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| We've put a new twist on our newsletter. We know you're busy, and we want to provide you with a news and opinion filled way to start your week — our fresh takes. We'll publish them every Monday morning. |
| Rapper Meek Mill, once inside the system, weighs in on reform |
| A performer Policing the USA once described as "exhibit A of nation's broken probation system," is now talking about how the criminal justice system should be reformed. |
| And in the process he's giving high praise to President Donald Trump for his support of the FIRST STEP Act, a bi-partisan plan to, among other things, give judges more leeway to avoid mandatory minimum sentences, give certain inmates an opportunity for early release and lower sentences for crack cocaine violations. |
| During a recent CNN interview, Mill stated that "anything that a president does to fix laws and statues that don't make any sense and are unfair to American people is the right thing to do." |
| Mill also talked about racial disparities in the system, how dangerous neighborhoods perpetuate confrontations with cops and his arrest at the age of 18 on a weapons charge. |
| Sandra Bland speaks to America in documentary |
| Just months before Sandra Bland was found dead in a Texas jail cell (she was pulled over and arrested in 2015 after not signaling before changing lanes), she had delivered an eerily prescient video message to America (and specifically white America) about blacks, cops, anger and Black Lives Matter. |
| "We can't help to get pissed off when it's clear that the Black life didn't matter," Bland said. "In the news, we have seen that you can surrender to cops and still be killed." |
| Now her message is being heard and seen again in the HBO documentary "Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra Bland," which premieres tonight. |
| The documentary opens with Bland's video commentary, and her family hopes the movie will keep Bland and her message in the hearts and minds of Americans. |
| More on the documentary and insights from her family in this rollingout interview. |
| FBI to track police use of deadly force |
| News organizations and volunteer groups have found various ways (with differing degrees of success) to track the use of deadly force by police nationwide — collecting news reports, gathering videotaped incidents posted on social media, and using Internet-based crowdsourcing. |
| After years of media guesstimates, the FBI is finally going to publish a database that tracks police use of deadly force. It's set to launch at the beginning of next year, and will rely on the approximately 18,000 police departments nationwide to voluntarily hand over their data on deaths and injuries by cops. Currently about 60 percent of those departments supply information for a database that tracks police deaths. |
| Want more? Check out the Policing the USA site for information on police, policing and the justice system across the country. |
| Want to talk about police, race and the justice system in America? Reach out to Policing the USA editor Eileen Rivers on Twitter @msdc14 or via email at erivers@usatoday.com. |
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