criminal justice system

Several dozen activists rallied in front of the State House last Friday, calling on Gov. Charlie Baker to sign into law legislation that would block the state from building new prisons for the next five years.

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd last May, Cerise Jacobs and her activist opera company White Snake Projects knew they wanted to contribute to the Black Lives Matter cause in a more significant way than a solidarity press release. And so they created “Death by Life,” a virtual opera delving into the stories of prisoners impacted by mass incarceration and the victimization of Black and brown people.

The bulging numbers of Blacks in America’s jails and prisons seem to reinforce the wrong-headed perception that crime and violence in America invariably comes with a Black male face such as Floyd’s.