Posts Tagged over-criminalization

By Verónica Bayetti Flores • 9 years ago

Queer and trans youth of color in NOLA demand accountability from police

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, it will not come as a surprise to you that queer and trans people of color are routinely targeted by the police.

We Deserve Better, a new report by BreakOUT! — a badass organization working to end the criminalization of LGBTQ youth in New Orleans — highlights exactly the ways queer and trans youth experience discriminatory policing at the hands of the NOPD. Perhaps most importantly, We Deserve Better also highlights the resiliency of these criminalized communities, and makes common-sense demands to address issues of safety.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, it will not come as a surprise to you that queer and trans people of color are routinely targeted by

By Verónica Bayetti Flores • 9 years ago

Take Action: Ban the use of condoms as evidence of prostitution in New York

Despite the fact that condoms are widely held as essential tools in HIV and STI prevention – as well as being a very effective non-prescription method of birth control – just carrying condoms could get you arrested.

That’s right: As we’ve covered before, in New York and other places in the United States, condoms are routinely used by the police as evidence that the folks they are stopping are engaging in prostitution. If this seems impossibly nonsensical to you, it’s because it makes no sense, but unfortunately for everyone common sense is not the main driver of public policy. 

Despite the fact that condoms are widely held as essential tools in HIV and STI prevention – as well as being a very effective non-prescription method of birth control – just carrying condoms could get you arrested.

That’s ...