The criminal justice system is a complicated, controlled and chaotic entity that has been questioned for decades. With so many moving pieces and different interests, reforming the system poses a large challenge for prosecutors, defense and victims of the system.
It is no secret that the United States holds 25% of the world’s incarcerated population but only makes up 5% of the total global population; these statistics are continuously reiterated, yet what change has come of this statement? I conducted three interviews with three men who know the criminal justice system from different angles to get a better understanding of the current state of our criminal justice system.
Since 1973, when President Richard Nixon declared the War on Drugs, our prison population has spiked, disproportionately targeting people of color. The War on Drugs was a racially fueled campaign that aimed to lock away individuals and impoverish minority communities. It was masked by the “Just Say No Campaign” and TV commercials comparing people’s brains on drugs to fried eggs.
Substance abuse is real and has become an epidemic in recent years, but treating these issues as criminal rather than clinical poses another problem in and of itself. Mass incarceration is a direct result of the War on Drugs. We know the issues, but what are we doing now to change them? Nicholas Turner, president of the Vera Institute of Justice, believes that the way to reduce mass incarceration is through democratic change. He explains that the people making impactful decisions are elected officials at the local, state and federal level. Turner says that changing people’s minds will be necessary and shifting the rhetoric away from “black criminality” is crucial as well.
Recently, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has directed to charge defendants with the most serious, provable crimes with the most severe penalties, effectively reigniting the War on Drugs. Turner believes that President Trump and Secretary Sessions do not have the ability to entirely halt reform efforts as they only control about 10% of the criminal justice system. “The criminal justice system is actually made up of many different systems,” Turner explained. However, he described the effect that these proposals had as “chilling” and a repetition of what we’ve seen before. Back in 1986, Reagan helped instill mandatory minimum sentencing that depended on the weight of the drug involved with the crime. The idea of undoing reform can be mentally damaging, and one of the major advancements within the field of criminal justice is that more people understand the effects of mass incarceration and the underlying racism. However, when people in power and in the White House promote sentiments that directly conflict with these progressive ideologies, prior achievements could be undermined.
For Steven Pacheco, a student at John Jay for Criminal Justice, former Vera Opportunity fellow and a fellow at the David Rockefeller fund, and a formerly incarcerated Black man, he believes we are headed towards some dark times. “With the rhetoric our current administration is pushing, Sessions will have a tough time imposing his archaic, draconian views through legislature because we have seen how ineffective that method is,” Pacheco explains. However, Pacheco also understands the fact that local administrations may act in a favorable way to the federal government. He says that because of the funding that the federal government provides for local government, the interests of these administrations might be compromised.
Criminal justice reform and policy reform has become an increasingly popular field in recent years, but many times involvement in reform efforts is not accessible to communities and individuals who need it most. Speaking from experience in his own community, Pacheco explains,
“People from my community know that the government is not for them. They never see their elected officials, and, so, many of them rarely vote. There is a misconception that people from impoverished neighborhoods don’t pay taxes, which is entirely false. When you pay taxes and the political discourse takes shape in a way that makes you invisible, you don’t feel compelled to participate.”
After speaking with Nicholas Turner and Steven Pacheco, I talked with Dan Connolly, former Assistant District Attorney and Counsel in Criminal Justice to Mayor Giuliani. Connolly was Counsel to Mayor Giuliani in dealing with public safety, corrections and probations among many other departments. After discussing the current state of the criminal justice system, Connolly said, “The biggest challenge is balancing effective law enforcement and individual rights.” This raises a very important question when thinking about how to deal with nonviolent drug crime. How do we effectively protect under the law while securing individuals’ civil rights?
Connolly was a prosecutor in New York in the 70’s, 80’s and eventually counsel to Giuliani in the 90’s. His perspective of crime, racial profiling, and police tactics has been shaped largely by his background in this field. Connolly explained that he is very pro-police and believes that the pendulum has swung away from the rhetoric and practice of law and order to hands off policing. He does take issue with Sessions’ proposed plans. Connolly cited the Rockefeller Laws, which in 1973 were put in place to create mandatory minimum sentencing for certain drug possession. He makes it clear that these laws were deliberately meant to target minority communities, but that its effects helped break the back of the crack epidemic.
Interestingly, both Turner and Connolly mentioned mass incarceration as being a problematic consequence of the War on Drugs. The difference in ideology, however, is their take on what kind of an issue it is. Connolly explained, “The prison population is far less a criminal justice issue but rather a sociological issue, which is a much more difficult conversation to have.” Even within the discourse of how to decrease our prison population, there is consensus that there is a problem at hand. How we move forward will shape the political, economic, and social landscape of our futures. The Vera Institute of Justice has been making strides in the projects they have implemented to secure equal justice. One project that Turner mentioned was the monitoring of prisons in ten states to see how frequently solitary confinement was used. Members from Vera visited these prisons to see how many people go into solitary confinement and helped develop changes to decrease these numbers.
Our perception of what is just and fair constantly changes depending on the political atmosphere, social movements, and other factors that can influence lawmakers and people in power to make decisions. Criminal justice reform will not be shut down by the current administration; in fact now, more than ever, is the time to get involved and seek to understand this country’s system of justice.
We are making progress, but at the end of the day human beings are still suffering and until we all acknowledge this, criminal justice reform will remain stagnate.
The current state of the criminal justice is the product of policies and ideologies implemented and held by individuals who believed they were doing what was necessary. Injustice is not a one-sided issue, however. It is crucial that lawmakers speak with formerly incarcerated individuals and that district attorneys have discourse with advocacy organizations. With an institution as complicated and influential as our criminal justice system, these discussions must happen.
