Have your voice heard!

I have been working with the content team of Medium to draft this request for stories. Given the expertise of many of our readers and our authors, they would love to have your voice as part of the conversation as they initiate a medium-storm (is that already a thing?) around the topic of criminal justice reform.

This is the message:

The content and politics team at Medium is starting a platform wide conversation around criminal justice reform in the last two weeks of February and we thought you might be interested in participating.

The hope is that throughout the last two weeks of February, publications, people, and politicians across the platform will engage in thoughtful discussions around criminal justice, specifically minimum sentencing, policing, and the war on drugs. A bill to reform these aspects of the system is currently sitting in the Senate. It’s unclear if it will be voted on, but regardless, Medium is devoted to having a wide discussion on the topics.(Hopefully, our discussion will force a vote!) We’d love for you all to participate and we’ve outlined a few ways below. (We’re also open to any new ideas you have too.):

-Personal stories/accounts of your experiences with minimum sentencing or the war on drugs (how does this bill affect what you do? how have you engaged with these social issues? Are you a police officer, a DEA agent? Tell us about what you think about the bill or about the criminal justice system in general.)

-We’ll also be gathering a number of personal stories from those who have been affected by the system (and minimum sentencing). We’d love to have responses to these stories and to generate some meaningful conversation!

-What would you like to say to the politicians behind the Criminal Justice Reform bill ? They will be on the platform, ready to engage with you.

-We’d love to hear your proposals for how we might reform the criminal justice system (we’re also soliciting proposals from teens on how to reform juvie).