August 17 - Activists Call Santa Fe's LEAD Program A Success Other PDs Can Learn From

In recent months, a national conversation has been brewing over the unequal treatment people of color receive in America's criminal justice system. According to the national organization Prison Policy Initiative, about nine-percent of all black men in their late 20s are in prison in the United States, and four percent of Latino men of the same age are incarcerated. The rate is just seven-tenths of one-percent for white men. Many of the crimes for which men of color are arrested involve drug abuse or addiction. 

 

 

What you might not know is that Santa Fe is on the cutting edge of a program that could change the relationship between police and marginalized members of society. We've talked about the LEAD program before on KSFR's At Noon; now, just over a year into the program's run, we'll hear from New Mexico Drug Policy Alliance director Emily Kaltenbach, who told Radio Cafe host Mary Charlotte Domandi that our nation's criminal justice system needs a makeover.