Yes, Criminal Justice Reform Is Still a ‘Thing,’ and It Might Be Yours | Opinion

As President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump prepare for their first debate, one commonality is that each has in some contexts backed criminal justice “reform.” Biden is enumerating his executive actions on policing and touting billions made available for violence prevention. Trump embraced his signing of the First Step Act in a Super Bowl ad and more recently on the campaign trail in portraying himself to Black voters as someone who understands what it is like to be a victim of the criminal justice system.

Yet it’s no secret that the cause of criminal justice reform has taken on water in many quarters over the last few years for reasons such as growing concerns over urban decay, cartel activity connected with the border crisis, a fentanyl epidemic that has only begun to wane slightly, and a crime spike in 2020 and 2021, though crime other than auto thefts has dropped sharply since 2021. Another factor has been the conflation of effective changes in policy and practice guided by research with misguided and dangerous calls to abolish police and prisons.

Nonetheless, current polling still shows strong bipartisan support for the general concept of “criminal justice reform,” and though the term can mean very different things to different people, those suspicious of reform from either the Right or the Left might find a surprising number of policies to favor if they peeked beneath the hood.

With that in mind, here’s a cheat sheet, followed by a few cautionary notes.

You might be a criminal justice reformer:

If you recognize the vital role of police in deterring and solving crime but also back accountability, transparency and professional development, and wellness programs that improve officer performance.

If you’d want a family member or close friend struggling with a mental illness or addiction to get treatment.

If you believe decisions on whether defendants remain in jail prior to trial should be based on whether they’re a threat to the public, not how much money they have.

You might be a criminal justice reformer if you think that the loss of freedom itself, not inhumane conditions, is the punishment when we put someone in prison.

If you believe crime victims should have access to restitution and services, including through trauma recovery centers and other resources that are available even if a case is not prosecuted or solved.

If you think people charged with a crime should have as much access to quality legal representation as the government prosecuting them.

If you think formerly incarcerated people who have been living in the community crime-free for many years should be able to clear their record rather than carrying/bearing a lifetime scarlet letter.

If you accept years of academic research showing that the swiftness and sureness of sanctions more effectively deter criminal behavior than the severity of those sanctions.

If you think probation and parole systems that supervise 3 million Americans should put at least as much effort into helping people succeed as catching and punishing them when they fail.

If you acknowledge the reality of wrongful convictions, which one study estimated at 11.6 percent of murder and sexual assault cases, and believe that defendants should be able to avail themselves, even years later, of the best forensic techniques such as DNA testing to vindicate colorable innocence claims, just as we should leverage the best science to solve more crimes.

If you think the government should not be permitted to confiscate your property through forfeiture laws without proving it was connected to criminal activity.

If you think people should be able to punch the clock at a paying job after doing their time, instead of being denied an occupational license for an offense unrelated to that job.

These common-sense positions are supported by evidence and tap into values like fairness and redemption that unite us as Americans. Nonetheless, you might buy a pig in a poke if you don’t keep a few cautionary notes in mind, as not all policies labeled as “criminal justice reform” are grounded in evidence or worthy of adoption.

The same goes when it comes to writing a blank check for any program that claims to reduce recidivism but lacks validation by solid evidence that compares similar individuals who went through the program with those who did not. The criminology literature is littered with examples of programs like “Scared Straight” that sounded good, but upon closer scrutiny, did not deliver.

Finally, reform should not mean revolution. While some may find tilting at windmills alluring, the process of making targeted changes, evaluating their impact, and adjusting course as warranted need not be dispiriting. In their new book Gradual: The Case for Incremental Change in a Radical Age, Greg Berman and Aubrey Fox compellingly argue that both within criminal justice and in other policy areas, tying the pace of reforms to systems’ capacity for implementing them with fidelity to the model, has proven to be the most effective approach. If every jurisdiction adopted the best policy on each topic covered here, our justice system would be a model for the world.

Until then, if you think the criminal justice system needs improvements but that we shouldn’t dismantle it, you might find a lot of fellow Americans are in your corner. In a polarized country, there remains a brand of criminal justice reform that Americans across the spectrum just might be able to get behind.

Marc A. Levin, Esq., is chief policy counsel for the Council on Criminal Justice and a former law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He can be reached at ml****@*********cj.org and on X at @marcalevin.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.