This is a problem if you assume the Justice System is about delivering justice
Justice System Is 'Broken,' Lawyers Say
With soaring prison populations, especially of minorities, the U.S. must seek alternatives, bar association urges.
By Henry Weinstein
Times Staff Writer
June 24, 2004
The American criminal justice system relies too heavily on imprisoning people and needs to consider more effective alternatives, according to a study released Wednesday by the American Bar Assn., the nation's largest lawyers' organization.
"For more than 20 years, we've gotten tougher on crime," said Dennis W. Archer, a former Detroit mayor and the group's current president. But it is unclear, he said, whether the U.S. is any safer for having 2.1 million people behind bars, including 160,000 in California.
"We can no longer sit by as more and more people — particularly in minority communities — are sent away for longer and longer periods of time while we make it more and more difficult for them to return to society after they serve their time," Archer said at a Washington news conference. "The system is broken. We need to fix it."
Both the number of incarcerated Americans and the cost of locking them up are massive, the report said, and have been escalating significantly in recent years.
Between 1974 and 2002, the number of inmates in federal and state prisons rose six-fold. By 2002, 476 out of every 100,000 Americans were imprisoned, according to Justice Department statistics. That compares with 100 per every 100,000 in Western European countries such as England, Germany and Italy.
In 1982, the states and federal government spent $9 billion on jails and prisons. By 1999, the figure had risen to $49 billion.
The study was launched in response to an August speech by Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, in which he urged the association to study "the inadequacies — and the injustices — in our prison and correctional systems."
Kennedy, who was appointed to the high court by President Reagan, said last year that "our resources are misspent, our punishments too severe, our sentences too long." He called for the abolition of mandatory minimum sentences, saying the system gives prosecutors too much power to, in effect, determine sentences by the nature of the charges they file.
He also made pointed remarks about the demographics of the nation's inmates. "Nationwide, more than 40% of the prison population consists of African American inmates," Kennedy said. "In some cities, more than 50% of young African American men are under the supervision of the criminal justice system."
That reality is not likely to change, according to the group's study. Based on trends, a black male born in 2001 has a 1 in 3 chance of being imprisoned during his lifetime, while the chances for a Latino male are 1 in 6, and for a white male, 1 in 17.
