The Court System Isn't That Sensational, Right?

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By a design, the court system is meant to be exclusionary. It's really more like an assembly line. People come in, they get told what’s going to happen to em, and then they leave,. Where they stay in prison or jail, and they wait for the fall out of what incarcerations odo to them and the lovls. To say people have license and ability to impact the outcome of that experience is different than what was happening before we started doing this.

How would you describe your community? And what if the stories you tell have the power to save someone from injustice? With the popularity and support of movements like Black Lives Matter, it seems the world is reckoning with how we think about the systems and institutions that support mass incarceration. Today’s guest, Raj Jayadev, wants us to focus on “proximate, intimate change” in our local communities and courts. He is the co-founder and coordinator of Silicon Valley De-Bug, a community organizing, media and advocacy organization based in San Jose, California. For over a decade, De-Bug has employed a methodology they call “participatory defense”, an approach where families whose loved ones are facing the criminal court system can use their stories to transform the landscape of power in the courts. Raj and the De-Bug team have expanded their work into the National Participatory Defense Network, with hubs in more than 30 cities. His community organizing and writings have been featured in the New York Times, BBC, and TIME Magazine. In 2018, Raj was selected as a MacArthur Fellow. If you’d like to learn more about participatory defense or get involved, you can start at: https://www.participatorydefense.org/