Guest Thinkers — December 31, 2010

Rehabilitating Criminal Justice

Our ultra-costly and ultra-punitive system is neither protecting victims nor rehabilitating lawbreakers. It’s time for a new and less costly approach, says Sunil Dutta.

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America’s criminal justice system is deeply flawed. Beyond the harsh sentences and wrongful convictions (including innocents on death row), the system we’ve created fails to support victims or reform criminals. Furthermore, the entire system is rooted in a punitive approach to crime. America, the land of the free, has the world’s largest prison population (2.3 million) and its highest incarceration rate. And our overcrowded prisons are disproportionately filled with blacks and Hispanics, causing many urban communities to lose trust in a system they consider biased and racist. In short, our criminal justice system is providing neither justice nor security.

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