“Women naturally function more as a collective. There is power in numbers. When it is transactional, people who want to succeed think that dividing and conquering is how you do it. That is actually a colonized way of leading.”
The combination of these payouts and police misconduct settlements is approaching $150 million dollars. That’s more than three fourths of what the MPD’s budget was in 2020.
While one in four people in Minnesota (and across the nation) has a criminal record, four in four have a criminal history: that is, we are all criminals — and we’re also so much more.
Getting funded requires a culture shift in society, she says. “A recognition that incarceration does not work. We do not acknowledge the reality of where the harm is coming from.”
“It became clear to me that any program addressing the violence women had committed would also need to address the aggression and violence they had personally experienced.”