Criminal justice reform has become a major topic of discussion in the United States as concerns routine to grow about fairness, effectiveness, and the log term impact of the system.The U.S is one of the most highly incarcerating countries in the world, and the number of people incarcerated has grown substantially over the past few decades. Data from (Prison Policy Initiative (2024)) show that a big number of those who have been incarcerated are serving time for non-violent offences, which poses questions about the effectiveness of harsh punishment.
Criminal justice reform seeks to address structural issues in criminal justice systems such as racial profiling, police brutality, overcriminalization, mass incarceration, and recidivism. Reforms can take place at any point where the criminal justice system intervenes in citizens' lives, including lawmaking, policing, sentencing and incarceration. Criminal justice reform can also address the collateral consequences of conviction, including disenfranchisement or lack of access to housing or employment, that may restrict the rights of individuals with criminal records.
There are many organizations that advocate to reform the criminal justice system such as the ACLU, the Brennan Center for Justice, Innocence Project, Penal Reform International, The Sentencing Project, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Vera Institute of Justice. 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.
Beginning about 2013, highly publicised killings of Black people by police (such as the murder of George Floyd) have resulted in popular movements for police reform such as Black Lives Matter, and resulted in some reforms.
Areas for reform
Sentencing 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. Sentencing reform can reduce lengthy penalties for violent and nonviolent crimes, make it more difficult to incarcerate people for minor offenses, increase parole grants, and even expedite the release of eligible insiders, all of which reduce prison population.
Discriminatory sentencing In 2016, according to the Sentencing Project's Fact Sheet on Trends in U.S. Corrections, 2.1 million individuals were in America's prisons or jails. Trends in U.S. Corrections. The Sentencing Project, 2017, Trends in U.S. Corrections, sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Trends-in-US-Corrections.pdf. This reflects a 500% increase since the mid-1980s, which has come to be known as mass incarceration. Those in support of criminal justice reform perceive the issue to be an increase in surveillance and the use of draconian sentencing laws, especially within communities of color. While some researches claim that racial sentencing disparities are a reflection of differences in criminal activity, crime seriousness, and recidivism between different communities, other researchers believe that racial minorities are punished more harshly than their white counterparts who commit similar crimes.Spohn, Cassia. "Thirty years of sentencing reform: The quest for a racially neutral sentencing process." Criminal justice 3 (2000): 427–501
Findings from a study done by Cassia C. Spohn, explained in "Thirty Years of Sentencing Reform: The Quest for a Racial Neutral Sentencing Process" indicate that an individual's race and ethnicity play a role in sentencing outcomes.
Sentencing regulation Individuals are sentenced more often and for longer with the average sentence in the U.S. being nearly twice as long as Australian and five times as long as German sentences. Truth in Sentencing laws and mandatory minimums are perceived to be two forms of draconian policies that contribute to prison overcrowding.
Truth in sentencing law requires that offenders serve the majority of their sentences before being eligible for release, restricting or eliminating sentencing exceptions such as good-time, earned-time, and parole board release. The majority of truth in sentencing laws require offenders to complete at least 85% of their sentence. Due to the formation of the Violent Offender Incarceration and Truth-in-Sentencing Incentive Grants Program by Congress in 1994, states are given grants if they require violent offenders to serve at least 85% of their sentences.
Mandatory minimums are laws that require judges to sentence an individual to a specified minimum prison sentence for the committed crime. Mandatory minimums have often resulted in unnecessarily harsh sentences for low-level offenders and are believed to contribute to racial disparities in prison. 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. 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.
Drug policy Proponents of drug policy reform point to the war on drugs, marijuana law reform, and reducing drug harm as key issues. Advocates for policy change such as the Drug Policy Alliance believe that the war on drugs was and is a policy failure that has led to wasted resources, human potential, and a violation of rights. The mass incarceration of drug users is viewed as a waste of taxpayer money by drug reform advocates. The United States spends over $51 million yearly on the war on drugs.
Organizations that focus on reform such as the Sentencing Project and Campaign Zero also claim that the likelihood of imprisonment for drug related charges is racially disparate. In her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander originates the claim that the war on drugs is a new form of systematic oppression and social control that resembles Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation.Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New Press, 2016. The enactment of the war on drugs in the 1980s is primarily responsible for the dramatic rise in incarceration rates in the U.S. In the 1980s, 40,900 individuals were incarcerated due to drug offenses, and by 2015 there were 469,545. In 2016 1,572,579 individuals were arrested for drug law violations (84% of which were due to possession). Of this number, 643,249 were arrested due to marijuana violations (89% of which were due to possession). Approximately half of the individuals currently incarcerated in federal prisons are there due to a drug offense.Trends in U.S. Corrections. The Sentencing Project, 2017, Trends in U.S. Corrections, sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Trends-in-US-Corrections.pdf. Half of the individuals in federal prison are there due to a drug offense. Compared to 1980, there are ten times as many people in state prisons for drug offenses.
The focus of the war on drugs is cited as being misguided for stigmatizing drug users. Drug use is framed as a criminal rather than addiction and health issue. The Drug Policy Alliance points to countries that focus on the reduction of drug-related harms such as overdose, addiction, and disease as metrics for drug policy success. Portugal is often cited as extremely successful for their drug policies since decriminalizing low-level drug possession in 2001 and shifting towards a health-based approach to drug use. Since doing so Portugal has seen a decrease in violent crime, addiction, and the transmission of diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C.
Policing Policing reform typically focuses on police brutality and the use of dangerous force against minority individuals. Police brutality refers to the "use of excessive physical force or verbal assault and psychological intimidation" by law enforcement against individuals.
According to the Washington Post database on police shootings, 963 individuals shot and killed by in 2016 and 995 killed in 2015. According to Mapping Police Violence, police killed 1,124 individuals in 2020. The distribution of these killings varies widely by state with the majority of incidences occurring in states such as California, Texas, Florida, and Arizona and the least in Rhode Island, Vermont and North Dakota. While the distribution of killings by state within the U.S. is not even, overall more individuals die due to police shootings and other acts of deadly force than in any other Western, developed nation. Additionally, there are racial disparities within statistics of police killings. 30% of the Black victims were unarmed, compared to 21% of White Victims that were.
Police brutality 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.
Theories from various fields including sociology and psychology have attempted to explain the phenomena of police brutality."The 'Causes' of Police Brutality: Theory and Evidence on Police Use of Force ." Criminal Justice Theory: Explaining the Nature and Behavior of Criminal Justice, by Edward R. Maguire and David E. Duffee, Taylor and Francis Ltd, 2015. Sociological theories of brutality focus on the way in which interactions between police and individuals are influenced by the status of the individual. This means that differences race, gender, and socioeconomic status result in disparate treatment by law enforcement. Additionally, "situational factors" such as the character of the neighborhood also affect the interactions. Each of these factors are cues that push officers to make judgements about how to proceed. So, according to this theory minorities are overrepresented in police killings simply due to perceptions of their race. Psychological theories of police brutality emphasizes that different outlooks and personalities result in differing behavior by the police. This follows behavioral psychology in suggesting that differences in gender, socioeconomic status, educational and experiences affect one's responses. Organizational theory suggests that police brutality is a result of the organizational structure of law enforcement. The use of excessive force is seen as a response to disrespecting their authority.
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.Tonry, Michael H. Punishing Race: a Continuing American Dilemma. Oxford University Press, 2012. Media representations of Black individuals and disparate sentencing contribute to the idea that Black individuals are inherently more criminal. Research reveals that Black males with features considered Afrocentric such as darker skin tone, broad noses, and full lips, receive longer sentences than their lighter-skinned counterparts with Eurocentric features.
Broken windows policing