What should criminal justice reform look like?

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In wake of George Floyd’s murder, and of those who met a similar fate, there needs to be major, serious criminal justice reform.

The system as we know it now no longer works.

How can we create a new, reformed law enforcement system?

I'd suggest punishment for abuse of power, ie. officers who abuse their power should face trial as if it was just a civilian charged with violence, murder etc. but it should be punished more severely if it was because of abuse of power from the police.

There should be made no difference to the way murder charges are taken care of, between civilians and police, except that society should expect police officers to not abuse their power and punish them more severely if they do.

Another thing:

I don't know if crimes ie. violence - caused by racism - is punished more severely in the U.S.
than non-racist crimes. But if it isn't that's a way to start.

Alot of European countries punish hate crimes more severely. If you commit a murder, it makes a difference to the charges if it was motivated by racism, than if it was something else.

The basics is I would say some level of separation of and accountability that puts in no uncertain terms that the police will be judged by actions. That is tribunals that include people of various minority communities that can judge their actions, with separation from the type of law enforcement that might want to protect their own. There has to be breaking down of a culture of police protecting their own, forwarded by those who call themselves the good cops, their jobs can be tough, but there has to be proof that those who say that they don't like how things are done can be taken seriously and protected from any penalization. And you need to have officers more seriously trained in de-escalation, not use violence unless it is actually necessary and some work to weed out things like racial profiling, training out any.

The goal will be that officers be a part of the communities, rather than simply a threat to those in it.

I would suggest eliminating unjust laws, many of which were either passed with racist intent, or violate separation of church and state.

1. Demilitarization of the police.

2. Greater emphasis on de-escalation.

3. Changing residency policies for police officers so that their patrol areas are as relatively close to where they live as possible.

4.) Eliminate qualified immunity so that cops who mess up are exposed to the possibility of personal lawsuits.

Related: reduce the size of precincts. Prejudice is more likely to fester if the only time you go to an area and interact with people there is when a crime has been committed.

These all seem like very good suggestions.

The police in the U.K. aren’t perfect but I have spent the last two years working on Whitehall (the road where the central government is based in the U.K., with Trafalgar Square at one end, Parliament at the other, and Downing Street in the middle). There are nearly always protests of some sort going on, including highly disruptive ones like Extinction Rebellion. I have seen police physically carrying protestors out of the roads they were trying to block. I’ve seen police stand around monitoring protests while allowing people to come and go as they please for days on end.

The U.K. has its own George Floyd situations, but never anything quite like the scenes we’ve seen in the past few days - police just lashing out at anyone who walks past, firing tear gas at peaceful protesters, shooting at reporters, pushing people to the ground, driving their cars through crowds, turning off their cameras before murdering fast food workers... it’s something you would expect to see in Tiananmen Square, not Times Square.

So yes, demilitarise the police. Have special militarised units to respond to threats to life, but ordinary beat cops don’t need all that equipment.

The police need to be capable of extraordinary levels of restraint and only using the minimum necessary force.

Justice is a slow process, but there should be an independent body which automatically reviews every case where police action leads to death or injury.

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Outside of the immediate cop problem, there are some other changes I would like to see to the wider justice system:

- Drugs should be legalised. Most recreational drugs should be widely available, produced safely, and taxed to cover the costs to society.

- Sex work should be decriminalised. Obviously rape and trafficking should remain illegal and consent laws should remain in place (although may sometimes benefit from adjustments in the margins).

- All immigration offences should be abolished.

- Sentences should be reduced across the board, even for crimes you and I find abhorrent.

- Prisons should all have access to libraries and prisoners should have access to almost any book.

- Prisons should all have extensive education programmes.

- The stigma of prison should be reduced, particularly to make it easier for former prisoners to get jobs.

- As far as possible, prisoners should remain integrated within the community during their sentence. Perhaps being kept under house arrest at weekends is sufficient for most criminals.

- Personally I am a prison abolitionist. I believe the system fundamentally does not work and needs to be entirely rethought, with focus on prevention of crime, and practical methods of rehabilitation including restitution. I am a moderate abolitionist, to the extent that is possible, as I do believe prisons may be necessary for protecting the public from some extremely dangerous individuals.

^ There are only two points to which I take exception.

• "The stigma of prison should be reduced, particularly to make it easier for former prisoners to get jobs." -- Easier said than done.  Not only does public opinion stand against ex-convicts, but there are certain crimes which preclude any possibility of employment: Arson, Assault, Battery, Embezzlement, Murder, Rape, Theft, et cetera.  As an employer, I have to protect my business and my employees from threats and potential threats.

• "As far as possible, prisoners should remain integrated within the community during their sentence.  Perhaps being kept under house arrest at weekends is sufficient for most criminals." -- For non-violent crimes, perhaps; but not for Arson, Assault, Battery, Murder, Rape, or other crimes of violence or property destruction.

Call me old-fashioned (or even stupid), if you will, but I would be foolish to hire a man who had been imprisoned for spousal abuse into a company where about half of the employees are women, and where he would be expected to follow orders from some of those women.

I think these are valid concerns that would be shared by the vast majority of the population. And I agree, there are certain offences which should probably disqualify you from certain jobs.

However, currently in most places the criminal record check done before starting employment covers any offence except for a small range of exceptions (usually minor driving offences, and in some places perhaps cannabis possession). Often this is inappropriate.

There’s no reason why every single individual who has ever committed theft has to be considered a pariah for life. We should take robust action to stop theft from being committed in the first place, and to rehabilitate thieves after they have been caught.

International comparisons suggest that when we make it harder for petty criminals to find jobs, we make it more likely they will keep committing crimes. We need to give them a path back onto the straight and narrow and a way to be fully part of society again.

Maybe it’s my Christian upbringing speaking, but I believe in repentance. Even people who have committed the very worst crimes can make amends for them and contribute to society again. But the prison system makes it so much harder for people to move on.

This is a good and necessary question and one that the country should have been having a long time ago.

There's certainly no easy answer.

It does seem that there is a popular illogical and unproductive belief in the country that a solution to the problem is for cops to go away. That cops are the entire problem. That belief is dangerously ludicrous at best and veils a hidden agenda at worst. The agenda? Just let criminals run amok and things will be better. Preposterous in every way.

Since you're talking about criminal justice reform as a whole, something that needs to be fixed is radically changing sentence guidelines. Granted some criminals will never be deterred by even making a crime a capital offense, but by making the sentences of many crimes such as violent crimes serious, as in serious and lengthy jail times, rather than minimal jail times or even no jail time has to happen. The punishments hardly fit the crimes in present time. Criminals have more rights than victims in many cases. I know this because I was the wholly innocent victim of a violent crime and the perpetrator was coddled, shielded and protected by the system to the point that I did not receive justice.

Sentences that are much stiffer need to be a part of reform. Otherwise this is a wasted subject.

Last edited by Magna on 02 Jun 2020, 10:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah, petty crimes, misdemeanors, and juvenile offenses usually don't matter, unless there is an habitual offense record (i.e., repeated DUIs, multiple shopliftings, et cetera).  Marijuana use?  Not on the job (OJT), same as alcohol; and if an accident occurs on the job, and the mandatory alcohol/drug test comes back positive, then the employee is encouraged to enter a rehab program (first offense), or dismissed "for cause" (second offense within 5 years).

When you are responsible for the OJT health and safety of employees, you have to weigh the benefit of retaining an employee with a "history" against the difficulties they bring to work.  There were times when I really wished I could give someone just one more chance, but they had repeatedly squandered every chance they had been given.  Eventually, such a person becomes more of a burden than they are worth, and you just have to let them go.

5. (and I say this as someone who has many relatives in law enforcement) Abolish their unions!

More suggestions: Force red states to be pro-abortion and pro-LGBT.

End all marijuana restrictions. There are three states (Alabama, Idaho and South Dakota) where marijuana isn't even decriminalized--mandatory jail sentencing

Alabama:

Code Sections Alabama Code Sections:
13A-12-211: Unlawful Distribution of Controlled Substances
13A-12-213: Unlawful Possession of Marihuana in the First Degree
13A-12-214: Unlawful Possession of Marihuana in the Second Degree
13A-12-231: Trafficking in Cannabis, Mandatory Minimum Terms of Imprisonment
Possession
There are two degrees or levels of unlawful possession of marijuana in Alabama. First degree is possessing marijuana for something other than personal use (Class C felony) or for personal use after a previous conviction of unlawful possession of marijuana (Class D felony). These can get you between 1 and 10 years in prison and up to a $15,000 fine.

Possession of pot for personal use is only a Class A misdemeanor (the highest misdemeanor in Alabama). This is possession in the second degree. A Class A misdemeanor can be sentenced to not more than a year in jail and up to a $6,000 fine.

Sale Selling, delivering, or distributing marijuana and other drugs or controlled substances is illegal. The unlawful distribution of marijuana is a Class B felony subject to 2-10 years in prison and up to a $30,000 fine.

Because Alabama wants to protect its children from drug sales, if you’re an adult over 18 and you sell marijuana to a child under 18, the penalty is increased to a Class A felony. Class A felonies are subject to 10-99 years or life imprisonment and up to a $60,000 fine. On top of that, selling marijuana within 3 miles of a public or private school or university can receive an additional penalty of 5 years in prison, during which you can’t receive probation.
Trafficking Trafficking in cannabis or selling, cultivating, or transporting any marijuana, hash, seeds, synthetic tetrahydrocannabinols (THC), etc. is illegal in Alabama. It’s a Class A felony, but the mandatory minimum sentences are based on the amount of marijuana trafficked:
For 1 kilo to 100 lbs. the minimum is 3 years and there’s a mandatory $25,000 fine
For 100-500 lbs. the minimum is 5 years and a $50,000 fine
For 500-1000 lbs. the minimum is 15 years and a $200,000 fine
For over 1000 lbs. the penalty is life imprisonment without the possibility of parole
In addition, under the Alabama Drug Trafficking Enterprise Act a person who manages at least 5 people and gets a substantial income from the marijuana trade faces higher fines and longer minimum sentences. For a first conviction, the mandatory minimum is 25 years in prison with a fine between $50,000 and $500,000. For a second conviction, the leader is facing life in prison without parole and a $150,000 to $1,000,000 fine. The sentences under this law cannot be less than what the defendant faces under the trafficking and habitual offender laws alone.

Idaho:

Code Section

Idaho Statutes 37-2701, et seq.: Uniform Controlled Substances

Possession

Under 3 oz.: misdemeanor with penalty of up to 1 yr. or $1,000 or both;

Over 3 oz.: felony, 5 yrs. and $10,000;

Subsequent offense: double penalty

Sale

Felony: 5 yrs. and $15,000;

Subsequent offense: double penalty

Trafficking

1 lb. or more or 25 plants or more: felony;

1-5 lbs. or 25-50 plants: mandatory 1 yr. and $5,000;

5-25 lbs. or 50-100 plants: mandatory 3 yrs. and $10,000;

25-100 lbs. or over 100 plants: mandatory 5 yrs. and $15,000;

Maximum number of yrs. 15 and maximum fine $50,000

South Dakota:

Possession

Possession of two (2) ounces or less of marijuana is a misdemeanor. Any amount of marijuana over two (2) ounces is subject to felony-based penalties on a scale depending on the amount. In addition, any and all forms of hashish are considered controlled substances in South Dakota and subject to felony penalties.

Sales

Selling more than half an ounce of marijuana is a felony carrying a mandatory 30-day sentence. Any marijuana found in a car leads to a 90-day suspended license for a first offense.

Cultivation

Cultivation in South Dakota will be punished based upon the aggregate weight of the plants found as either simple possession or as possession with the intent to distribute.

Federal Marijuana Laws

Even though some states have legalized recreational and medical use of marijuana , it is still illegal under federal laws. A first conviction is punishable by up to one (1) year in jail and a $1,000 fine. A second possession offense carries a minimum 15 day incarceration, with a maximum of two (2) years in jail and a maximum $2,500 fine. A third and subsequent offense has a minimum jail time of 90 days with a maximum of three years and $5,000 fine.

Sale and cultivation of marijuana carry even higher fines and punishment under federal law. First offenses can put someone in jail for five (5) years, and large amounts can put someone in jail for life, with a one million dollar fine.

Charges and penalties under South Dakota's marijuana laws are listed in the following column. See FindLaw's Drug Charges section for more articles and resources.

Code Section 22-42-6, et seq.; 34-20B-1 to 114
Possession Under 2 oz.: Class 1 misdemeanor; 2 oz. to .5 lb.: Class 6 felony; .5 to 1 lb.: Class 5 felony; 1to 10 lbs.: Class 4 felony; Over 10 lbs.: Class 3 felony; May be civil penalty for violation up to $10,000 in any of the above cases
Sale
Distributing less than one-half ounce, when given away, not sold. Penalties include up to one (1) year in jail, a $2,000 fine, or both.
One ounce or less. Penalties include a fine of up to $1,000, at least 15 days (and up to one year) in prison, or both.
More than one (1) ounce but less than eight (8) ounces. Penalties include a fine of up to $2,000, up to two (2) years in prison, or both.
Eight ounces or more, but less than one (1) pound. Penalties include a fine of up to $5,000, at least five (5) years in prison, or both.
One pound or more. Penalties include a fine of up to $15,000, at least 15 years in prison, or both.
Also may be civil penalty up to $10,000 in any of above cases; All felonies: mandatory 30 days without suspension; Subsequent offense: mandatory one (1) year.
Trafficking N/A

And that's if you're white. If you're a POC, the penalties are even harsher. I can picture Alabama executing POC caught with marijuana, given their history. South Dakota specifically targets Native Americans with their laws, and Idaho enforces the Mormon equivalent of Sharia law.

Some of these have already been covered but Sanders proposed a series of points recently to congressional democrats for criminal justice reform:

These are mostly good in my book, but I feel there's a notable lack of attention given to ending mass incarceration. Some of these would be good at preventing mass arrests for non-violent crime, but it doesn't address how to help those who are already incarcerated. I could also see some of these being nightmares to put into law...