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NFL Players Coalition, Thank You but I Have One Small Suggestion

Josh H
5 min readJun 22, 2018

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Why reform should include so-called “violent” criminals too

Photo by Zulmaury Saavedra on Unsplash

This letter is to the “Players Coalition members, specifically Doug Baldwin, Anquan Boldin, Malcolm Jenkins and Benjamin Watson.

First, thank you so much for lending your celebrity to the cause of Criminal Justice Reform! I am a formerly incarcerated criminal justice reform activist and I can’t tell you how much of a difference it makes when people of your stature lend your voices to the cause.

Regardless of if you listen or ignore me, I want you to understand that I will support and fight for the reforms you suggested, they are good ideas and I hope President Trump will take them seriously.

That said, with respect, I have just one plea, as you move forward with this campaign, please don’t limit your call for clemency and mercy to just those people convicted of a nonviolent offense.

Non-Violence Sounds Great But What If It Is An Inaccurate and Counterproductive Label?

So, three times in your call to President Trump, you mentioned that you wanted relief but only for people sentenced for a non-violent crime (here is one example):

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Josh H
Josh H

Written by Josh H

Author, Criminal Justice Reform Advocate, Co-Host of the "Decarceration Nation" Podcast, Television critic and Movie Reviewer, OnPirateSatellite.com

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