“CRACKS”
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“As the lost days turn into lost decades, it is easy to lose hope. My best hasn’t been good enough to bring my husband home, even after we successfully proved his innocence in court. It means so much to discover that there are these two people out here – Billy and Anais – who care enough to create this moving, intense, heartfelt art for Chris – and not just for him, but for others who endure the devastation of wrongful conviction. We thank you for shining your light into the abyss.”
Gratefully,
Kira Dunn (Christopher Dunn’s Wife)
“Billy and I met each other through a friend. When Billy told me about Christopher Dunn I was heartbroken and knew I wanted to help. Billy is a man of God and I was more than eager to be the prisoner for all the people locked up in prison. It seems hopeless when you consider the facts, the system is not working, not when it locks up innocent people and refuses to let them go. I believe God’s ways are mysterious and grand, and this artistic way of reaching into people’s hearts, calling for all people to march together, will move others to change.” Pastor Michael Lowe
Join the MIDWEST MARCH demanding freedom for Christopher Dunn.
Imagine being imprisoned for a crime you did not commit. Believe it or not, it happens everyday. Wrongfully convicted of a crime, Christopher Dunn has been proven 100% innocent, but he WILL NEVER BE RELEASED from prison.
CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE mid-west MARCH
Why does the prisoner in the Cracks Music Video commit suicide?
Each year there are over 300 suicides in prison; half of these suicides were committed by people serving their first prison sentence.
This is how they kill you.
Kalief Browder was jailed because he couldn’t pay $3,000.
That’s the bail amount a judge first set back in 2010, after Browder was arrested at age 16 and charged with stealing a backpack. His family was unable to raise the money, so he was sent to Rikers Island, where he was held for the next three years before prosecutors in the Bronx decided to dismiss the charges.
But once he was in the system, and despite efforts by his lawyer, even the initial bail offer was denied him.
Violence and long stints in solitary defined Browder’s experience at Rikers, as detailed in an October 2014 profile in The New Yorker. “I’m not all right. I’m messed up,” Browder told the magazine after his release. The story sparked outrage and promises from city officials to reform Rikers, but for Browder, the damage had been done. He hanged himself on Saturday. He was 22.
Browder, who insisted on his innocence, sat in jail initially because his family could not afford to post bail. About two-thirds of America’s jail population — 450,000 people — are behind bars awaiting trial. And five out of six of those people are in jail because they could not afford bail or because a bail agent declined to post a bond.
Stuck in jail and without easy access to his lawyer, Browder was at a disadvantage in preparing a defense. He was also at the mercy of prosecutors, who offered to reduce his jail time or release him, but only if he pleaded guilty, an option he refused.
People on the front-line.
Charles G. Koch
Koch’s work on criminal justice reform.
“We’re involved in criminal justice reform work, and we have been for many, many years. If you want to help the poor, there’s no better way than to reform our criminal justice system. Our focus on criminal justice reform is based on a desire to end the two-tier system that now exists that most adversely and profoundly impacts the least advantaged and has created intractable barriers to opportunity for them. We want to reverse that trajectory.”
“None of this should be surprising; that’s how our criminal justice system has designed these facilities. American prisons are built on the idea of retributive justice, where the primary goal is to punish and seek vengeance. It’s a model that aims to incapacitate people who commit crimes and create powerful, painful incentives for them to act right in the future. Too often, people come out of prison bitter – not better.” Van Jones
“It’s a crisis in America, and more people are seeing that. But we need to radically retreat from the approach that’s been popular over the last 50 years. I think the racialized way we’ve used the criminal-justice system is a product of what I call the politics of fear and anger. I give talks and say this system treats you better if you are rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent.” Bryan Stevenson Author “Just Mercy”
“There are thousands of innocent people in prison serving long sentences for crimes committed by others; that their convictions could have been avoided and the real perpetrators brought to justice; many segments of our criminal justice system are broken and must be fixed,” John Grisham. Author ambassador of the Innocent Project.
CRACKS MARCH 2023 