Lancaster County Needs A Forum to Discuss Racial Justice
These comments were originally published on April 20, 2023, as an Opinion article in LNP | LancasterOnline by Michelle Batt, local attorney and President of the Lancaster Bail Fund.
Before Judge Spahn sentenced Jessica Lopez to a minimum of 13 months incarceration, ensuring she’d spend that time in a state prison far from her family and community, he scolded her – taking to the streets was not the appropriate way to engage in conversations about racial and social justice. Yet he failed to mention the right way.
So I ask: What is the right way?
Social Justice in Lancaster County
In the spring of 2020, I was a public defender when the murder of George Floyd sparked worldwide demonstrations. Like millions of Americans and thousands of Lancastrians, I joined the protests. Through this movement, I learned things not taught in law school. The events of that summer ultimately influenced me to resign from my position, ending a seven-year career.
That summer, Americans stood up to oppose state violence against Black and Brown people. I came to see this violence as inseparable from our criminal system. By “violence”, I mean not only the brutality that defined the last moments of George Floyd’s life and the lives of too many others, but also the “violence” of being forcibly separated and imprisoned, like those who were arrested and jailed on egregious bails on September 14, 2020, following the demonstrations which occurred after Lancaster City Police shot and killed Ricardo Muñoz.
The million-dollar bails put Lancaster on the map. With national media coverage and calls from the lieutenant governor, Lancaster’s judiciary swung into action. Three days later, with defense attorneys by their sides, those with million-dollar bails had their bails lowered. Some had their bails modified to unsecured, meaning no dollar amount would keep them imprisoned pending court. These emergency bail review hearings, however, were anomalies, and not everyone arrested that night had them. Jessica’s bail wasn’t reviewed. Her bail was “only” $250,000. Like many of my public defender clients—the invisible people who cycle through our jail—Jessica remained incarcerated until her bail was modified to unsecured at her preliminary hearing a week later.
A Broken Criminal Justice System
Our criminal system has a social justice problem. Compare Jessica’s treatment with the treatment of John Burkhart. In March 2022, Burkhart, former chief detective of Lancaster County’s Drug Task Force, was charged with stealing over $100,000 from public coffers. Before anything was filed against him, he was given the courtesy of notice that charges were imminent. An arrest warrant was never issued, nor was he ever in handcuffs or denied his liberty in any way. He was afforded the luxury of time to find an attorney, and schedule a date to appear for arraignment. The same MDJ who set the million-dollar bails gave Burkhart an unsecured bail. This is what it looks like to be treated as innocent until proven guilty.
Our criminal system also has a racial justice problem. If you’re arrested while Black, you are more likely to have cash bail imposed, and it will be higher than for a white person by about $10,000.00. While we know surprisingly little about who we incarcerate and why, we recently received previously unknown insight into our jail’s population thanks to the “needs assessment” by CGL, the vertically integrated prison building company contracted by the County. Based on population data from two days in September 2022, we know that nearly a quarter of the people in our jail are classified as Black, a gross overrepresentation in comparison to the County’s demographics.
These are issues we need to discuss, but I have yet to find the “appropriate” place to do so.
Transparency in Lancaster County’s Prison System
Since leaving the public defender’s office, I helped start the Lancaster Bail Fund. For two years, I’ve been advocating for change alongside others, but everywhere we go, doors are closed. The only publicly accessible forum where officials with ties to our criminal system are present is the monthly prison board meetings. Still, we’ve been told those meetings are not the appropriate place. Lancaster County has a Criminal Justice Advisory Board, which meets regularly to take systemic and policy-level perspectives on local criminal issues. Yet they’ve decided not to make those meetings open to the public, and we were denied access when we asked. We’ve also requested independent meetings with local officials, with varying degrees of success.
To put it bluntly, there is no place to have these conversations because there is no political will to engage in them, even though we’re on the verge of spending an unprecedented amount of money on building a bigger jail. Without political will, our only option is to take to the streets and exercise our right to protest.
To support Lancaster Bail Fund’s work, please sign up for our email list, follow us on social media, and consider setting up a recurring monthly donation. Your contribution will be tax-deductible and because bail money is returned when a case is closed, your dollars will have a recurring and positive impact on people’s lives in our community.
