Countering the Overlap of Race and Class: Fund public defenders
Underfunding leads to public defenders not having adequate access to training, legal research, investigators, experts or scientific testing. Meanwhile the prosecution has access to all these resources. "Most Americans support balanced funding for prosecution and public defense, and national standards require it; but governments commonly spend three times as much on prosecution as on public defense." (NLADA) And it is quite common that public defenders are representing low-income Black people. With the appropriate resources and funding for public defenders, many low-income persons will have an attorney that can defend them in such a way that a prosecutor represents the plaintiff.
Divvy Up State Funding for Poverty Encompassed Areas.
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Oregon is a prime example of using state funding to improve schools in low-income areas. In Oregon, nearly 60 districts where childhood poverty had increased since 2000 received a boost in state funding from 1 percent to 7 percent. These districts range from Redmond, which will get an additional $2 million, to Tigard-Tualatin, which will get an extra $1 million, to small districts like Joseph which will receive an extra $170,000. The divvy of state funding should be a model for other states, to help rid the school-jail pipeline.
Good Schools in Poor Neighborhoods: An inspiration to show that there can be good schools in poor neighborhoods.
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"Good Schools in Poor Neighborhoods" is a book that demonstrates, using two schools as examples, how there can be effective schools in poor neighborhoods. Proving that it is possible for there to be good education in economically isolated communities.
Combination of many solutions, to curb one issue.
A combination of legalizing marijuana, curbing racial profiling by police among poor people of color, lowering the sentencing disparity of crack vs powder, and having police focus on higher level crimes will all keep a tremendous amount of poor Black and Hispanic individuals out of prison.