Issue Brief

The issue I have decided I will be briefing on will be related to what I have previously discussed in my civics issue blogs, located around criminal justice reform. Now there is a lot to try to fix and implement in the U.S. criminal justice system, but what I will be narrowing down on is the issue of diminishing mass incarceration by pretrial reform, sentencing reform and post-conviction reform. It feels like the proper kairotic moment to discuss this issue because people are finally really sharing information about cases with unfair sentences trying to gain clemency, a pardon or even get out of the death penalty. 2020 has been a year where we have started to really use social media to talk about important issues and not just about fashion, sports or celebrities. Right now the bare minimum that ordinary people can do to alleviate the issue is sign petitions siding with a clemency; but we need to move forward in a direction that prevents these unfair sentences to begin with and eliminate racial bias as well in the courtroom.

Looking back at the Keyword entry on “Causes”, a sentence that seemed of importance to me was, “any one problem can have multiple causes”. Now going back to issue brief I will be discussing I was having a bit of a hard time figuring out if there was more than one type of cause to this enormous problem. I believe the cause that mostly plays a big part in this issue would have to be intentional cause; which signifies an issue happens because one person, group or institution deliberately created the problem or knowingly allowed it to persist. I think this perfectly encapsulates the U.S. criminal justice system because everyone is about power here and will allow their opinions and biases to get in the way of decision making. There are police officers, jurors and judges that will let their racial bias take control of a case and an innocent person of color could walk away with life in prison. Since the cause of my issue is intentional, this means the reform would have to include removing the bad apples in the situation and curb unethical unethical practices for pre and post trial.

Policy making to me seems like the most difficult part of this whole process, and I get that there is a lot of elements that need to be heavily researched and evaluated carefully. The policy instrument I would most likely implement into this issue brief writing would have to be system changes; system changes would directly address the problem of corrupt people in power and harsh ideologies held within the criminal justice system. I think this would be beneficial for this issue because it would get right to the heart of the issue and could lead to creating more direct policies about unfair sentences and allocate funding to judicial services and reduce the number of individuals incarcerated under excessive sentences. The only downside I can see as a result of using this instrument would be that it could stress already scarce sources, it wouldn’t be beneficial in poverty ridden environments, where crime also seems to have the highest rates. But I still believe this is the best possible route for this issue.

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/criminal-justice/reports/2020/10/07/491314/reimagining-federal-grants-public-safety-criminal-justice-reform/