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Video                   Brookings: Criminal Justice reform                             

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Video                   Brookings: Criminal Justice reform                             

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Just days after a violent, white-nationalist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe addressed a Brookings audience during an event on criminal justice reform. Governor McAuliffe said that the protests in his state were not "a debate about monuments" but about people who wanted to "maintain inequality in everything that they do."

After recognizing Virginia's troubled history on race relations, Governor McAuliffe highlighted the criminal justice system as plagued with racial inequality and announced his belief that Virginia should serve as an example to other states looking to take on criminal justice reform. Following his remarks, political activist DeRay Mckesson, Georgetown Law Professor Shon Hopwood, Teach for America's Brittany Packnett, and Clint Smith, author of Counting Descent, discussed the need for criminal justice reform in America.
The U.S. criminal justice system "sends people to prison as a first response instead of a last resort"
Shon Hopwood argued that the need for criminal justice reform in the United States is vital. He takes issue with a system that "sends people to prison as a first response instead of a last resort." He also highlighted the fact that the longer people stay in the prison system, the less likely they are to not commit new crimes when they do get out. Hopwood argues that this system hurts both criminals and taxpayers.
12,000 pregnant women are imprisoned every year
Brittany Packnett discussed the effect of mass incarceration on children, including both the children born to the 12,000 pregnant women who are imprisoned every year as well as kids who grow up in communities ravaged by mass incarceration. Packnett explained that children who are born into communities with high incarceration rates are raised to believe that they and the people living in their neighborhoods are "somehow more criminal than the folks they see on TV." She added that the culture in many schools in these communities adds to this problem, stating that the "culture of education in this country is one of compliance not one of empowerment"
By 2030, one third of prisoners in the U.S. will be over 55 years old
Clint Smith discussed the role that prosecutors can play in criminal justice reform. He explained that "prosecutors have a wide range of discretionary power that is often used to put people away for much longer than they need to be." He highlighted the fact that, by 2030, a third of prisoners in the U.S. will be over the age of 55 years, despite research that shows how unlikely it is that people of that age will commit another crime.

Watch the full event here: https://www.brookings.edu/events/the-need-for-criminal-justice-reform-in-america/

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Just days after a violent, white-nationalist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe addressed a Brookings audience during an event on criminal justice reform. Governor McAuliffe said that the protests in his state were not "a debate about monuments" but about people who wanted

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Speech                Brookings: Criminal Justice reform

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Speech                Brookings: Criminal Justice reform

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The transformative power of restorative justice

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The transformative power of restorative justice

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The criminal justice system asks three questions: What law was broken? Who broke it? And what should the punishment be? Upon that edifice - and channeled through old bigotries and fears - we have built the largest system of human incarceration on earth. America accounts for 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of its imprisoned population.

Restorative justice asks different questions: Who was harmed? What do they need? And whose obligation is it to meet those needs? It is a radically different model, with profoundly different results both for victims and perpetrators. Studies show restorative justice programs leave survivors more satisfied, cut recidivism rates, and cost less. If we're thinking about rebuilding the criminal justice program, restorative justice should be central to that conversation.

sujatha baliga is the director of the Restorative Justice Project at Impact Justice. She won a MacArthur "genius" grant in 2019. She's a survivor of abuse herself. Her work points toward a new paradigm for criminal justice: one focused on repairing breaches, not exacting retribution. And it carries lessons for how our politics might function, how our society could heal some of its oldest wounds, and how we live our own precious lives.

References:
"Imagining the nonviolent state" by Ezra Klein
Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm by Kazu Haga
Book recommendations:
For the Benefit of All Beings by the Dalai Lama
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness by Simon Wiesenthal

Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.com
Please consider making a contribution to Vox to support this show: bit.ly/givepodcasts Your support will help us keep having ambitious conversations about big ideas.
New to the show? Want to check out Ezra's favorite episodes? Check out the Ezra Klein Show beginner's guide (http://bit.ly/EKSbeginhere)

Credits:
Producer/Editor - Jeff Geld
Researcher extraordinaire - Roge Karma
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the transformative power of restorative justice

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‎The Ezra Klein Show: The transformative power of restorative justice on Apple Podcasts

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‎The criminal justice system asks three questions: What law was broken? Who broke it? And what should the punishment be? Upon that edifice - and channeled through old bigotries and fears - we have built the largest system of human incarceration on earth. America accounts for 5 percent of the world's...

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The Ezra Klein Show        A former prosecutor's case for prison abolition

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The Ezra Klein Show        A former prosecutor's case for prison abolition

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In 2017, Paul Butler published the book Chokehold: Policing Black Men. For Butler the chokehold is much more than a barbaric police tactic; it is also a powerful powerful metaphor for understanding how racial oppression functions in the US criminal justice system.

Butler describes a chokehold as "a process of coercing submission that is self-reinforcing. A chokehold justifies additional pressure on the body because a body does not come into compliance, but a body cannot come into compliance because of the vice grip that is on it." That, he says, is the black experience in the United States.

Butler knows that experience all too well. He began his legal career as a criminal prosecutor, a job that he describes in this conversation as "basically just locking up black men." Then, the tables turned and Butler found himself falsely accused of a misdemeanor assault. "After that experience I didn't want to be a prosecutor any more," he writes. "I don't think every cop lies in court but I know for sure that one did."

That experience put Butler on a journey very different than the one he began. Butler, now a Georgetown Law professor, has come to believe that the criminal justice system is not merely broken and in need of repair; rather, it is working exactly as it was designed, and thus needs to be completely reimagined.

Book recommendations:
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Sula by Toni Morrison

Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.com
Please consider making a contribution to Vox to support this show: bit.ly/givepodcasts Your support will help us keep having ambitious conversations about big ideas.
New to the show? Want to check out Ezra's favorite episodes? Check out the Ezra Klein Show beginner's guide (http://bit.ly/EKSbeginhere)
Credits:
Editor - Jackson Bierfeldt
Researcher - Roge Karma
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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a former prosecutor's case for prison abolition

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‎The Ezra Klein Show: A former prosecutor's case for prison abolition on Apple Podcasts

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‎In 2017, Paul Butler published the book Chokehold: Policing Black Men. For Butler the chokehold is much more than a barbaric police tactic; it is also a powerful powerful metaphor for understanding how racial oppression functions in the US criminal justice system. Butler describes a chokehold as "...

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This week DeRay sits down with John Rappaport, a law professor and research scholar examining criminal procedures in the justice system. They discuss Rappaport's findings regarding police misconduct and the effects of police behavior on communities.
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what science says about police (with john rappaport)

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‎Pod Save the People: What Science Says About Police (with John Rappaport) on Apple Podcasts

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‎This week DeRay sits down with John Rappaport, a law professor and research scholar examining criminal procedures in the justice system. They discuss Rappaport's findings regarding police misconduct and the effects of police behavior on communities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastch...

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Criminal Justice Reform Playlist from TED Talks

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Criminal Justice Reform Playlist from TED Talks

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You have JavaScript disabled

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It's past time to fix the criminal justice system in the US. These talks outline a few steps that need to be taken to get started.

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You have JavaScript disabled For the best experience, please turn JavaScript on. Here's how It's past time to fix the criminal justice system in the US. These talks outline a few steps that need to be taken to get started.

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Black Americans are far more likely than whites to say the nation's criminal justice system is racially biased and that its treatment of minorities is a serious national problem.

In a recent Pew Research Center survey, around nine-in-ten black adults (87%) said blacks are generally treated less fairly by the criminal justice system than whites, a view shared by a much smaller majority of white adults (61%). And in a survey shortly before last year's midterm elections, 79% of blacks - compared with 32% of whites - said the way racial and ethnic minorities are treated by the criminal justice system is a very big problem in the United States today.

Racial differences in views of the criminal justice system are not limited to the perceived fairness of the system as a whole. Black and white adults also differ across a range of other criminal justice-related questions asked by the Center in recent years, on subjects ranging from crime and policing to the use of computer algorithms in parole decisions.

Here's an overview of these racial differences:

Crime

Black adults in the U.S. consistently express more concern than white adults about crime.

In last year's preelection survey, three-quarters of blacks - compared with fewer than half of whites (46%) - said violent crime is a very big problem in the country today. And while 82% of blacks said gun violence is a very big problem in the U.S., just 47% of whites said the same.

Blacks are also more likely than whites to see crime as a serious problem locally. In an early 2018 survey, black adults were roughly twice as likely as whites to say crime is a major problem in their local community (38% vs. 17%).

That's consistent with a survey conducted in early 2017, when blacks were about twice as likely as whites to say their local community is not too or not at all safe from crime (34% vs. 15%). Black adults were also more likely than whites to say they worry a lot about having their home broken into (28% vs. 13%) or being the victim of a violent crime (20% vs. 8%). However, similar shares in both groups (22% of blacks and 18% of whites) said they actually had been the victim of a violent crime.

Policing

Some of the most pronounced differences between blacks and whites emerge on questions related to police officers and the work they do.

A survey conducted in mid-2017 asked Americans to rate police officers and other groups of people on a "feeling thermometer" from 0 to 100, where 0 represents the coldest, most negative rating and 100 represents the warmest and most positive. Black adults gave police officers a mean rating of 47; whites gave officers a mean rating of 72.

Blacks are also more likely than whites to have specific criticisms about the way officers do their jobs, particularly when it comes to police interactions with their community.

In the Center's survey earlier this year, 84% of black adults said that, in dealing with police, blacks are generally treated less fairly than whites. A much smaller share of whites - though still a 63% majority - said the same. Blacks were also about five times as likely as whites to say they'd been unfairly stopped by police because of their race or ethnicity (44% vs. 9%), with black men especially likely to say this (59%).

Stark racial differences about key aspects of policing also emerged in a 2016 survey. Blacks were much less likely than whites to say that police in their community do an excellent or good job using the right amount of force in each situation (33% vs. 75%), treating racial and ethnic groups equally (35% vs. 75%) and holding officers accountable when misconduct occurs (31% vs. 70%). Blacks were also substantially less likely than whites to say their local police do an excellent or good job at protecting people from crime (48% vs. 78%).

Notably, black-white differences in views of policing exist among officers themselves. In a survey of nearly 8,000 sworn officers conducted in the fall of 2016, black officers were about twice as likely as white officers (57% vs. 27%) to say that high-profile deaths of black people during encounters with police were signs of a broader problem, not isolated incidents. And roughly seven-in-ten black officers (69%) - compared with around a quarter of white officers (27%) - said the protests that followed many of these incidents were motivated some or a great deal by a genuine desire to hold police accountable for their actions, rather than by long-standing bias against the police. (Several other questions in the survey also showed stark differences in the views of black and white officers.)

The death penalty

A narrow majority of Americans (54%) support the death penalty for people convicted of murder, according to a spring 2018 survey. But only around a third of blacks (36%) support capital punishment for this crime, compared with nearly six-in-ten whites (59%).

Racial divisions extend to other questions related to the use of capital punishment. In a 2015 survey, 77% of blacks said minorities are more likely than whites to be sentenced to death for committing similar crimes. Whites were divided on this question: 46% said minorities are disproportionately sentenced to death, while the same percentage saw no racial disparities.

Blacks were also more likely than whites to say capital punishment is not a crime deterrent (75% vs. 60%) and were less likely to say the death penalty is morally justified (46% vs. 69%). However, about seven-in-ten in both groups said they saw some risk in putting an innocent person to death (74% of blacks vs. 70% of whites).

Parole decisions

Certain aspects of the criminal justice system have changed in recent decades. One example: Some states now use criminal risk assessments to assist with parole decisions. These assessments involve collecting data about people who are up for parole, comparing that data with data about other people who have been convicted of crimes, and then assigning inmates a score to help decide whether they should be released from prison or not.

A 2018 survey asked Americans whether they felt the use of criminal risk assessments in parole decisions was an acceptable use of algorithmic decision-making. A 61% majority of black adults said using these assessments is unfair to people in parole hearings, compared with 49% of white adults.

Voting rights for ex-felons

States differ widely when it comes to allowing people with past felony convictions to vote. In 12 states, people with certain felony convictions can lose the right to vote indefinitely unless other criteria - such as receiving a pardon from the governor - are met, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In Maine and Vermont, by contrast, those with felony convictions never lose the right to vote, even while they are incarcerated. Twenty-two states fall somewhere between these positions, rescinding voting rights only during incarceration and for a period afterward, such as when former inmates are on parole.

In a fall 2018 survey, 69% of Americans favored allowing people convicted of felonies to vote after serving their sentences. Black adults were much more likely than white adults to somewhat or strongly favor this approach (83% vs. 68%).

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From police to parole, black and white Americans differ widely in their views of criminal justice system

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Black Americans are far more likely than whites to say the nation's criminal justice system is racially biased and that its treatment of minorities is a serious national problem. In a recent Pew Research Center survey, around nine-in-ten black adults (87%) said blacks are generally treated less fairly by the criminal justice system than whites, a view shared by a much smaller majority of white adults (61%).

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Confidence in the Criminal Justice System

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Confidence in the Criminal Justice System

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Pew Research Center's Hispanic Trends Project

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Six-in-10 (61%) Hispanics report a great deal or a fair amount of confidence that police officers in their community will do a good job of enforcing the law, and 57% are confident that police will do a good job of dealing with gangs. However, this still leaves a notable minority who hold a negative opinion about police behavior. A plurality (47%) express just some or very little confidence that police will avoid using excessive force on suspects, while 46% have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence. Half (50%) of Hispanics have just some or very little confidence that police will treat Hispanics fairly, while 45% feel a great deal or a fair amount of confidence that the treatment will be fair. In regard to the courts, 44% of Hispanics have just some or very little confidence that they will treat Hispanics fairly, and 49% have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence that courts will treat Hispanics fairly.

Two of the five questions about confidence in the legal system asked of Latinos in 2008 were also asked of blacks and whites in 2007 (Pew Social & Demographic Trends, 2007). On those questions, levels of confidence among Latinos fall between the levels reported by whites and blacks. Nearly eight-in-ten (78%) whites have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in their local police to do a good job enforcing laws, while 61% of Latinos and 55% of blacks share that sentiment. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of whites report a great deal or a fair amount of confidence that police will not use excessive force on suspects, while 46% of Latinos and 38% of blacks express the same opinion.

A similar pattern emerges on the issue of police treatment of minorities. While Latinos were asked about their confidence that police would treat Latinos fairly, in 2007 blacks and whites were asked an analogous question about their confidence that police officers treat blacks and whites equally. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of whites had a great deal or a fair amount of confidence that police treat blacks and whites equally. Half as many (37%) blacks reported thesame. In comparison, 45% of Latinos statthey feel a great deal or a fair amount of confidence that police will treat Hispanics fairly.

Young Latinos generally are less confident in the justice system than are older Latinos. While 54% of Latinos ages 18 to 29 have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence that the police will do a good job of enforcing the law, this share is lower than the share of Latinos ages 30 to 39 (62%), ages 40 to 54 (66%) and ages 55 or older (67%) who say the same.

On three out of five confidence measures, immigrant Latinos report less confidence in thelegal system than do native-born Latinos. Half (50%) of native-born Latinos report a great deaor a fair amount of confidence that police will avoid using excessive force on suspects, while 42% of immigrant Latinos express the same level of confidence. Fifty-one percent of native-born Latinos are confident that police will treat Hispanics fairly, compared with 40% of the foreign born. Six-in-ten (60%) native-born Latinos feel a great deal or a fair amount of confidence that the courts will treat Hispanics fairly. In contrast, 42% of immigrant Latinos say the same.

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II. Confidence in the Criminal Justice System

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Six-in-10 (61%) Hispanics report a great deal or a fair amount of confidence that police officers in their community will do a good job of enforcing the law, and 57% are confident that police will do a good job of dealing with gangs.

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Contact with the Criminal Justice System

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Contact with the Criminal Justice System

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Pew Research Center's Hispanic Trends Project

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Individuals can interact with the criminal justice system in many ways, and that interaction affects not only them personally but their families as well. Overall, 56% of Latinos say they or someone in their immediate family had interacted with the criminal justice system in at least one of the following ways in the five years preceding the survey:

Reporting a crime to police (27%)

Being questioned by the police for any reason (23%)

Serving on a jury (21%)

Attending court on a criminal matter, excluding minor traffic violations and/or jury duty (19%)

Being arrested (15%)

Being on probation or parole (13%)

Serving time in jail and/or prison (12%)

Being a sworn witness in court (11%)

Reporting Crime to the Police

More than one-quarter (27%) of Hispanics say they or a family member reported a crime in the previous five years. Native-born Hispanics are twice as likely as foreign-born Hispanics to say this-38% versus 19%. Hispanics ages 54 and younger are more likely to say they reported a crime than those ages 55 and older-29% versus 19%. Hispanics with at least some college education (40%) are also more likely to say they reported a crime than Hispanics with a high school diploma (30%) or those with less education (17%).

Being Questioned by the Police

Nearly one-quarter (23%) of Latinos say they or an immediate family member were questioned by the police in the previous five years. Native-born Latinos are more likely than immigrant Latinos to say this-32% versus 17%. And Latinos under the age of 30 are more likely than older Hispanics to say this-32% versus 19%. Among Latinos with at least some college education, 30% say they or a family member had been questioned by the police in the previous five years, a greater share than those who are only high school graduates (23%) or have less than a high school education (19%). U.S. citizen Hispanics are more likely than non-U.S. citizen Hispanics to say they were questioned by the police-28% versus 15%.

Serving on a Jury

More than two-in-ten (21%) Hispanics say they or an immediate family member served on a jury in the previous five years. Hispanics over age 55 (30%) are more likely to say they or an immediate family member had served on a jury than are those ages 40 to 54 (22%), ages 30 to 39 (14%) or ages 18 to 29 (19%). And Hispanics with some college education (33%) are more likely to say they or an immediate family member served on a jury than are Hispanics with a high school diploma (18%) or those with less than a high school diploma (14%).

Attending Court on a Criminal Matter

Nearly two-in-ten (19%) Latinos say they or an immediate family member had attended court on a criminal matter other than a minor traffic violation or jury duty in the previous five years. Latinos between ages 18 and 30 are more likely to say this than Latinos ages 55 and older-23% versus 13%.

Being Arrested

Among Latinos, 15% say they or someone in their immediate family was arrested in the previous five years. Nearly one-quarter (23%) of Latinos ages 18 to 29 say they or a family member were arrested, compared with 8% of adults ages 55 and older. And native-born Latinos are more likely than immigrant Latinos to say they or a family member was arrested-18% versus 13%.

Interacting with the Corrections System

According to a recent report from the Pew Center on the States, 1-in-27 (4%) Hispanics in 2007 was under some form of corrections control, such as probation, parole, prison or jail. While 4% of Hispanics are under some kind of corrections control, more than four times (17%) as many say they or someone in their immediate family had been under corrections control in the previous five years. Native-born Latinos are more likely to report this than are immigrant Latinos-23% versus 13%. More than one-fourth (26%) of Latinos ages 18 to 29 say they or an immediate family member had been on probation or parole, or served time in prison or jail.

Overall, 13% of Latinos say they or an immediate family member had been on probation or parole. Young Latinos ages 18 to 29 are more likely than Latinos ages 30 or older to say they had been on probation or parole-19% versus 10%. Also, native-born Latinos are twice as likely as foreign-born Latinos to say they had been on probation or parole-18% versus 9%.

More than one-in-ten Latinos (12%) say they or someone in their immediate family served time in prison or jail in the previous five years. Native-born Latinos are more than twice as likely as immigrant Latinos to say that-18% versus 8%. And nearly two-in-ten (18%) Latinos ages 18 to 29 say they or someone in their family served time in jail or prison in the previous five years, double the share of Latinos ages 30 or older who say that (9%).

Serving as a Sworn Witness in Court

Overall, more than one-in-ten (11%) Hispanics say they or an immediate family member served as a sworn witness in court in the previous five years. U.S. citizen Hispanics are more likely to say this than are non-U.S. citizen Hispanics-14% versus 6%. And native-born Hispanics are more likely than immigrant Hispanics to say they served as a sworn witness-16% versus 7%.

Neighborhood Safety

More than one-third (35%) of Latinos report that there are areas within a mile of their home where they are afraid to walk alone at night. Though overall Latinos are more likely than the general population to report being victims of crime, their perceptions about neighborhood safety jibe with those of the general population, of whom 37% report that they don't feel safe walking alone at night in their own neighborhood ( Gallup, 2008).

For Latinos, neighborhood safety perceptions do not differ significantly by gender, age, or education. Safety concerns are also consistent across nativity and citizenship status.

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IV. Contact with the Criminal Justice System

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Individuals can interact with the criminal justice system in many ways, and that interaction affects not only them personally but their families as well.

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Global Data            UNODC: Crime & Criminal Justice 

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Global Data            UNODC: Crime & Criminal Justice 

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United Nations : Office on Drugs and Crime

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Data

Statistics on crime (data uploaded on 12 October 2018)

[Homicide, assaults, sexual violence, robbery, kidnapping
Theft, motor vehicle theft, burglary]

Statistics on criminal justice (data uploaded on 12 October 2018)

[Persons brought into formal contact with the police, persons prosecuted, persons convicted. persons detained. criminal justice system resources]
Note: If the website does not open automatically, please refresh/reload the page.
Special data collections

Historic data

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Statistics on crime (data uploaded on 12 October 2018) [Homicide, assaults, sexual violence, robbery, kidnapping Theft, motor vehicle theft, burglary] Statistics on criminal justice (data uploaded on 12 October 2018) [Persons brought into formal contact with the police, persons prosecuted, persons convicted. persons detained.