The Center for Policing Equity (CPE) greets with anger, but little surprise, reports that a State Attorney’s Office in Monticello, FL had until this week a written policy recommending harsher punishments for "Hispanic" people facing misdemeanor charges. The only genuinely shocking element to these reports is that what has been dubbed "the racism policy" was written down and readily visible–the last time such manifestly racist government policies were so visible, they hung over restaurant doors and water fountains.
Second Judicial Circuit State Attorney Jack Campbell has confirmed the document's authenticity but attempted to dismiss its significance, calling it a "misstatement" by a junior prosecutor, insisting that the text should have read "undocumented immigrant" rather than "Hispanic," and claiming that the intention was not to prosecute people differently "because of race," but "because of their legal status."
Yet this explanation does little but underscore the deep-rooted racism expressed by the policy as it appeared on Campbell's office bulletin board. The demonization of undocumented immigrants, the conflation of all people who identify as being of Hispanic or Latinx heritage, with undocumented immigrants, and the failure to acknowledge the legal rights that all people have, regardless of immigration status, is a thread that runs through this country's criminal legal systems at every level.
We saw it last fall when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis deceived 48 Venezuelan asylum seekers and had them flown to Martha's Vineyard. We see it whenever Texas Gov. Greg Abbott frames the arrival of immigrants seeking safety for themselves and their families at the southern border as an "invasion." We saw it a century ago when as many as 1.8 million people of Mexican descent, most U.S. citizens, were deported to Mexico, and we see it in ICE raids and deportations today.
We also learned this week of the violent anti-Black racism expressed behind closed doors by county commissioners, the Sheriff, and Sheriff’s Office employees in McCurtain County, OK–this is how unapologetic racism is typically expressed in the 21st century, in private conversation, private texts, and private jokes. But what is said, enabled, and empowered in private impacts the people dehumanized in ways that are traceable, measurable, and lastingly traumatic, for them, their communities, and democracy itself.
CPE's public safety redesign work is rooted in the understanding that racism is not simply an expression of individually defective hearts and minds but is best understood as behaviors that are systematically enabled, supported, and facilitated. People of Hispanic and Latinx heritage do not need to read the news to learn about systemic racism; they live with it every day. We remain dedicated to the work of building public safety systems that are fair, just, and equitable, for all people.