Criminal justice reform in the United States
Reforms can take place at any point where the criminal justice system intervenes in citizens’ lives, including lawmaking, policing, sentencing and incarceration.
These organizations use legal disputes, impact litigation and advocacy as well as educational events to make the public aware of problems with the criminal justice system and push state and federal governments toward reform.
Sentencing laws within the U.S. criminal justice system are criticized for being both draconian and racially discriminatory, contributing to the growing and excessive prison population known as mass incarceration.
[7] These laws also shift power from judges to prosecutors, who have the ability to use the threat of an extremely long sentence in order to pressure defendants into accepting a plea bargain.
[6] Repealing mandatory minimums for certain low-level offenses, such as drug crimes, would return power to judges and allow a more flexible approach to sentencing that could help promote alternatives to incarceration.
[16] People in favor of criminal justice reform point to recurring examples of discriminatory violence towards individuals such as the Watts Riots of 1965, the beating of Rodney King in 1991, and the death of Amadou Diallo in the 1990s.
[18] In his book Punishing Race, Michael Tonry of University of Michigan, claims that White individuals and groups typically excuse police brutality due to a deep-seated prejudice towards Blacks.
[21] Opponents of predictive policing point to the fact that (1) the data used to isolate patterns of criminal behavior uses a privatized algorithm that only companies have access to and (2) its potential to reinforce existing biases against poor and minority communities.
[32] Lack of stable housing and resources to combat mental health and drug and alcohol abuse create obstacles for formerly incarcerated to successfully reintegrate.
[37] The Second Chance Act was passed with bipartisan support in an effort to reduce recidivism rates and improve outcomes for individuals following their released from juvenile facilities, jails and prisons.
[38] Second Chance Grant Programs include those that focus on substance use and mental disorders, mentoring and transitional services for adults, improvement for the outcomes for youth in the juvenile justice system, and technology career training.
[38] The "Ban the Box" Act is a program that has been implemented in 23 states that offers fair chance hiring for the formerly incarcerated by eliminating the requirement of addressing criminal history on employment applications.
[39] "Ban the Box" also influences racial discrimination as employers began to guess who has criminal records, and individuals mostly targeted by these assumptions are Hispanics and Blacks.
[40] Recent legislation aimed at improving the outcomes of those who have come into adverse contact with the criminal justice system has also focused on expanding the eligibility and accessibility of criminal record sealing and expungement, especially among many lower-level felonies and misdemeanors, as well as marijuana-related records or convictions, thereby providing ex-offenders and those convicted of decriminalized acts with greater access to housing and employment opportunities and potentially reducing recidivism.
[44] Harsher disciplinary rules, which stem from educational inequalities, prevent individuals from re-entering schools following an offense, making it more likely for them to experience social pressures such as law income and unemployment that reform groups perceive to lead to criminal activity.
[45] "There is a growing body of evidence that identifies child maltreatment as a predictor of lifetime anti-social and criminal behavior" (Basto-Pereira, Miranda, Ribeiro, & Maia.
[29] Within this, racial minorities, most often African Americans of a low socioeconomic status, "are subject to unequal protection of the laws, excessive surveillance, extreme segregation, and neo-slave labor via incarceration, all in the name of crime control.
[52][51] Proponents of abolition may support divestment from the prison system through state and federal budget plans that funnel money away from punitive institutions and invest in community-based alternatives to incarceration.
Those that believe this also typically reject the claim from reform activists that the criminal justice system acts in a way that is racially disparate, and do not acknowledge the War on Drugs as "the new Jim Crow."
[61] In 2016, Alaska chose not to participate in the law that doesn't allow people with a felony drug conviction to apply for programs to assist in their living and family situations.
[61] In April 2017, Arizona amended the civil assets forfeiture law allowing agencies of the government to take property from criminal enterprises whether there was a conviction or not.
[62] Most recently Arkansas passed Act 423 of 2017 to allow offenders who break probation or parole to be housed in a different, more rehabilitative facility for a shorter amount of time instead of overcrowding the prison system.
[61] Senate Bill 181 was created in 2016 and allows juveniles that were previously sentenced to life without the option of parole to file for a resentencing hearing, in hopes of reducing the prison population.
The governor also created "Second Chance Society" to reduced the consequences of drug possession and offenders who committed non-violent offenses to apply for parole or get their conviction pardoned.
Idaho, most recently, has revised a policy for posting cash bail bonds for low-level driving offense Illinois adopted House Bill 1437, in 2016, requiring the Criminal Justice Information Authority to evaluate the reporting practices.
The House File 2064 also allows offenders who committed non-violent drug offenses to be released early after serving half their mandatory minimum sentence.
[61] In April 2016, Kansas passed Senate Bill 367 to save money on offenders who are considered "low-risk" by serving their time helping the community while they live at home.
[61] Louisiana allowed House Bill 266, a "ban the box" policy that holds up the question "have you ever been convicted of a felony" on employment applications to give a fair chance to those that have.
[61] Most recent efforts from Oregon is a complain, They Report to you, to make the criminal justice system clearer to the average person, focus on the reason an offender commits a crime but also with a prevention and rehabilitative approach.
[61] South Dakota has eliminated the life without the option of parole for juveniles completely for people under 18 years old when they committed the crime with Senate Bill 140.
