In an a recent March 6th op-ed for the Sacramento Bee, Darren Walker issued a rallying cry, calling for reform of the U.S.’s criminal justice system that is both “retributive and prejudicial”. “We know what works,” he wrote, “And now is the time to rally behind these proven solutions and bring them to scale.”
America’s focus on punishment means injustice, inequality
From Oscar speeches to op-ed pages, our national conversation has finally focused on one of America’s most glaring affronts to democracy: our shameful record on mass incarceration.
We imprison some 2 million people, more than any other country. In the name of justice, we have witnessed—and, with our complicity, perpetuated—countless, unconscionable violations of it.
Why? Because our criminal justice system emphasizes criminalization over justice.
For years, punitive policies—the so-called war on drugs, “stop-and-frisk,” the “broken windows” theory and the “three strikes” theology—have conspired to reinforce injustice and inequality. Together, they have produced an overrepresentation of people of color in our prisons and jails. Today, more African Americans are part of the criminal justice system than were enslaved on the eve of the Civil War.