The Prison Admission Scandal?

The recent College Admissions scandal has everyone up in arms. The liberals are angry and pointing fingers at conservatives because this scandal highlights the inequities (apparently the fault of conservatives) endemic within American society. Liberals claim the rich and powerful have advantages, both legal and illegal or unethical, while the poor or middle class suffer unequal access to opportunities. The conservatives are angry and pointing fingers at liberals because wealthy entertainers (i.e., the "liberal types") are the ones currently caught up in this most recent scandal. Conservatives claim the same people crying wolf at injustices are the very ones taking advantage of the unjust system. In other words, at a prime opportunity for our country to experience real growth and positive change from this disgraceful lesson, politicians and newscasters are, instead, using this scandal to cause further division. 

Finger pointing and partisan vitriol will do nothing to solve the problems of inequalities that are apparently prevalent within our college admissions system. As is the case in nearly every area of America today, if you have money or political power you will benefit in many ways that others cannot. Economy based inequality is by its very nature self-perpetuating. When you can buy access to power (and let's be honest, a degree from an ivy league school means power), you also get to write the rules that end up further benefiting you. It's a system that limits life chances to some while increasing access to others. 

Economic inequalities are not new for the 2+ million Americans in prison and jail today. Every day court systems around the country detain and keep locked up hundreds of thousands of poor people who cannot afford even a modest bail. These are pre-trial detainees who have not even been convicted of a crime. Wealthy arrestees don't stay in jail for long; they are bailed out within hours, keeping their jobs, cars, children, and all of the other things poor people often lose because they cannot afford even a few hundred dollars in bail. Add on to this indignity the fact that poor arrestees cannot afford good defense attorneys, and soon they are products of an unjust and grossly overworked indigent defense system. 

Many wealthy people who are arrested for drug-related crimes can convince judges to send them to expensive rehabilitation centers rather than to jail or prison. Poor people do not have that luxury. Wealthy people can hire expensive experts, private investigators, and legal sharks who find evidence or create loopholes. Poor people don't have that luxury either. I'm not saying wealthy people don't end up in prison. What I'm saying is that it's a rarity--and that's not because they don't commit crimes too. It's simply a matter of injustice that occurs every day, no, every minute in this country without the same outcry leveled at the recent college admissions scandal.

People who abuse their power and wealth need to be held accountable. We need reforms that level the field of opportunities. But we need these reforms in the criminal justice system too. We need bail reform that treats pre-trial detainees equally. We need indigent defense reform so that poor people accused for a crime have as solid a chance at defending themselves as wealthy people do. I'm not sure if it has the same ring or whether it will draw the same ire, but perhaps we can call the scandal of criminal justice inequality the "Prison Admission Scandal."