Jeff Reiman on the purposes of criminal justice

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Jeff Reiman on the purposes of criminal justice
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Reiman -- The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get
Prison
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The purposes of CJ

• Include
• Doing Justice
• Reducing Crime
• Controlling Crime
• Preventing Crime

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Is the system JUST?

• Reiman says NO!
• Biased against the poor at every step of the
  process
• from law-making
• to law enforcement
• to courts
• to corrections

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Is the system JUST?

• NO
• Law biased against poor
• Poor crimes are called the MOST SERIOUS
• Law ignores crimes of the wealthy even though
  they are more harmful
• And we are bad at catching even the poor
• (most crimes not known to the police)

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Does the systemPREVENT CRIME?

• NO
• Law ignores crimes of the wealthy
• And we are bad at catching even the poor
• (most crimes not known to the police)
• Pledge allegiance to failing methods
• Fail to try things that might work

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Does the systemCONTROL CRIME?

• Yes (to a degree)
• Catch just enough people to make it look like
  crime is committed mostly by the poor
• We are still bad at catching even the poor
• (most crimes not known to the police)
• (only 2.8 police per 1,000 people)
• But, law ignores crimes of the wealthy

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Reiman concludes...

• To the degree we
• Fail to try things that might work
• Fail to protect people from the greatest harms
• Fail to be fair, just
• then our criminal justice system
• is no better morally than the crime we claim to
  fight

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Reiman concludes...

• Our criminal justice system
• Fails to achieve its goals
• Makes more sense if you assume it was designed to
  fail
• This failure
• amounts to a success because of the interests it
  serves