Here’s How to Respond to Crime, Not React to It
For years, the state of California has struggled with overcrowded jails and prisons. From the three-strikes law to life sentences without parole, California is “one of the epicenters of mass incarceration in the United States,” according to the Vera Institute. After years of activism by abolitionist organizers, California voters in 2014 passed Proposition 47, which reduced some penalties on some offenses.
This year, law enforcement and big retailers are joining forces to back a new ballot measure this November called Proposition 36, which would undo Proposition 47.
Dortell Williams, who is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole at Mule Creek State Prison recently wrote a story in L.A. Progressive about Proposition 36 called “Are We Responding to Crime or Reacting to It?” He spoke with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about it.
Sonali Kolhatkar
joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute’s Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (2023) and Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2005). Her forthcoming book is called Talking About Abolition (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women’s Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host” in her 2014 TEDx talk of the same name.
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