Why Should Laurelton Care About Kalief Browder?

I first learned about Kalief Browder shortly after his release from jail and a couple of years before his suicide. At the age of 16, he was sent to Rikers Island, charged with a robbery he did not commit. He languished there for 3 years, two of those years in solitary confinement. The terror and violence of this nightmare haunted him until the day he took his life. From the onset, I found his experience horrifying and heartbreaking. Perhaps, being a mother to 4 boys made me especially sensitive to his plight. Then again, even when we relate to a story in the deepest ways, there is a detachment that shields us from totally imagining ourselves in that situation. I believe, this is a faint and frail veneer for most of us.

Since Kalief Browder’s untimely death, there has been a groundswell of outrage and a call for reforms including the closing of Riker’s Island. One of the reforms gaining the most momentum is that of the bail system; long considered racist and disproportionately harmful to Blacks and Latino’s. To Kalief’s family, the $3,000 bail was completely unattainable, as it is for many low income New Yorkers. Laurelton is an upper middle-class community with an average median income of $98,000 and household net worth of $765,000. Certainly, bail set at $3,000 or more would not be a problem. Right?

Do not rest easy that the bail system is simply about money. An audit conducted by the Independent Budget Office revealed the following:

Races of those given pretrial detention instead of being released on bail in 2016:

• Black: 52 percent
• Hispanic: 33 percent
• Whites: 10 percent

While the disparity is staggering, I am sure it is not surprising. What we should pay close attention to is that bail is sometimes denied because of race, not only because of money or the lack of it. The most common charge is “other misdemeanor”, a low-level offense. Kalief was charged with stealing a backpack, an offense that would have carried a sentence of a year or less if the case ever went to trial. The report also states, “In 2016, the average daily population for the city’s jails was 9,790, of which 7,633, or 78 percent, were pretrial detainees,” meaning they were denied bail or could not afford to pay bail at arraignment, according to a letter accompanying the report. About 34 percent were there because they were denied bail altogether.

Laurelton and other middle-class communities of color should care about these reforms. Clearly, justice is not color blind. These are not the problems of East New York, Brownsville or East Harlem and similar communities. Our young men and women are being judged by their race, not their tax returns. We cannot be lulled by the seemingly bucolic scenery and serenity of our neighborhoods. The tragedy of Kalief Browder, and many others, is not so far removed or impossible to imagine. We hope and pray for the safety of our children, their friends and peers. WE must do more! We cannot allow the young to be sacrificed to a system that threatens to obliterate them without impunity. I urge my neighbors to be vigilant and keep close watch on the movements to reform the bail system and to close Riker’s Island. Our voices, our resources and our votes are critical to creating a deafening demand for change to a system that has profited at our expense. At the helm of it, we have the haunting face of Kalief Browder. I imagine him pleading to us “we do not need another martyr”.