This election season — and beyond — racial justice demands real action

To the editor:

As primary season draws to a close, candidates for Berkshire County District Attorney and Sheriff are working to position themselves as strong on racial equity. We urge voters to choose candidates who they believe really understand the issues, have solid plans to address them, and will devote the resources and attention to see them through.

Despite some incremental reforms over the past several years, Berkshire County’s criminal legal system remains riddled with systemic racism. For example, even as Berkshire County moves away from cash bail, which keeps people of color locked up without convictions, our Task Force and others surfaced the issue of an exponential increase in practices like dangerousness hearings, which have similar impacts. 

Meanwhile, Berkshire county residents – especially people of color and people with disabilities – are over-incarcerated. Even while Berkshire County imprisons people at below the average national rate, we exceed the global average by over 60 percent, ranking near Russia, Namibia and Belize. In 2015, 36 percent of Berkshire County’s prison population was Black, while only four percent of current Berkshire County Residents are Black. On top of that, 80 percent of Berkshire County inmates have a serious mental health condition as defined by state law. We still don’t have good or timely data on how inmates are doing, let alone along lines of race, gender or sexual orientation. And over 35 percent of people released from Berkshire County jails and prisons in 2013 ended up back there within three years, according to state data.

While these issues stretch across and well beyond our county’s criminal legal system, the next DA and sheriff will have critical roles to play in taking on these and many related injustices. We need officials who can think beyond the norms of the prison industrial complex and move toward justice rooted in community, not in courts and cells.

For our part, we will continue to demand reforms like those identified through the What A Difference A DA Makes campaign (in partnership with the ACLU of Massachusetts). BRIDGE’s Race Task Force will continue to host officeholders and candidates at its meetings to hold them accountable for mistakes and negligence and push for repair and policy change. And ultimately, we will continue to demand that Berkshire County resource, rather than criminalize, communities of color.

Elizabeth Adams, Veronica Fenton, Tamir Novotny, Kristen van Ginhoven and Gwendolyn VanSant on behalf of the Multicultural BRIDGE Race Task Force and the BRIDGE Board. BRIDGE is a 501(c)3 organization and does not endorse candidates for public office.