(From Press Release) – James Forman, Jr., Yale law professor and author of the Pulitzer prize-winning Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America announced his endorsement of Dean Johansson today.
In a statement, Mr. Forman said: “Dean Johansson and his supporters represent a growing movement to reform our criminal justice system and end mass incarceration through enacting change at the local level. Dean Johansson will bring needed change to the justice system in Yolo County, and will address the problem of mass incarceration locally through investment in job training and mental health and drug treatment. He will also address the racial biases in Yolo’s justice system.”
Mr. Forman’s award-winning book addresses how tough-on-crime policies, even when enacted by well-intentioned leaders seeking to address public safety concerns, have undermined the health and vitality of communities of color in the U.S, and particularly poor Black people.
Mr. Forman, who worked as a public defender for six years in Washington, D.C., argues for the need to end the over policing of poor communities and communities of color, which is one factor fueling mass incarceration.
Mr. Johansson’s pledge to refuse to file cases that rely on illegal racial profiling makes him a leader among reformer DA candidates. Mr. Johansson has pledged to enforce a 2015 state law (AB 953) which prohibits police from engaging in “racial or identity profiling” but which the current District Attorney has failed to enforce in Yolo county.
Mr. Johansson argues that this policy is necessary to remedy the fact that African-American adults in Yolo county are 6.5 times more likely to be arrested for a felony than for white non-Latino adults and nearly ten times more likely to be imprisoned. These racial disparities in Yolo County have consistently exceeded statewide numbers in recent years.
Mr. Johansson has been a public defender in Yolo county for the past eleven years. Before that he was public defender in San Francisco county, a prosecutor in Tulare and Sacramento counties, and a civil rights and criminal defense attorney based in Sacramento.
Mr. Johansson is supported by the Yolo County Democratic Party, the Sacramento Central Labor Council, Democracy for America, Smart Justice California, and the Yolo Berniecrats.
