A contrary example could be same-sex marriage. Very smart lawyers took these cases to court 40 years ago, and they lost almost everywhere, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Years later, other lawyers, and even some of the same lawyers, questioned the ban on same-sex marriage in the same terms. This time, they won. It`s not because the 14th Amendment has changed or because they`ve become better lawyers. That`s because there was a movement in our society that changed the way we think about same-sex marriage. What we need to understand in the criminal justice system is that we need to be part of a social movement that is changing the way we think about human cages. And until we are part of this movement, I do not suspect that the courts will fundamentally change this architecture of mass incarceration. The justice system should be for everyone.
The innocent must be protected. Criminals must be convicted. Fair justice and policing are necessary to maintain law and order throughout the country. If the seeds of distrust of the justice system were sown with the appointment of beer drinker and alleged sex offender Brett Kavanaugh, they flourished with Barrett`s appointment. I think even those who do not work closely with the criminal justice system now feel that it has little to do with justice. Why do ideas like the “rule of law” and “justice” themselves continue to wield incredible power? Anyone who watches the court in the United States or works in the system understands that there is simply no way to treat two million people from their families, homes, workplaces, communities and cages without finding shortcuts every step of the way. It is simply a really important bureaucratic achievement to put so many people, their bodies and their lives in state cages. And to do so, the system must fundamentally ignore the key constitutional rights provided for in the Bill of Rights, because these documents were not written in a world of mass incarceration. In fact, they were written accurately to avoid mass human cages. I think there are very powerful forces in our society that take advantage of people believing in what is considered the “rule of law.” I always use that term in quotation marks because it`s a joke. These forces have invested heavily in a kind of propaganda about what our legal system is.
We are told that our legal system is focused on public safety and human flourishing, but if you think that our legal system is truly about creating a society of equality, justice, freedom and public safety, you only have to look around to understand that it is failing miserably. That is why you hear so many people from all walks of life say that the criminal justice system is “broken.” The judicial system in the United States is considered non-system for two reasons. First, because there is no centralized authority. 50,000 agencies enforce the law on behalf of various federal, state, local, and tribal agencies. Second, each agency cooperates using a number of protocols and agreements, but largely operates independently. An outdated and unjust criminal justice system continues to have devastating consequences for crime prevention, rehabilitation, and fair justice in the United States. COVID-19 has also highlighted the inefficiency of an incarceration-based system. A study by Time magazine found that 39% of incarcerated people pose no threat to public safety and that their release could save the country $20 billion a year.
Of these, 25% are low-level non-violent offenders who could benefit from other forms of reform, and 14% have already served long prison sentences for serious crimes and could be safely released. We persecute and imprison so many people that it becomes impossible to give everyone a fair trial, so we end up with shortcuts like the mass bargaining system. You write that we have created a system that would collapse if it offered “too much justice.” “This is a good start to the transition to a system that is potentially more focused on rehabilitation rather than a purely punitive system,” says Loor, who mentors students at the Defender Clinic (part of the Criminal Law Clinical Program). “By reducing the mandatory minimum requirements, some people will spend less time in prison. He also says prisoners should be placed closer to their families — within 500 miles — which is important because the loss of contact with family makes it harder to reintegrate into society. “Addressing these challenges requires concerted efforts across the criminal justice system to reduce incarceration and keep crime rates low. The American legal system has never been an institution of radical social change. On the contrary, it was an instrument of oppression of the ruling class.
From its inception, the legal system has been concerned with preserving the distribution of wealth and property and white supremacy.