey through this discussion together over the next few months.
Find the curriculum modules here.
UPCOMING EVENTS & RESOURCES Celebrate Mariame Kaba’s new book “We Do This ‘Til We Free Us”
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