In the presence of crime, nobody wins. The painful consequences experienced by victims, perpetrators, and their families echo through the community, eroding everyone’s sense of trust, unity and safety. As such, identifying effective strategies to combat crime and recidivism is one of society’s most pressing and challenging questions. It requires us to understand the multitude of contributing causes, such as poverty, homelessness, addiction, racial inequities and mental health. It challenges us to design appropriate responses that reduce the likelihood of repeated offenses and increase the strength and safety of the community. Despite the complexity of crime, America has relied heavily on one catch-all solution—criminal justice. Targeting criminality at a surface-level, this solely punitive approach has had unreliable effects on reducing harm and has amassed dire new social and economic consequences for communities. Recognizing its failings, bipartisan efforts are sweeping the nation to shrink the size of the system and to develop more sophisticated solutions. While these initiatives are essential, they are prone to repeat historical missteps unless we shift their centralized focus away from the elusive goal of criminal justice and towards a more targeted and unifying mission that effectively addresses crime.
The term criminal justice epitomizes the problematic ideologies that have contributed to today’s mass incarceration crisis. Use of the word criminal highlights our inclination to pinpoint individuals to blame for society’s problems, perpetuating the belief that outcasting them will rid us of those problems as well. To feel comfortable with this approach, we dehumanize our neighbors, replace their names with numbers and relegate them to cages, hidden from public view. This dehumanization process not only leads to the loss of individual identity but also the erosion of empathy and collective effort in creating avenues for accountability, healing and reintegration into the community. And when individuals have completed their sentences and seek to positively contribute to society, they find themselves burdened by the mark of a criminal record, which hinders their ability to secure housing, employment and a sense of belonging. Consequently, our soaring recidivism rates should come as little surprise, as we have made it easier to fail than to break free from the cycles of crime and incarceration.
The cunning title of justice has led society to believe that such treatment is justified, fair and necessary. However, a closer examination reveals that injustice permeates the system. We have policies that allow the wealthy to secure their freedom with bail while the impoverished remain in jail. We have prosecutors putting immense pressure on individuals to plead guilty, regardless of actual guilt, and forgo their right to a fair trial so that the court can expedite its overwhelming caseload. Resultantly, we have undecipherable numbers of innocent people suffering for crimes they did not commit. We delegate sentences to Black men that are on average 19.1% longer than those for white men committing the same crimes. We have 1 in 5 incarcerated persons serving time for nonviolent drug-related offenses and 1 in 7 sentenced to spend their entire lives behind bars. We have 25% of our state prison population doing time for technical parole/probation violations, such as associating with someone that has a criminal record. Under the guise of justice, these deeply entrenched injustices have persisted even as crime rates have remained steady or increased, raising doubt about whether the system was designed for crime reduction or for oppression.
Despite past intentions, our society is evolving and making incredible strides in recognizing the harms perpetuated by the existing system and the need for incremental and visionary reform. Whereas most political issues are seeing increased polarization, this space is fostering bipartisan efforts to create innovative change at every stage of the system. Real progress is happening and affirming our ability to work collaboratively on designing better solutions. With all hands on deck, it is the opportune time to align on a new north star and synchronize our efforts to head in that direction together. By moving away from the ambiguous and disparaging end-goal of criminal justice and moving towards a new unifying goal that aligns with our present-day values, we will increase the maturity of our solutions and magnify their impact.
As community safety is the common thread amongst our reform discussions and initiatives, it is the best candidate for this new mission. Forming the bedrock of harmonious societies, safety fosters trust and interconnectedness, allowing individuals to pursue personal aspirations, nurture meaningful relationships and engage in their communities. The goal of community safety fosters an environment where crime prevention and response is a community-wide endeavor, which accelerates healing and strengthens resilience for everyone involved. It recognizes that individuals are more than their worst mistakes and allows for them to right their wrongs and move forward. While justice is incredibly difficult to assess and administer, community safety lends itself to more practical and measurable research prospects. This makes it conducive to contributions from a wide range of disciplines that are concerned with societal well-being, including psychology, neuroscience, sociology, public health, economics, architecture, and education. With a multidisciplinary approach and clear research targets, we will be able to implement evidence-based practices that actually alleviate crime and improve the health and well-being of our communities.
While word changes are certainly not sufficient to achieve transformative systemic change, they are powerful tools to shift narratives, replace silos with collaboration and channel efforts into effective outcomes. By redefining criminal justice around the more positive and inclusive framework of community safety, we can accelerate our progress and start to design solutions that work for everyone. Moving beyond a purely punitive approach and adopting a more holistic perspective will enable us to not only address crime but also build strong, safe and thriving communities.
SEEDS 