Hopes For Progress in a System Riddled With Injustice
The heated debate on criminal justice reform
By Sameer Jain
The Progressive Teen Contributor
PASSERBY OF THE METROPOLITAN DETENTION CENTER IN BROOKLYN, New York, found themselves startled at first by the desperate pounding they heard on the walls of the building on a chilly Sunday afternoon in late January. Within hours, however, confusion gave way to outrage as it was soon discovered that inmates in the building had been without electricity since Friday afternoon, and were living without heat or water on the eve of a polar vortex that brought with it freezing, inhospitable temperatures. Before long, protesters had gathered in front of the building and, over the course of the next week, continuously held banners, clanged pots, and chanted in outrage at the conditions of the prison. On Sunday, February 3rd, over a week after the ordeal began for the over 1600 inmates inside, electricity was restored to the facility as protests continued to rage on outside. And while this incident has undoubtedly sparked discussions across the country about the justness and practicality of the American prison system, this debate is not a new issue in modern politics, though it is one that grows alarmingly more urgent with each day that passes.
The outrage inspired by this incident has served as yet another reminder of the various controversial aspects of the American justice system. Recent years have seen a rise in the prevalence of the criminal justice reform movement, with critics of the current system most frequently citing issues such as overcrowding of prison facilities, often in conjunction with poor safety conditions; institutional discrimination rooted in racism and sexism; and the sheer cost of maintaining such facilities, a burden most often mounted by American taxpayers.
Recent news stories about a prison in West Texas substituting health workers and other support staff as part-time prison guards in an effort to relieve understaffed and overwhelmingly outnumbered security personnel illustrates the effects that President Trump’s plan to reduce the size of government has on facilities like these, forcing them to rely on staff oftentimes not equipped for their new roles. Meanwhile, $80 billion continues to be spent each year on correctional facilities housing 2.2 million Americans nationwide, a population that, if condensed into a single city, would be the nation’s 5th largest. And while significant progress has been made towards reducing racial disparities in incarceration, the fact remains that African-Americans comprise 12% of the overall US population, but 33% of its incarcerated population, while white Americans, at 64% of American adults, comprise 30% of its incarcerated population.
But those in opposition to criminal justice reform continue to make the argument that, despite its various issues and shortcomings, the prison system is necessary and effective in keeping criminals off city streets. Conservatives opposing legislation to reform the justice system argue that mass incarceration, despite its negative effects on families across the country and the heavy financial burden it poses to taxpayers, helps to not only protect American citizens from dangerous criminals, but also to encourage law-abiding lifestyles upon release from prison.
However, the numbers tell an entirely different story, as U.S. incarceration rates continue to top global charts at 655 per 100,000 as of 2018 (a 50% increase since 1990), while a Bureau of Justice Statistics report conducted over a 9-year period concludes that 83% of inmates released in the year 2005 were arrested within 9 years, with a staggering 68% having been arrested within the first 3 years. Upon facing the facts, it’s clear that simply placing more and more offenders behind bars ultimately does little to promote a long-term decrease in crime. And while significant attention has been drawn to this issue in recent decades, the progress made has been relatively minimal for the most part. However, recent legislation regarding federal prison reform has rekindled hopes for criminal justice reform advocates, although initial reactions have admittedly been mixed.
On December 18, 2018, the Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of the First Step Act, marking several of the “most substantial changes in a generation to the tough-on-crime prison and sentencing laws” that have led to the criticism of the justice system by both sides of the political spectrum. In short, the First Step Act would expand job training and other programs aimed at reducing recidivism rates among federal prisoners, as well as enhancing existing early release programs and allowing judges to bypass minimum sentencing guidelines for non-violent drug offenders. Furthermore, the legislation will retroactively reduce crack sentences for federal prisoners, in an effort to curb racial disparities, as African-American communities were historically hit hard by penalties for the use of crack while white powder cocaine users were not as affected.
While these changes are undoubtedly substantial and an important step towards further reform, their shortcomings are very apparent and many doubt the immediate effectiveness of this legislation. Among other things, the First Step Act only applies to federal prisoners, who make up just 9% of the total incarcerated population of the US, the rest residing mostly in local and state level facilities. In addition, critics of the act argue that it fails to address one of the most fundamentally unjust aspects of the current prison system — the hundreds of thousands of Americans behind bars simply due to their inability to pay bail, a problem that exacerbates existing socioeconomic disparities in the prison system. Furthermore, proponents of criminal justice reform continue to push lawmakers to extend programs offering shortened sentences to inmates who appear to have rehabilitated significantly, as part of the heated and ongoing debate about the justness and practicality of America’s notoriously lengthy prison sentences.
So, in the end, the First Step Act is really just that — an initial step that has set the groundwork for the further implementation of direly needed justice reform legislation. In spite of the seemingly high level of admiration that many may hold for the current U.S. justice system, the facts present a very different story. One of injustice, ineffectiveness, and a high cost, financially and oftentimes emotionally, for families across the nation. In a political sphere increasingly characterized by deep divides and hostility along party lines, it will take ultimately take bipartisan, proactive legislation to move forward with addressing this issue.
