The Broken Criminal Justice System

After a home-grown terrorist attacked civilians in lower Manhattan New York, killing eight and wounding at least a dozen more, President Trump indicated that he would support sending this domestic terrorist to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has since backed away from this statement, but within a day of making it, Trump followed up his comments by condemning the U.S. justice system as a "joke" and a "laughingstock." 

While I do agree that the U.S. justice system is broken, I philosophically disagree with President Trump as to why it is broken. Trump claims that our justice system is not swift enough nor severe enough despite the fact that the United States has the highest incarceration rate per capita in the world, at the same time that crime rates have fallen roughly 45% between 1990 and 2012. Furthermore, the United States is the only industrialized country still using the death penalty and sentencing its prisoners to much longer sentences than any other industrialized nation, contradicting Trump's claim that our justice system is not severe enough. 

Trump's comments reveal a complete lack of understanding about the justice system, and he ignores the results of numerous studies that have repudiated tough-on-crime policies of criminal justice that led to the mass incarceration we have today. Trump, like other U.S. citizens, no doubt has strong opinions about crime, especially the kind of crime this domestic terrorist committed. Crime ought to be punished, and those who commit such heinous acts out to be held accountable for their barbaric behavior. But when a sitting President publicly calls for the death penalty before the justice system has even had a chance to perform its function, we can clearly see what sort of "justice" he is advocating for. Due process was important enough to our county's founders that those Constitutional protections extended even to the most hated among us. If we are to discard the protections the Constitution affords even barbaric killers, we will soon find due process and other rights are no longer rights for all, but only for those who are rich or powerful enough to benefit from them. 

The President has a duty to speak to the anxiety our country feels after a terrorist attack or other national tragedy, and he is right to demand justice for the victims. But the President also has a duty to uphold our Constitution and to fight for justice, not vengeance.

Let's fix the broken criminal justice system. But let's not "fix" it by tweeting out emotionally charged proposals. Let's address the tough-on-crime policies that have led to the world's highest incarceration rate, in a country that prides itself on freedom and human rights. Let's start listening to expert research that shows lengthy prison sentences do not lead to reformed lives. Let's not respond with knee-jerk reactions to the atrocities committed by one crazed lunatic by reinforcing a system that has perpetuated atrocities for generations.