What It Means to Be 17 in Texas with Cases in Two Courts Two of my clients currently have open cases in the juvenile system. Because they were charged with new offenses at 17, they are also now facing charges in adult court. They are navigating both systems at the same time. This is what… Continue reading Not One System. Both.
Tag: systemic injustice
When Childhood Stops Counting: A Shoe, a Sleepover and the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Every parent knows how quickly a simple disagreement among kids can escalate. Take, for example, a recent case involving my client, a 17-year-old girl at a sleepover. She and another girl started arguing over a boy. Tempers flared, and in a moment of frustration, my client threw a shoe. The hosts asked her to leave.… Continue reading When Childhood Stops Counting: A Shoe, a Sleepover and the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Women, Motherhood, and the State
The Punishment of Care: How Motherhood Shapes Women’s Experience in the System Motherhood is traditionally celebrated as care and nurturing. Yet within the criminal legal system, it paradoxically becomes a source of punishment and control. The system weaponizes motherhood to regulate women’s bodies, identities, and behavior, reinforcing social hierarchies and perpetuating systemic inequality. The system… Continue reading Women, Motherhood, and the State
Black Resistance, Black Resilience, Black Care: The Future We’re Building Together
After three weeks of naming the harm — the design, the extraction, the quiet violence baked into the system — it would be easy to believe the story ends there. But Black history has never been only a record of what was done to us. It’s also a record of what we built anyway. What… Continue reading Black Resistance, Black Resilience, Black Care: The Future We’re Building Together
The Modern Courtroom: Chains You Don’t See
When Freedom Costs More Than a Conviction Last week, I wrote about what happens when mental illness and Blackness collide inside a jail — how crisis becomes criminalized, how symptoms become charges, how the system responds with punishment instead of care. But the exploitation doesn’t stop at the jail door. It follows people into the… Continue reading The Modern Courtroom: Chains You Don’t See
The System Didn’t Break; It Was Built This Way
Every February, America dusts off its favorite Black icons, recites a few safe quotes, shows a few movies with popular Black actors and calls it Black History Month. But Black history isn’t something we visit once a year. It’s something we’re still living — in our laws, in our courtrooms, in our jails, and in… Continue reading The System Didn’t Break; It Was Built This Way
Southern Sentences, Post 3: Heat, Hunger and Healthcare & Healthcare Behind Bars
Heat, Hunger, and Healthcare: The Human Cost of Texas Prisons Texas prisons are not just sites of confinement—they are crucibles of suffering. In the sweltering summer months, many facilities lack air conditioning, subjecting incarcerated individuals to deadly heat. Temperatures routinely exceed 100 degrees, and the physical toll is compounded by inadequate access to water, ventilation,… Continue reading Southern Sentences, Post 3: Heat, Hunger and Healthcare & Healthcare Behind Bars
On (In)justice 