Social Justice

By Luis J. Rodriguez

End all discrimination and blocks to resources, rights and benefits based on race, gender, creed, faith, sexual orientation, disability, or immigrant status. Every human being in the state should be treated with respect and dignity. Overhaul failing prison system. Replace with restorative justice practices, health treatment, rehabilitation, training, education, and the arts. Make all law enforcement agencies accountable to independent community-based bodies.

The issue of security, public safety, and justice goes far beyond the walls of any prison. This includes police brutality, the criminalization of poverty, and the school to prison pipeline.

The Rodriguez Campaign for Governor recognizes the abuse of human rights, unlike the status quo. We aim to highlight our alliances with the activists in the trenches like Aloni Bonilla in her fight against Sheriff Abuse, to supporting simple cheap rehabilitation strategies like increase funding for libraries in prison. The Rodriguez campaign will develop, present, and collaborate on solutions that will help bring Californians back into society instead of burying them in concrete and steel cages.

A Primer published by the California Legislative Analyst's Office gives some background on the current system and the costs. There are 10 Divisions and Boards and 12 Offices and Programs within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Luis Rodriguez has intimate knowledge of how law enforcement has been used to colonize people. We are in a new age in the modern metropolis where law enforcement and politics due to budgets are so intricately connected. While the voting population is small and influential, the millions of Californians that don't vote are being successfully silenced by the the propaganda of the two-party-binary.

2.1 The CDRC Budget

Building new prisons has been proposed by multiple elected officials at different levels of government. The Rodriguez Campaign vehemently opposes spending any money on the building of new prisons. At the same token, we have to outreach to the many groups that comb over the CDRC Budget on a regular basis.

Again, the CDRC Budget is $9,800,000,000 as proposed by current Governor Jerry Brown.

2.2 Police Brutality

Luis Rodriguez has personal experience with police brutality that is described in detail in two of his books [Always Running, and It Calls You Back]. His experience has allowed him to build alliances with people like Aloni Bonilla and Patrice Colors who have been working to end Sheriff Abuse in Los Angeles County through a series of different tactics and strategies.

From Kelly Thomas, a 37-year-old person of European descent, to Andy Lopez, a 13-year-old Chicano boy, police brutality is unchecked in the state of California. From ordinances banning the feeding of people in public to the closure of shelters, homelessness is being criminalized. From harsh fines against parents for truancy of their children to the excessive police presence on elementary schools, the state is preparing young people for mental incarceration by a two-party-binary.

Police brutality goes beyond physical violence, it goes to the intimation of power that the state and government imposes on people that agree to the social contract. The social contract of California is exactly what can be reimagined through an electoral campaign for Governor of California.

2. 3 Sentencing Laws and the Criminalization of Poverty

Recently, California voters reformed Three Strikes, but did not vote to replace the death penalty. These are specific changes that we should acknowledge and address in context of the broader reform we need to make. Sentencing laws are definitely something we could analyze. Also a list of prisoners that should be exonerated could be part of our prison platform.

2.3a Reevaluate mandatory minimums across all felonies of certain likelihood of being biased. (Ankur Patel)

2.3b Debtors prisons, and pay day loans used to force people into poverty through the garnershering of wages imposed by the state. (Ankur Patel)

2.4 School to Prison Pipeline

Input requested. This is the difficult part of running a small campaign that can not hire experts or researchers, we need to solicit the experts and those affected and assemble a platform that addresses the real problems that California is facing.

2.5 Women

As in all issues, we must pay special attention to the role of women and acknowledge that heteropatriarchy impacts our physical jails and our cultural glass ceilings. We aim to work with women like Susan Burton and Kim Carter and organizations like Take Action that have helped transition women out of prison and back into their community.

2 / 3. Transition from the 2nd pillar to the 3rd pillar.

A broader point that the campaign aims to develop is political education. An engaged and informed citizenry is not what we have, but an active and challenging policy and governing discussion might be able to get a critical mass of contributors to make the Luis Rodriguez Campaign a platform for the activists in the trenches.