I just sat down and watched a video published by the Atlantic called “Is the Criminal Justice System Broken?” in which people give their civic opinion on how our prisons and the justice system are functioning in America. Many of the speakers within the short 3 minute long video are professors or researchers in various areas related to criminal justice, sociology, race relations, and more. What stuck out to me initially was that as each individual discussed the issues at hand, they did not come to any large conclusions quickly. Instead, they logically, step-by-step explained how what we know already could connect to another concept, and then how that concept could connect to something else. While they explained what they knew, their ideas did not discount the good that is present in the criminal justice system and the law force.  The video even started with the an individual named Ray Kelly, a former Commissioner for the NYPD, talking about the good the police force has done in the last 30 years. Rhetorically speaking, it is almost essential from an empathetic standpoint to acknowledge what radical protesters and changemakers often forget. Since this video was published in 2015, we can imagine how deeply passionate people are with regards to fighting police brutality in America. In response, the United States saw a wave of mostly conservative white people supporting police and suggesting that punishments always fit the crime. This argument usually expands to the idea of discounting race and suggesting that there is equality across the criminal justice system. I would argue that the video takes on a moderate perspective of a deeply polar issue in America, allowing for a larger, well-received message to be delivered.

As more realistic ideas are exposed in the video, we see a reevaluation of concepts that might be accepted as true in the world. The video concludes with Ta-Nehisi Coates, National Correspondent of the Atlantic, saying, “I think our criminal justice system is working as intended. It is only broken to the extent that our society is broken.” If he were to stop at the first sentence, watching civil rights advocates would spit out their water and prepare a refutation speech on the spot. However, Coates continues to elaborate and distinguish a need for civic correction as we approach this issue of mass incarceration and injustice. To say that something is broken does not fit the narrative when in reality it’s a fully functional mechanism simply aimed in the wrong direction. I find that some Americans have a tendency to claim some part of society is broken, whether it be jails, or gun laws, or immigration laws. When we work in this mindset that it is broken, instead of misdirection or in need of being repurposed, we end up trying to fight an all too large issue. The saying “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke” might just perfectly explain the hidden message within the video. Speakers within the video are calling for moderation as we attack governmental institutions far beyond our individual reach. This video is a reality check for the passionate advocates who might be trying to tackle too much at once, but more importantly, in an inefficient way.

When we talk about huge, overarching issues in America or the world, there is often a dire need for change. After horrifying terrorist attacks like the Boston Marathon Bombing, all people from ordinary kids like you and me to politicians in DC find themselves asking “what can we do to stop this?” When school shootings never stop reoccurring across the United States, we collectively go on strike with regards to accepting the norms. Instead, there is a collective to fix some broken part of the system. In issues like this, there is always something agreeably wrong, a bad guy, a force that we can fight. However, when we talk about something drug reform, the discussion is not nearly as unidirectional because we have two major contrasting solutions. For a long time our country has maintained that fighting the war on drugs will be most beneficial, and so our policy has followed suit. But, as years have passed this approach has shifted in lines with atrocities across drug culture and prisons in the United  States. Now our country as a whole is no longer seeing the large body of drug addicts in this country as the “bad guys.”

Michelle Alexander, possibly my favorite person on Earth, spoke at the International Drug Policy Reform Conference in 2017. This speech comes after nearly two decades as serving as a civil rights advocate with a special emphasis on exposing and challenging racial bias in the criminal justice system. She is arguably most famous for her book titled “The New Jim Crow.” And in her work she has come to some startling conclusions, suggesting that our nation’s criminal justice system functions “more like a caste system than a system of crime prevention.” Such a statement is startling for most Americans, and for myself certainly before I read her book. The logic behind the statement is as follows: our country supports both on an infrastructural and small level, policies that put more people of color in prison. Even when studies control for the type and severity of crimes, black people are drastically more vulnerable to being put behind bars. However, the caste system, or this idea of the “new jim crow” becomes incredibly more apparent when you look at the conditions in prisons. Prisoners are subjected to slavery-like conditions in which they are forced to undergo long days of manual labor where they are making next to zero money. Further, this money is heavily taxed, ensuring that prisoners work for a dehumanizingly, next to nothing income. This unpaid labor in combination with black people being inevitably more likely to be jail ensures a process that is far too reminiscent of our country’s never-ending history of taking advantage of black people.

The New Jim Crow

However, Michelle Alexander’s commentary is not driven by some fight against a certain group of people. The exigence of the situation does not derive itself in the same way that gun reform does. Instead Alexander exposes a duality to the exigence of the situation. There is some need to act now, to change what is currently ongoing in our country, however Alexander wants to modify this passion, to suggest another side to what is going on. When she talks about drug reform, a suggestion to our country to focus more on recovery and rehabilitation, rather than some sweeping approach to lock up all drug users, she suggests that racism be at the center of the reform. In some ways, she enlists those who feel passionate, but adds a second rhetorical device in the form something so near-to-heart such as racism, and throwing it into the discussion. She explains how race functions in this movement, articulating, “ If the overwhelming majority of the users and dealers of opioids today were Black rather than white, we wouldn’t have police chiefs competing with each other over whose department is showing more compassion to people struggling with drug addiction or drug abuse,” (Alexander). She asks us to be cognizant of how our country’s opinion on drugs is shifting with regards to race.

There is an immediately apparent commonplace employed in her speech. The speech takes place at an international drug reform conference. Those listening to her are passionate advocates interested in helping drug reform on some level. In leu of this, Michelle Alexander aims to translate their passion into a fight that acknowledges the role of racism. She takes their common shared idea, and enlists her own suggestion, her own modification in order to create a better path for change.

Michelle Alexander proposes a problem that the audience is aware of, capitalizing on their immediate passion. However, she also modifies this passion through shared ideas and experiences that help the audience to better understand how the ”New Jim Crow” functions in the war on drugs. Rhetorically speaking, she has all she needs, a shared desperation for change with and a clear history that she has “walked the talk.” That being said, her speech gains its backbone as she articulates how this discussion needs to change direction, absorb this new perspective, and continue on with the same passionate people involved.

You can find a link to her speech here.