Citizens For Justice With Mercy

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A Modern View of Criminal Justice
The Criminal Justice System is broken. Here in Georgia over 50 prisoners have died this year because of our lack of care. Our prison system is so poorly run that the Department of Justice is investigating it. Now is the time to make a change.
The view that punishment is the goal of the Justice system is a narrow one. There are two goals: preventing crime and promoting restoration. Without these goals of our Justice System is a failure.
Earned restoration is not rehabilitation. Rehabilitation is the attempt to change the offender. Restoration is giving the offender a pathway to citizenship. When we fail to provide a pathway to citizenship, we are creating a permanent underclass that is a breeding ground for crime and discontent. This is our failure in society.
Prevention of crime is the first goal. Police presence in a neighborhood is occupational unless the majority of those policing are neighbors. Police who live in the neighborhood know the people and are known by the people. Familiarity tends to promote compassion and dispel fear. To prevent crime, we must first change the relationship young people have with the police.
School age children know very little about the courts and laws. While they have a general idea of what is illegal, they have little idea what the consequences are. How can long mandatory sentences be a deterrent if the young do not know what they are? We need to teach about the law, policing and the courts in school. Police officers should rotate through schools and teach these courses. Knowing the police will dispel fear.
While poverty is not an excuse for crime, it is naïve to believe that poverty does not breed envy which is the root cause of much crime. Anyone who sells drugs can sell a legal product and be successful. We need to teach that upward mobility is an option. Entrepreneurialism and vocational trades should be a staple for young people. We need to provide micro loans and mentor programs. Every effort must be made to ensure that the young do not enter adulthood with the taint of a criminal record.
Courts and Laws must be fair, honest, and equally applied. The rule of law means nothing, if the law is not fair, honest and equally applied. Prosecutors must not view their job as a game to be won, they must seek justice over winning. We must develop the attitude that it is better to have the guilty get go free than to have the innocent convicted. The most important decision in prosecution is the decision of what charges to bring. Over charging someone to motivate them to plead guilty is coercion and it should be illegal. Convictions takes lives and break up families. Righteous convictions and reasonable sentences are a necessity not a luxury. Conviction Integrity Units should be in every county and over the whole state. An unjust conviction should NEVER be allowed to stand. You cannot have Justice if the conviction and sentence is not just regardless of procedure.
Prisons must be productive. Simply warehousing individuals is an affront to human dignity. Of course, prisons are for punishment, but they should also be where offenders receive advanced education, develop employable skills, earn and save money, and learn moral thinking. Release from prison must be dependent on merit. Prisons must be a place where we produce law-abiding citizens instead of bitter, proficient criminals. Incarceration should not be solely about punishment; it must also be about remolding citizens.
The final phase of the criminal justice system is earned restoration. Without a clear pathway to being a first-class citizen, former offenders are mired down in second class citizenship which is a breeding ground for crime. Georgia inmates leave prison with their documents, a resume, ill-fitting clothes, and $35 if they are lucky. Instead, the first year of a returning citizen’s release should be filled with programs and assistance designed to make their release a permanent success. Most returning citizens should have a pathway to earn a clean record. Everyone deserves the opportunity to earn a second chance.
Fixing the criminal justice system is paramount to our credibility as a society. It requires a societal change in our attitudes about crime, punishment and restoration. There is no “justice” in a Justice system that does not value people over process or punishment. When we release men and women and saddle them with stigma, we deserve what we get. We should be known for the way we handle those who have stumbled in life. The fact that we see those who perpetrate crime as castaways is a failing in our society. Our Justice system can be fixed, it must be fixed, and we will fix it. Get onboard!
John Harris,
Former Georgia Inmate, and
Co-founder of Citizens for Justice with Mercy, Inc.
[email protected]
770-371-0158