Guest Columnist

Thousands Like “Jena Six” Seen As Superpredators

by Kai Wright

Reed Walters, LaSalle Parish district attorney that is trying the ‘Jena Six’, says in the NYT today:

I am bound to enforce the laws of Louisiana as they exist today, not as they might in someone’s vision of a perfect world.

It is clear that it is not Reed who is bound by the law, but rather the thousands of Black youth tried as adults that are trapped into a system that provides anything but a perfect world. Kai Wright examines this everyday phenomenon as something bigger than Jena.

More than 20,000 protesters and worldwide media descended on tiny Jena, La., on Sept. 20 to demand justice for Mychal Bell, a black teenager who an all-white jury tossed into adult jail after a schoolyard fight.

The angry masses have left Jena by now, and most news media have turned the channel. But Bell remains behind bars—where he joins thousands of black youth who have been victims of overaggressive prosecution and are rotting in adult lockups.

Read more here.

Posted at 10:41 AM, Sep 26, 2007 in Criminal Justice | Permalink | View Comments