This story by Anna Merriman was published by the Valley News on Jan. 31.
SOUTH ROYALTON — Tiffany Cabán, a public defender in New York City who almost won a grassroots campaign to become the top prosecutor in Queens, doesn’t want to replace what she deems a flawed criminal justice system.
Instead, she told an audience at Vermont Law School on Friday, she wants to do away with it altogether.
“I see it as a multi-generational project toward getting rid of the system,” the 32-year-old Cabán said in a speech Friday. In its place, she advocated for “building the kinds of communities with access to the things that we need to survive and thrive that don’t ever have to rely on stripping the humanity of another human being.”
Cabán’s words were met with applause from a group of around 80 VLS students, faculty members and visitors who filled the Chase Community Center. Cabán, who lost her Democratic primary bid for district attorney in Queens by 55 votes to an establishment candidate, was the keynote speaker at an annual conference on race and law presented by the Black Law Students Association at VLS.
The event this year had a focus on criminal justice reform, a topic Cabán spoke about with passion.
A key issue, she said, is how the system criminalizes people who are struggling, instead of focusing on help and reducing harm. She recalled cases she’s handled in which defendants who are too poor to afford bail or are struggling with mental health issues or drug addiction get punished with jail time — which she said isn’t in the interest of keeping the public safe.
“It’s public safety, it’s not punishment for the sake of punishment,” Cabán said.
Cabán, who is of Puerto Rican heritage and identifies as queer, also emphasized the connection between race and the criminal justice system. She said the system as it exists now is the “most powerful driver” in the oppression of people of color, low income earners and members of the LGBTQ community.
“What we are talking about (with criminal justice reform) is threatening white supremacy,” Cabán said. “We need to name this more often: What we are talking about is divesting from a system that has directly grown out of slavery.”
When it comes to looking ahead, Cabán had some criticism for the new “progressive prosecutor” movement that’s come to light in major cities like Philadelphia, with District Attorney Larry Krasner, and Dallas, with District Attorney John Creuzot. The movement has seen newly elected prosecutors working on eliminating cash bail or declining to pursue low-level charges like marijuana possession or petty theft.
But Cabán said that some of the more “progressive policies” prosecutors enact rarely extend to oppressed people.
“My clients were always the exception to the rule, and these policies were not having their intended impacts,” she said.
People who are truly interested in criminal justice reform need to engage with workers in other fields, like housing, health care and education, Cabán said, calling the subjects “uniquely intertwined.” She said reform looks like a complete overhaul, rather than small changes.
Cabán’s speech came in the middle of a day devoted to justice reform, which included a speech from Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan and remarks from Vermont Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe, D/P-Chittenden. A panel on criminal justice reforms in the Northeast in the morning included Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn District Attorney.
The decision to focus this year’s event on criminal justice reform was an easy one, according to the event’s organizer and BLSA president Carla Usher. She pointed to recent stories about the high rate of people of color who are incarcerated, such as Kalief Browder, a 22-year-old black man who died by suicide after he was held in Rikers Island on a theft charge and was unable to make bail.
“I felt it was urgent to use this platform to center on criminal justice reform,” Usher said.
She added that if VLS students weren’t “pissed off or concerned” about the criminal justice system before the event, she hopes they’ll leave as activists now.
