Criminal Justice Reform

Piecemeal reforms not accompanied by public discussion of the larger policy are ineffective outside the context of a broad social movement. Only a broad and multifaceted grassroots social movement can accomplish the goal of meaningful reform.

With less than five percent of the world’s population, the United States locks up nearly a quarter of the world’s prisoners. At 2.3 million, we have the largest prison population in the world.

We have the highest incarceration and recidivism rates of industrialized countries, while our nation's criminal justice system in general is too often inhumane, ineffective, and prohibitively expensive. Our law enforcement priorities place too much emphasis on drug-related and petty, non-violent crimes, and not enough on prosecution of corporate, white collar, and environmental crime. The majority of prisoners are serving terms for non-violent, minor property and drug addiction crimes, or violations of their conditions of parole or probation, while the poor, the under-educated and various racial and ethnic minorities are over-represented in the prison population.

Due to the high cost of maintaining inmates, the state of California, in a near bankruptcy situation, is being forced to do an early release for somewhere between 47,000 and 54,000 prisoners. A major question surrounding this issue is whether or not these former inmates will have undergone adequate rehabilitation prior to release. Ironically, there is considerable talk now of legalizing narcotics as a way of taking the profit out of their distribution and sale by the drug cartels.

The negative effects of imprisonment are far-reaching. Prisoners are isolated from their communities and often denied contact with the free world and the media. Access to educational and legal materials is in decline. Prison administrators wield total authority over their environments, diminishing procedural input from experts and censoring employee complaints.

Reform priorities must include efforts to prevent violent crime and address the legitimate needs of victims, while addressing the socio-economic root causes of crime and practicing policies that prevent recidivism.

We oppose the increasingly widespread privatization of prisons. Private prisons treat people as their product and provide far worse service than government-run prisons. Greater, not lesser public input, oversight and control of prisons is needed.

Alternatives to Incarceration:

• Encourage and support positive approaches to punishment that build hope, responsibility and a sense of belonging. Prisons should be the sentence of last resort, reserved for violent criminals. Those convicted of non-violent offenses should be handled by alternative, community-based programs including halfway houses, work-furlough, community service, electronic monitoring, restitution, and rehabilitation programs.
• Treat substance abuse as a medical problem, not a criminal problem. Free all non-violent incarcerated prisoners of the drug war. Provide treatment to parolees and probationers who fail a drug test instead of re-incarceration.
• Release prisoners with diagnosed mental disorders to secure mental health treatment centers. Ensure psychological and medical care and rehabilitation services for mentally ill prisoners.
• Release prisoners who are too old or infirm to pose a threat to society to less expensive, community-based facilities.
• Make reduction of recidivism a primary goal of parole. Treat parole as a time of reintegration into the community, not as a continuation of sentence. Provide community reentry programs for inmates before their release. Provide access to education, addiction and psychological treatment, job training, work and housing upon their release. Provide counseling and other services to the members of a parolee's family, to help them with the changes caused by the parolee's return. Prevent unwarranted search without reasonable cause to parolees and their homes.
• Increase funding for rape and domestic violence prevention and education programs.
• Never house juvenile offenders with adults. House violent and non-violent juvenile offenders separately. Continue the education of juveniles while in custody. Substantially decrease the number of juveniles assigned to each judge and caseworker to oversee each juvenile's placement and progress in the juvenile justice system.

Prison Conditions, Prisoner Treatment and Parolees:

• Ensure prison conditions are humane and sanitary. Meet prisoners' dietary requirements. Ensure availability of psychological, drug, and medical treatment. Minimize isolation of prisoners from staff and one another only as needed for safety. Make incarceration more community-based, including through increased visitor access by families. Establish and enforce prison policies that discourage racism, sexism, homophobia and rape.
• Ban private prisons.
• Implement a moratorium on prison construction. Redirect funds to alternatives to incarceration.
• Ensure that all prisoners have the opportunity to obtain a General Education Diploma (i.e. high school equivalency diploma) and higher education. Education has proven to reduce recidivism by 10%.
• Ensure the First Amendment rights of prisoners.
• Provide incarcerated individuals the right to vote by absentee ballot in the district of their domicile, and the right to vote during parole.
• Restore the right to hold public office to felons who have completed their prison sentence.

Criminal Justice Reform:

• Abolish the death penalty.
• Repeal "three strikes" laws. Restore judicial discretion in sentencing. Abolish mandatory sentencing.
• End the "war on drugs." Support expanded drug counseling and treatment.
• Amend the Controlled Substances Act to reflect that drug use, in itself, is not a crime, and that persons living in the United States arrested for using drugs should not be incarcerated with those who have committed victim oriented crimes.
• We need a step by step program to decriminalize all drugs in the United States.
• Legalize possession of cannabis/marijuana.
• Establish programs to strengthen self-help and community action through neighborhood centers that provide legal aid, alternative dispute-resolution practices, mediated restitution, community team policing, and access to local crisis/assault care shelters.
• Establish independent civilian review boards with subpoena power to investigate complaints about prison guard and community police behavior. Sharply restrict police use of weapons and restraining techniques such as pepper spray, stun belts, tasers and choke holds.
• Prohibit property forfeiture and denial of due process for unconvicted suspects.
• Establish freedom on bail as a right of all defendants charged with non-violent crimes. Incorporate mental health and social services in bail agreements.
• Increase compensation for jurors and provide child care for those serving jury duty.
• Protect victims' rights. Ensure the opportunity for victims to make victim-impact statements. Consider forms of restitution to victims.