Friends,
Our conversation about race and reconciliation started in response to protests over the death of George Floyd, but the African American community’s concerns about our criminal justice system are not new and they are not limited to policing. This is why our goal this week is to learn more about the African American community’s concerns about the criminal justice system.
I honestly believe that we could see a broad, bi-partisan movement for changes that would be less wasteful of lives and money and contribute to a more just and orderly society. In 2018, President Trump signed the bi-partisan First Step Act. As the name suggests, other steps should follow.
As I’ve read legal experts, criminologists, and black leaders, I’ve heard concerns expressed about:
1) Policing – there is a desire to return to older models of community policing – an “officer of the peace” who works in partnership with citizens on her or his beat to protect and to serve.
2) Bail laws have a particularly harsh impact on the poor and people of color. Bail Bondsmen charge usurious rates. When a poor person cannot even afford that, they are incarcerated, sometimes for years, awaiting trial. They have not been found guilty in a court of law but yet they are treated as if they are guilty.
3) Public defender budgets have been slashed even as states have greatly increased budgets for prisons.
4) Mandatory sentences require the incarceration of people well past the age when most adults are likely to commit crimes.
5) A number of factors, including # 3 and #4 above, have greatly increased prosecutorial power and discretion. One result is the decline in jury trials. While jury trials are expensive, defendants are at a distinct disadvantage when they negotiate plea deals.
6) These and other dynamics in American society have led to mass incarceration. Over the past 40 years, America’s prison population has grown by 500%. The United States used to have a relatively low incarceration rate compared with other industrial countries. During the cold war, we pointed to our low incarceration rate as evidence of our moral superiority to Communist countries that locked up great numbers of their citizens. Today the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. We have 4.4% of the world population and house 25% of the world’s prisoners. This increase has disproportionately impacted communities of color. One in four black males are involved in the criminal justice system. In some states the incarceration rate and percentage of minority incarceration is even higher.
7) The rapid growth of incarceration (and the desire to keep state and county debt low) led to the creation of the for-profit prison industry. Their inferior care is well documented. They also add perverse incentives as lobbyists work to ensure their continued profitability.
8) There is a lack of investment in helping prisoners re-enter society as productive citizens, which would reduce recidivism (meaning, the return to crime and prison).
Today the United States spends over $80 billion a year to incarcerate 2.3 million people. This does not include the wasted economic potential or the human cost of reduced life, marriage, and job possibilities.
There is a growing bi-partisan consensus that our criminal justice system is broken. At the same time, the issues are complicated. As ministers of reconciliation, we likely will not all agree on what reforms are best, but we should all want a system that builds community trust, enhances police effectiveness, ensures the safety of our neighborhoods, defends the rights of the innocent, doesn’t impoverish the poor, emphasizes redemption and rehabilitation, and produces just results for everyone involved.
In Christ’s Service,
Raymond R. Roberts