[DanielBMarkham]

I completely agree that we overcriminalize things and imprison far too many people in the U.S. I'm 100% on-board with this. It's our shame the way we treat non-violent offenders. A disgrace.

But guys, nothing is ever 100% one way or the other, no matter how much you support it. So you have to look at differing points of view -- unless the objective is just to have a good rant.

Here are the things that come to mind reading this:

- Yep, highest incarceration rates ever. Also violent crime has been dropping to unheard-of lows and the country is safer than it ever has been

- Prisons are not about justice or reform. [insert really long discussion here]. Political systems exist and function for political reasons. Therefore the prison system is made and maintained to keep society together. They don't put the guy who killed you friend in the electric chair because of justice. They do it so you don't kill him yourself, or have a lifelong vendetta against both him and the system.

- This piece is written by a lawyer. Do not expect it to fairly talk about all of the options. It's invective; well-written, emotional, powerful invective. The goal is to make you turn off your brain and feel a certain way. Treat it as such.

- Although this is targeted at lawyers, whatever failings there are? Most likely a result of judges and elected officials -- in other words, the public. If the public wants something, and it wanted harsher sentencing, it gets it. That means changes need to occur with the electorate, not elite legal minds

- If the system is broken, it's broken. Toss out all of that racism stuff, it's a red herring. People shouldn't have their civil rights abused because it's the wrong way to run a country, not because they're a member of an oppressed minority. If you want to win this fight and fix things, toss out every other issue aside from fixing the system. Sure, use various things like incarceration rates among blacks as an argument, but only very carefully. If this is a true problem affecting everybody (and I believe it is), then don't attach yourself to one particular cause or the other. That's just an easy way to lose the discussion.

We desperately need to fix things, but that's only going to happen if we make both impassioned and dispassionate arguments -- and only if we understand the terms at stake. I'm not sure this article helped any, but it damned sure made me angry at how broken things are.

[pjc50]

The racism is not a red herring, it's the primary driver for the electorate demanding that the system be broken in the ways it is. It's used to argue that the victims of the system deserve it, and thereby to prevent change.

[happyscrappy]

Pretending that racism is the main problem with inner city poor actually contributes to the problem. Not all poor in the city have the same outcome. Victimology is crippling. If nothing I do is my fault, because racism, then why would I not do whatever I feel like, consequences be damned? It is white people's fault, right?

[rmxt]

Ignoring the disingenuity, if racism (e.g., redlining, gerrymandering, selective use of semi-legal police procedures, etc.) hasn't led to the current disparate state of affairs between races in America, then what has, pray tell?

"Racism" isn't merely a buzzword or an excuse if it's actually a historic and ongoing phenomenon.

[netfire]

I think racism plays a part, but there are are factors to consider as well, including victimology. The current way we are approaching race in america seems to be part of the problem.

We seem to be telling people of certain races that they are born disadvantaged, that they are somehow second-class citizens and not fully responsible for their actions or outcome of their life. We then distribute aid and provide services based not only on economic or educational status, but also on race, and we form organizations to benefit members of that race. We become outraged when their rights are violated (but no so much when the rights of members of another race are).

I don't think we'll truly eliminate racism in our society if we continue to focus on race the way we are. Instead we need to care just as much about the rights (or the violations of those rights) of a black man as we do a white man (or any other race). Race needs to not be considered when creating programs to benefit the poor or uneducated. After all, shouldn't a poor white man be just as entitled to our compassion and assistance as an equally poor black man?

Martin Luther King said "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." For me, that cuts both ways. Not only should we not be judged unfairly in a court of law or be treated different by police because of the color of one's skin. It should be a non-factor in determining any sort of benefit or assistance as well.

[beat]

The reason blacks growing up poor in this country suffer bad outcomes isn't because they're told that they're victims by well-meaning social programs. It's because they're treated like criminals and given very few opportunities to achieve something better.

[netfire]

They may not tell them that directly, but when you consider someone's race in giving aid, aren't you telling them that they are disadvantaged because of their race?

We should be focusing on helping someone because they are poor, because they are unjustly treated like criminals or because they have few opportunities to succeed, not because they are black or of a certain race.

[millermp12]

The problem is, a substantial (and potentially growing) segment of the population doesn't agree with you.

If racism is _the_ problem, why does it produce perfectly antipodal outcomes for different "people of color"? i.e. Asians are economically ascendant (surpassing whites on most metric), while blacks, well... you get the idea.

Rubbing the amulet of "structural racism" so much has entirely debased the term.

[rmxt]

Are you really equating the plight and histories of Asian-Americans and African-Americans in America over the past 3 centuries? You can do that with a straight face?

Hint: one history includes codified discrimination until ~50 years ago and legal enslavement until ~150 years ago and the other one doesn't. Well, I'll give you that Asian Americans faced codified discrimination into the 20th century, but don't overlook the "antipodal" patterns of how each ethnic group came to be in America.

Hint 2: Asian Americans came over, at a minimum, in indentured servitude.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Asian_Americans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_history

[DanielBMarkham]

I must point out that, by insisting on tying this to race, this discussion has quickly degenerated into "Who's been discriminated against the most?" which has exactly nothing to do with whether or not the criminal justice system in general is screwed up. Most all of us agree that something must be done. Do you want to gather together to fix it, or spend time in endless identity politics? I mean, even if you're "right", Who cares? Isn't the goal to make a change for the better?

Quod Erat Demondstrandum.

[istjohn]

Your suggestion that there is a tenuous connection between the problems with our criminal justice system and racism is laughable. The connection is self-evident and unavoidable.

[richmarr]

@rmxt may or may not be right, personally I think he is, but stating outright that segregation (within living memory) has "exactly nothing" to do with the current state of criminal justice is clearly a hasty statement... that given a moment to think about I'm sure you'd take back, right?

...and if he is right, then the reason why he's right will be useful for solving the problem. It's pretty tough to solve a problem when you don't understand what caused it.

By the way, dismiss identity politics at your risk. It might be uncomfortable to talk about, but it underpins a lot of current affairs: crime, Russia, Gamergate, ISIS.

Recommend reading this. It's long, but worth every painful line: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/good-men-project/why-its-so-ha...

[worklogin]

>This piece is written by a lawyer. Do not expect it to fairly talk about all of the options. It's invective; well-written, emotional, powerful invective. The goal is to make you turn off your brain and feel a certain way. Treat it as such.

>Invective: Denunciatory or abusive expression or discourse

I vehemently disagree and think you insult the paper. It's well written, attempts to describe logical inconsistencies in how we approach our reasons for punishments, and what the legal profession might be able to do to fix it. It turned my brain up, not down, and it makes me think more about logical underpinnings of our justice system. I haven't been spoon-fed, and you also insult readers who might feel they got something honest out of the paper.

[istjohn]

As others have said, racism is not a red herring. The racially disparate effects of the broken justice system is an essential reason why we all should care about this issue. Middle class whites as a rule do not experience the justice system as the malevolent oppressor poor blacks do. Racism and classism explain that disparity and answers the question, "Why should I care?" for those who do not have first hand experience with these issues. It places the issue in the its proper context: the long, plodding struggle of blacks for equality in America.

[bambax]

> the country is safer than it ever has been

This is only true if you exclude from "the country" all the prisons where people are routinely raped and stabbed.

Also, even if it were true, the important question is: what caused it, and could that result be achieved with other means? How do other safe countries address the problem?

[jongraehl]

Most of the prison stabbings are included in violent crimes stats. I guess some rapes may not be, though. Rape in prisons is surpassing non-prison rape (which is almost nonexistent) but it's not routine either - 10x higher rate per person-year is still a pretty low rate (needless to say: we the public should be willing to pay a pretty high price to stop a single violent rape - say, $50k)

[mazelife]

- Violent offenders represent 53% of the population of state prisons and 7.9% in federal prisons [1]. So what's everybody else doing there? Also, it's necessary to present evidence that our unheard of incarceration rates are what actually casued violent crime to drop to unheard-of lows. Some people have proposed, for example, that the most compelling reason for the drop in violent crime in the US was attributable to lower levels of lead exposure in children of the 70s and 80s, due to the elimination of lead from gasoline and paint.

- [edit: I misread what you were saying here, the point about the death penalty is a non-sequitur on my part] Your second point isn't one I would disagree with but, but I don't think your example is a particularly good one: there is ample evidence indicating that the death penalty does not serve as a particularly strong deterrent. For example, murder rates in the US are actually lower in death penalty states, and have been since the 90s.

- "That means changes need to occur with the electorate, not elite legal minds." The author never asserts the legal profession is the only thing that can reform our broken criminal justice system. However he points out that the legal services we have now are vastly inadequate to the job of protecting the rights of most Americans caught up in the criminal justice system, and that part of the reason so many people are incarcerated is that they recieve little-to-no represenatation. Furthermore: "even apart from the millions of pending criminal cases for which people are not being provided a well-resourced and zealous attorney, every one of the thousands of unlawful stops, searches, home raids, beatings, taserings, shootings, and arrests that take place every day forms the basis for a freestanding constitutional civil rights suit. A quiet tragedy of the legal system is that these rampant daily violations are almost never litigated."

The broader point he is making is that the criminal justice system is only able to grind through tens of thousands of lives each day becuase those involved in it--and that includes lawyers and judges--are commited to keeping that system well-oiled and functioning. "Imagine a world in which lawyers stood ready, en masse, to use their skills and training and intellects to vindicate these constitutional rights every day. Such a social movement of lawyers would dramatically alter the nature of the legal system and our society. The system of modern policing, which depends on callous indifference to vindicating basic rights, would crumble at our simple willingness to hold it to its own formal rules. We can do it, but only through massive collective action to act on our professional and moral values."

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_Sta... [2] http://www.nber.org/papers/w13097.pdf