The Gaping Hole in Clinton’s and Sanders’s Plans for Criminal Justice Reform

[eridani]

Good suggestions here

http://www.thenation.com/article/the-gaping-hole-in-clinton-and-sanders-plans-for-criminal-justice-reform/

So what’s the solution? While the ACLU is trying to hold state and local governments accountable in court, the federal government could invest more in public defense, suggests John Pfaff, who teaches criminal law at Fordham University. Pfaff points out that there’s actually very little the president can do to reduce mass incarceration, since most inmates are held in state prisons, and states have their own sentencing laws. (Bernie Sanders’s pledge to dramatically reduce the prison population in his first term has been treated skeptically for this reason.) But funding for public defense is one area where the federal government could make a big impact. For instance, Pfaff suggests, if the feds put $4 billion into public defense grants, it would triple budgets nationwide, yet still account for less than half of 1 percent of the nation’s total discretionary spending.

Given the scope of the problem and the potential for a federal fix, it’s strange that so little of the political debate about criminal justice reform covers indigent defense. “I’m particularly surprised Sanders hasn’t talked about it, because it fits very well with his class-based argument,” Pfaff said. “These are the poorest people…. They’re required to have protection, but it’s effectively being denied to them.” Advocating for billions of dollars to defend murderers and rapists might be politically unsavory; but some people charged with crimes aren’t guilty at all, and if the goal is to reduce the number of people in prison or the time they spend there, adequate representation is a basic first step. Pfaff did offer one caveat: A grant program might have to incorporate a mechanism to make sure states don’t take an influx of federal cash as an opportunity to reduce their own contributions to public defense even further.

At a really basic level, the quality and the extent to which public defense is available to people can make a big difference in their outcomes,” said Jesse Jannetta, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute. He agrees with Pfaff that funding for indigent defense should be part of any serious criminal justice reform platform, particularly for the Democratic presidential candidates. “A lot of the focus ends up being on what the sentencing laws are, but that’s just a part of what ends up determining how many people are in prison,” he said. “Both campaigns have been concerned about criminal justice reform, and issues of poverty and inequality, and public defense really touches on both of those things.”

[PatrickforO]

1. Public defenders are underpaid, overworked and in many places there are not

enough it is true. In addition, it has become an exercise in plea bargaining rather than trying to actually defend people who did not do the crime for which they are accused. How many stories have we heard of young black kids who get busted for something for which they are completely innocent but end up with a felony on their record because of this plea bargaining?

However, if we look at the root cause of the plea bargaining system, it is clogged court dockets caused primarily by the war on drugs, and by pressure put on judicial districts by private prisons to fill beds. Many communities even have "% full" agreements with these parasitic for-profit prisons to keep them at 80% capacity or more - guaranteed profits.

So where is justice? I believe that ending the war on drugs through decriminalization and deprivatizing prisons first will get us further along that road, and that is what Sanders is advocating.

In addition, as an economist I'm well aware of a thing called 'unintended consequences.' For instance in his book Freakonomics, economist Steven Levitt suggests that an unintended consequence of Roe v. Wade was the dramatic decrease in crimes committed by teens beginning in the early 90s. Why? Because most of the kids who would tend toward criminal behavior had not been born - they were unwanted, or their mothers were unable to care for them and so they were aborted and thus never became criminals.

Why do I bring that up? Because Bernie's ideas about renegotiating 'free trade' deals, raising minimum wage, providing universal healthcare, strengthening Social Security, and providing free tuition at state colleges will eliminate a lot of the economic stress that Americans are feeling. If you read your Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, you see that people who are economically stressed are often pitted against one another by oligarchs using a 'divide and conquer' strategy. This is how racism was born, suggests Zinn, and people who are doing well, feel they have hope to get ahead, do not feel they have the deck stacked against them and are not economically stressed have much less economic incentive to be fearful of people who are different than they are.

Now, don't laugh, because I acknowledge that even if we removed all economic stressors, we would still have racism - of course we would. It is just that there would be a shrinking base of people practicing and perpetuating it. If there are fewer poor whites, you see, there are fewer people who will fall prey to the white supremacist, neo-Nazi message.

A lot of the racists backing Trump feel this way - they feel like their whole lives are being 'stolen' or 'endangered' by people of color, and they are afraid. They are supporting Trump because the economic stress they are feeling due to exploitation by the oligarchs has become so painful they are angry. Trump is exploiting this anger using racial and left wing dog whistles.

[MisterP]

2. also a good Marie Gottschalk piece

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/mass-incarceration-war-on-drugs/