Utter Failure; It's Time to Rethink the Prison System

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Sylvia Clute

Utter Failure; It's Time to Rethink the Prison System
With 2.3 million people in America's prison system, we've literally become our own jailers. It's time to call for a compassionate -- and more effective -- judicial system.

June 16, 2010 |


Editor's Note: This article is based on the author's new book, Beyond Vengeance, Beyond Duality, published by Hampton Roads.


Our criminal justice system is based on a curious set of rules and a double moral standard. The state’s burden of proving guilt is pitted against the accused’s right to thwart such proof. The state claims to be the victim because its law has been broken, but if the accused lacks the resources of O. J. Simpson or Paris Hilton to defend himself, he feels victimized by the state, and too often is.

What about repairing the harm done to the other victim, the person who was robbed or raped? The prosecutor’s job is to win the case and punish the accused, not make the victim whole. This means the victim’s role is reduced to that of a mere witness for the state in its battle to win by making the accused lose. For the accused to win, defense counsel must try to make the victim appear as untruthful as possible. Caught in the middle of the attorneys’ battle to win and make their adversary lose, the victim often feels revictimized. If a plea agreement makes a trial unnecessary, this victim becomes irrelevant.

Is this a good system for getting at the truth? About 130 death sentences have been commuted since 1973 because evidence later proved these people were innocent. Is the prosecutor’s win more important than the truth about the guilt of the defendant? In many of these 130 cases, the answer was yes. Sam Millsap, a former Texas prosecutor, now speaks openly of having sent an innocent man to death by presenting weak evidence that later proved to be false. Does this deserve to be called justice?

There is a better way, a form of justice that delivers fairness, mends broken relationships, and helps us get at the root causes of crime. There is, in fact, justice beyond vengeance. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/vision/147199/utter_failure%3B_it%27s_time_to_rethink_the_prison_system/

[izquierdista]

1. The root cause of a lot of crime is poverty

And to remedy that, the haves and have mores would have to skim a little less and let everyone else have a little more. In other words, don't expect it anytime soon.

[Joanne98]

2. The police state costs a ton of money but the conservatives won't let it go.

[depakid]

3. What will force a more effective model is the fact that vengence and retribution are expensive

In a sort of tragic irony, societies that follow punitive to extremes, as the US and its states do- end up punishing themselves and mortgaging their futures.

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.