Prosecutors Get Too Much Power As They Stack Charges and Threaten Long Terms The new consensus that something is wrong with American criminal justice is welcome. The amazing number of people in prison - a measure on which, adjusting for population, no other nation comes close - is indeed a sign that the U.S. system is broken. It's good that the will to fix it seems to be growing. Yet dwelling too much on that one statistic is unwise. There's a danger of missing the point. [continues 481 words]
The new consensus that something is wrong with American criminal justice is welcome. The amazing number of people in prison a measure on which, adjusting for population, no other nation comes close is indeed a sign that the U.S. system is broken. Yet dwelling too much on that one statistic is unwise. There's a danger of missing the point. Consider, for instance, the idea that the leading cause of mass incarceration is long prison sentences handed down to nonviolent drug offenders. Not so. [continues 369 words]
How much misery can a policy cause before it is acknowledged as a failure and reversed? The US "war on drugs" suggests there is no upper limit. The country's implacable blend of prohibition and punitive criminal justice is wrong-headed in every way: immoral in principle, since it prosecutes victimless crimes, and in practice a disaster of remarkable proportions. Yet for a US politician to suggest wholesale reform of this brainless regime is still seen as an act of reckless self-harm. [continues 850 words]
