Criminal Justice Reform

February 15, 2015

By Rich Alvarez- Executive Director Comprehensive Reentry, Inc.

There seems to be very few things that politicians at the national level can agree upon these days.  There is one glimmer of hope though.  There appears to be a glimmer of hope in the form of bipartisan support for criminal justice reform.  As a former police officer, I can attest that the law rarely changes, except to add new restrictions on a supposedly free people.  The results of the ever increasing restrictions have ended up imprisoning a higher percentage of our population than any nation on Earth.  I'm not just talking about other nations that are like us, but I am including repressive regimes like China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.

     You might wonder how the bastion of freedom in the world has gotten to that point?  It was mostly the result of the "get tough on crime" mindset and the "War on Drugs" that began in the 1980's.  I believe these policies were well-intentioned but not very well thought out.  The result has been an overly punitive justice system that has, advertently or inadvertently, become another racist institution in the ugly history of race relations in our great nation.  We imprison persons of African descent at a higher rate than South Africa did during Apartheid.  Furthermore, we continue to punish people after they are released from prison through employment discrimination, housing discrimination, college financial discrimination, and voting disenfranchisement.  If one cannot find a job, find a place to sleep at night, go back to school to better themselves, or even elect representatives who might be sympathetic to their plight, how can we expect them to become productive citizens again?

     Republican and Democratic law makers are sponsoring legislation that may help alleviate some of  these harsh conditions.  The criminal justice reform proposals include reductions in mandatory sentencing, easing up on juvenile penalties, giving judges more discretion, and improving reentry programming. (See: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/will-criminal-justice-actually-be-reformed/408538).  Unfortunately, the bill appears to have been forgotten about in this election year.  It is the victim of our broken political system.  On the state level, some states have taken action on their own.  In Ohio, Gov. Kasich passed a Certification for Qualification for Employment bill, which allows ex-offenders to obtain a letter from the court that convicted them, if they've demonstrated rehabilitation, that will remove collateral sanctions.  In fact, at least 30 states have engaged in some sort of criminal justice reform recently. (See http://sentencingproject.org/template/index.cfm.)  Most recently, Maryland voted to remove voting disenfranchisement from those who are out of prison on parole or probation, restoring voting rights to 40,000 people.  Unfortunately, 35 states do not allow this practice resulting in 5.85 million people being disenfranchised from the political process.  Many have alleged that this is the new equivalent of the poll tax, because it is so slanted against minority citizens.  In fact in Florida and Virginia, one in five black adults has had their voting rights revoked.

     The climate appears to be changing, but the process is usually slow.  It is encouraging to see that the states are also moving on criminal justice reform, but much still needs to be done.  It took many years to develop these structures of discrimination and the accompanying prejudices that are experienced by ex-offenders, so it will likely take many years to correct the problem.  That being said, I think it is necessary to encourage your senators and representatives to keep working on the criminal justice reform bill.  Please do not allow it to get lost in the confusion of election year politics.