One of the main pillars of middle school principal Jamaal Bowman's congressional campaign is his call for "restorative justice" — sinking money into communities, rather than turning to incarceration.
Bowman, a Justice Democrat, has called to repeal the 1994 Crime Bill, a piece of legislation backed by his opponent, 16-term Democratic Congressman Eliot Engel, because he says the 25-year-old bill has unfairly discriminated against people of color, resulting in the rise of mass incarceration in the United States. For Bowman, there are better methods to clean up his community.
In explaining restorative justice, he told Cheddar Monday "If someone does harm against a community, it's not about torturing them and throwing them in a cage. It's about understanding why that harm was committed in the first place and giving them the opportunity to right the wrong of the harm."
In the 2020 presidential race, controversy surrounding the Crime Bill has been a point of contention for the former Vice President Joe Biden. While Biden was a frontrunner out of the gate, he spent the early days of his campaign answering questions as to why he signed on to the "tough on crime" law that has been criticized for the minimum mandatory sentences that led to more black men being locked up.
In the months since, several candidates have called for its repeal, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who wrote a Medium post outlining her criminal justice policy: "It's not equal justice when a kid with an ounce of pot can get thrown in jail, while a bank executive who launders money for a drug cartel can get a bonus. It's long past time for us to reform our system."
Criminal justice reform has been identified as a key issue among black voters in recent years. Pollster Celinda Lake wrote in a piece for The Marshall Project, "by a two-to-one margin, voters believed that our country relies too much on incarcerating people (63 percent to 31 percent who disagreed), including majorities of every subgroup in the data who share this belief."
Now Bowman is championing criminal justice reform as one of his fundamental policies in the race for New York's 16th Congressional District: "If we provided people with the resources and opportunities within their neighborhoods, within their communities, within the district, they wouldn't commit crime in the first place."
"It's easy to give trillion dollar tax cuts to Wall Street. It's easy to invest trillions in the Pentagon," Bowman added. "When are we going to start investing trillions in our children, in community centers, in museums, and in opportunities for them to thrive?"
Although Bowman clarified that he is not calling for the all-out disarmament of all police officers, he did call for a re-alignment of gun control, adding: "We need to have independent investigators, and we need to grow our non-emergency police force so when we respond to someone with a mental health challenge, or a domestic challenge, we respond in a nonviolent way."
Bowman has won the backing of prominent political leaders like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), a Justice Democrat-backed candidate herself.
In an early poll conducted by progressive think tank Data for Progress in September, 29 percent of Democrats in the district said they would vote for Engel, whereas Bowman grasped the support of 10 percent. However, a whopping 60 percent still said they were not sure.
After the Chicago teachers union voted to work remotely due to what they say is a lack of safety protocols amid the COVID-19 surge, the school system canceled classes on Wednesday, citing harm that remote learning has done to the city's children. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, joined Cheddar to discuss the issues surrounding the latest dispute between educators and schools. She said that the return to in-person learning would likely be halted until more COVID tests could be provided for districts. "This is a terrible situation for everybody, and we need the testing, and we need the masks," she said. "It's the omicron surge that has created this disruption, and we are trying to do the best we can. And this is the only school district that has this kind of action right now." The teachers might not be returning to their schools for at least two weeks amid the ongoing tensions.
Illinois State Senator Robert Martwick joins Cheddar News to discuss the new bill he co-sponsored allowing students in the state to take 5 mental health days without a doctor's note.
On Monday, President Biden announced his new plan to take on inflation by taking down the big meat monopolies - turning to the federal government's antitrust authorities to investigate the major meatpackers that control a significant share of the market. The White House plans to devote one billion dollars to aiding independent meat and poultry producers in an effort to undercut the few powerful meat producers that have control of the sector. Austin Frerick, deputy director of Thurman Arnold Project at Yale, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
As the pandemic drags on, so does the widespread great resignation. In November alone, 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs, marking a new record high, and showing a 9 percent jump from the month prior. On the flip side, the number of people filing tax paperwork to start new businesses is surging, with over 430,000 new businesses launching in November. Rhett Buttle, the founder of Public Private Strategies and national business advisor to the Biden for President campaign, joined Wake Up with Cheddar to discuss.
New York Attorney General Letitia James is ramping up a civil investigation into The Trump Organization. The AG's office has subpoenaed Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. They have refused to comply with the subpoenas. Bradley Moss, national security attorney, joins Cheddar News to discuss the next steps in this investigation.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has officially reduced the 110-year prison sentence of truck driver Rogel Aguilera-Mederos to 10 years, calling the initial lengthy sentence “unjust.” Dan Gilleon, constitutional attorney at Gilleon Law Firm APC, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Former Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams was sworn in as the newest Mayor of New York City. Adams is now expected to work on a number of issues such as crime and coronavirus. Erin Durkin,, reporter at PoliticoNY, joins Cheddar News to discuss more.
California's new composting law will affect what residents do in their kitchens. As of this week, Californians will have to recycle excess food in an effort to reduce emissions caused by food waste. Cities and counties will turn recycled food into compost or use it as a renewable energy source. California's new law is the largest mandatory residential food waste recycling program in the country. Rachel Wagoner, Director of the California Department of Resources, Recycling and Recovery called the law 'the biggest change to trash' since recycling started in the 1980s. She joined Cheddar Climate to discuss.
As the U.S. comes up on the first anniversary of the January 6 insurrection.,A.C. Thompson, investigative reporter at ProPublica, joined Cheddar's Baker Machado to discuss updates to American Insurrection by FRONTLINE, ProPublica and Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program. The documentary investigates the attack on the Capitol touched off by the lie that the presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump but with new information gleaned since the event including interviews with lawmakers and law enforcement and the evolution of groups like the Boogaloo Boys and the Proud Boys behind the attack. "In some ways those groups that were kind of the vanguard of January 6 are maybe no longer relevant because their message is everywhere," he said.
