Editorial: The Criminal Justice System Must Be Reformed

Congress must take advantage of this rare bipartisan consensus and make changes

La cárcel más grande de NYC

La cárcel más grande de NYC Crédito: Spencer Platt | Getty Images

In Washington, few topics bring conservatives and liberals together. One of them is reforming the criminal justice system. While the reasons to support change may vary, the unifying point remains the failure of the tough laws against crime that took effect decades ago.

During the 1980s, a rise in crime led voters to press for harsher prison sentences, and punishments such as those mandated by the “three strikes” laws took the power to reduce penalties away from judges who otherwise might have considered mitigating circumstances.

Although delinquency went down, the number of people who ended up in prison just kept rising. Between 1980 and 2014, the penal population in the U.S. grew 220%. Nearly 2.2 million people are behind bars between federal, state and local jails, 4.5 times more than in 1980.

Behind these figures lies the disproportionate number of African-Americans and Latinos in jail. While these groups make up 30% of the country’s population, they represent more than 50% of all inmates. Moreover, the impact of prolonged incarceration is far from creating safer conditions: It is well-known that the longer someone is in jail, the higher their chance or recidivism.

The prison system costs the country over $80 billion, a figure high enough to encourage the emergence of an industry around it that profits from the growing number of inmates while engulfing public funds which could be allocated towards heath, education and other social needs.

There are diverse angles from which this problem might be remedied, including social, educational and legal standpoints. The latter is precisely the one on which Democrats and Republicans agree. Both parties concur in that sentences for non-violent offenses must be reduced and that judges need to be able to decide them, among other details.

This is the moment for Congress: many bills are being reviewed in both chambers seeking to update an excessively costly criminal justice system that fails to rehabilitate convicts and only ends up harming society in general.

En esta nota

congress Latinos

Suscribite al boletín de Noticias

Recibe gratis las noticias más importantes diariamente en tu email

Este sitio está protegido por reCAPTCHA y Google Política de privacidad y Se aplican las Condiciones de servicio.

¡Muchas gracias!

Más sobre este tema
Contenido Patrocinado
Enlaces patrocinados por Outbrain