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When thinking of the criminal justice system, we immediately hear Law & Order lines: “...the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders.” Yet the justice system involves so many more moving parts and is an exceedingly complex process which requires specialists to navigate it, i.e., lawyers and judges. Naturally, prison is the looming consequence of bad actors both in the show and in real life, but is it the only one? Looking further into the dramatic increase in the number of prisons and the rapid expansion of the criminal justice system, three former public defenders, Premal Dharia, James Forman Jr., and Maria Hawilo have compiled a reader to inform, educate, and begin a conversation on reforms — or even alternatives — to what some call the (in)justice system in Dismantling Mass Incarceration: A Handbook for Change.
The editors offer an overview of each of the book’s six sections and highlight that while “...[they] know no silver bullet will solve this crisis” it will take a variety of solutions and ideas to make the criminal justice system work better. Although even the terminology lends itself to giving it more credit than it is due, “[a] core truth about the criminal system is that it isn’t a system at all. Instead, it is a series of largely disconnected actors, structures, and bureaucracies, each following their own incentives and logics.” Of course, the implied belief here is the buy-in to the understanding that the prison system is overburdened, overly punitive, and at its core unfair to persons of color, especially Black men. To support that principle, the editors rely on surveys and statistics pulled from the last ten to fifty years.
Since this is a reader, the editors’ selections are careful and for the most part balanced, using sections from both landmark decisions such as Gideon v. Wainwright, which created the mandate for every individual to have the option to be represented in court, and articles from mainstream media and various law reviews written by judges, former prosecutors, and public defenders. It provides an "all angles" approach to understanding and critiquing the complexity of the United States' justice system — a system which holds the world's largest imprisoned population by comparison to that of the country.
Of course, this reader is meant to inform and educate, but by the nature of this book being a collection of essays, some pieces offer solutions and others possible reforms. At times, each essay’s solution will work against one other from section to section. For instance, the “Police” selections provide an inside look into the various ways this can look like. The first piece in this section l titled “How I Became a Police Abolitionist” (2020), by Derecka Purnell for The Atlantic, details how the author grew up in an impoverished section of St. Louis and the choices one is forced to make. “Police couldn’t do what we really needed. They could not heal relationships or provide jobs.” Pushing back on the mainstream plea for reforms, Purnell offers a critical voice as to why the populace places an unnecessary burden on the police to adopt too many roles. “Rather than thinking of abolition as just getting rid of police, I think about it as an invitation to create and support lots of different answers to the problem of harm in society, and, most exciting, as an opportunity to reduce and eliminate harm in the first place.” Yet, another selection — an interview pulled from Vox between Patrick Sharkey and Rogé Karma — dances around how a shift in mindset from the bottom up could provide a solution. Throughout their conversation, Sharkey cites various programs from around the country such as Cure Violence, READI, and Choose to Change and how these have been effective, while they have only been done in heavily urban settings. “We’ve been investing in these methods for so long, it’s all we know — it’s hard to even imagine a different response to violence.” This would seem to be a common response from just about anyone who has witnessed true atrocities or experienced crime, but this reader wants to avoid our personal feelings and experiences with bad actors and justice or the lack thereof.
Later on, in a case study from Inquest, an actual alternative crisis response initiative is mentioned in the form of Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets or CAHOOTS. Originally formed in Eugene, Oregon, CAHOOTS responded to certain calls alongside the police and evolved in the eighties to become a civilian-run crisis unit. While not a direct reform or abolition as some of the other examples offered, CAHOOTS provides a blurring of these realities, albeit a provocative and successful one, as other crisis response initiatives have arisen in other cities following their model. Alongside CAHOOTS is JustCARE, another organization created partially to help ease the limitations that the former has with long term solutions. JustCARE focuses on both addressing “...situations (i.e., unauthorized encampments) that involve residents who sometimes rely on illicit survival strategies and commit other low-level crimes.” They also collaborate with community members directly to identify areas of need or concern. This ultimately helps the long-term sustainability of these measures, while also creating a safer community that lowers civilian contact with police.
The following sections all contain a similar breadth of opinion and insight as to how the criminal justice system could be reimagined and reformed. As stated earlier in this review, the editors are not under any illusions that the ideas and opinions in this reader are exhaustive or “realistic.” The supposed “silver bullet” — discussion and gathering more individuals to understand the incredible damage of the current justice system — is not enough. The core belief is that all persons should be cared for and treated with dignity, which does not disappear after certain actions, whatever they may be. Though arguments appear utopic in some doses, the editors refrain from overindulgence in order to ensure their mission of informing and educating is met with open ears. The plea at the end of the reader offers a comforting invitation:
In this handbook, we have not offered a prescription for how exactly you should engage in this work. Instead, we have sought to introduce you to the rich dialogue surrounding each component of the criminal system and provide promising examples of action.
Overall, this reader is a worthy and satisfyingly informative summation of the most relevant and cutting-edge thinking and methodologies when it comes to attempting to understand how the criminal justice system might look with reform, which leads the reader to ask the first question before cracking the cover, “Is what we have now working?”
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