The U.S. has an "unprecedented opportunity to usher in a new approach to crime" but only if the nation comes to terms "with the damage done by the tough-on-crime politics of the past half century," says Jeremy Travis, president emeritus of John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
In a keynote speech to the National Forum on Criminal Justice, sponsored by the National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA), Travis said Monday that policymakers could respond to crime in ways that are "more effective and less punitive" given several relatively new realities that reported crime is at low rates not seen in decades, public opinion does not rate crime as an important national issue, and punitive sentiment at historic lows, as shown by various surveys.
The criminal justice forum is being held in Washington, D.C. Most of its attendees represent criminal justice policy makers on the state and local level. NCJA is marking its 50th anniversary this summer.
The U.S. incarceration rate remains high, and so has "state control over people's lives via things like electronic monitoring of defendants, drug testing and a "pernicious regime of collateral sanctions – laws that restrict the autonomy and freedom of people convicted of crimes," Travis says.
In his view, "now is the time to take a step back from the policies we have adopted over the past half century," including reckoning with their financial costs, human costs and societal costs, and "the history of racism that fuels these policies."
Travis quoted New York University NYU Law Prof. Rachel Elise Barkow in a book, "The Politics of Punishment: Breaking the Cycle of Mass Incarceration" as saying, "One could say our approach to crime is a failed government program on an epic scale, except for the fact it is not a program at all. It is the cumulative effect of many isolated decisions to pursue tough policies without analyzing them to consider whether they work or, even worse, are harmful."
As crime rates have risen and fallen since the 1960s, Travis says, "too many victims and survivors have been left to struggle with their trauma and their loss without support from their government ... we have seen that communities of color have suffered the double tragedy of high crime rates and high incarceration rates ... more punishment does not produce more safety."
Travis offered a three-point plan to shift the direction of the nation's criminal justice policies:
--"We must recognize that the era of punitive excess has caused enormous damage ... .we have no choice but to recognize the enormous human costs of our over-reliance on punishment. We must also recognize that the
weight of the policies has fallen disproportionately on communities of color."
--Decouple public safety and punishment. "We we should not reflexively default to the criminal justice system to produce public safety... we should recognize that simply ratcheting up the machinery of punishment does little to prevent crime, and causes damage to families, communities, our aspirations for racial justice, and the health of our democracy."
--"Promote core values that have been cast aside by our relentless campaign of punishment." This includes respecting the dignity of people who are charged and convicted, honoring the principle that the state may restrict our liberty only to the extent necessary to achieve a legitimate social purpose, uphold the goal of racial equity, and ensure that the justice system promotes aspirations for a representative democracy.
Travis concluded by conceding that it may take another fifty years to fully change the course of criminal justice policy, "but now is always the best time to get started."
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