In 2014, Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke shot Laquan McDonald 16 times—14 times after the 17-year-old fell to the ground. The shooting was captured on multiple video tapes, but they were not made public until a court ordered the release of the videos 13 months after the shooting. During the 13 months, Officer Van Dyke remained on duty with no charges filed against him and no grand jury investigation. When the court-ordered videos were released in November 2015, the public reaction of Chicago citizens was immediate and forceful demanding the resignation of the mayor, the chief of police, and the Cook County prosecutor, as well as criminal prosecution of Officer Van Dyke. Was the shooting just an isolated incident of a rogue cop or was it an indictment of a greater failure of the criminal justice system?
One young man protesting the shooting and alleged “cover up” chanted to the crowd, “The whole damned system is guilty as hell.”‑ A great number of citizens, criminal justice leaders, and politicians agree with the young man’s accusation—the shooting revealed a broken criminal justice system not just an injustice by a single police officer. In response to protesters’ demands, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel called for “nothing less than complete and total reform of the system and the culture that it breeds.”23
The problem is that this incident is not just a failure of the criminal justice system in Chicago. There are calls for a complete and total reform of the entire criminal justice system throughout the United States. The public and the national media have called into question the professionalism and fairness of the criminal justice system. Democratic Texas Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a member of the Congressional black Caucus, said she saw similarities between the civil rights movement in the 1960s and the contemporary injustices of the criminal justice system.24
Politicians have responded to this public outcry and have undertaken efforts to reform the criminal justice system. For example, President Obama called for bipartisan efforts to reform the criminal justice system in his 2015 State of the Union address. In his July 2015 speech to the annual convention of the NAACP, President Obama again called for efforts to address the “persistent problems of crime and punishment in this country.” He called for “meaningful change at virtually every juncture: from the first interaction with police officers to prosecutorial charging discretion to the prison sentences imposed by judges to the conditions of confinement to the need for job training for those who are about to be released.” Calls for comprehensive reform are coming from numerous sources. For example, candidates for the 2016 presidential race called for an overhaul of the justice system. Also, both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives proposed legislation to bring system-wide reform to the criminal justice system. Individual states have undertaken initiatives to reform their state criminal justice system. The Marshall Project reports that Millennials have begun to take up criminal justice reform as part of a social justice agenda. What are some of the major reforms needed? In his speech before the NAACP, President Obama proposed an overhaul of the criminal justice system including the following challenges:
• Focusing more resources on early childhood education to prevent young people from becoming involved with the criminal justice system.
• Sentencing reform that would reduce mandatory minimum sentences or eliminate them.
• Shifting resources from incarceration to treatment or other alternatives for nonviolent drug offenders.
• Improved conditions for prisoners including reducing overcrowding, a review of the impact of solitary confinement, and reducing prison rape.
• Making it easier for offenders to reenter society after prison including “ban the box” (limiting when employers can ask questions about past convictions).
• Restoring voting rights for those who serve their sentences.
Also, Presidential Commissions and prominent criminal justice leaders have endorsed the creation of a National Crime and Justice Task Force to investigate the challenges of crime and punishment in the United States and to recommend comprehensive changes.25
Is the Criminal Justice System Broken? (Continued )
The Case
The call for comprehensive criminal justice reform raises several interesting questions. Among them are the following:
1. Do you think it is possible to achieve comprehensive reform of the criminal justice system?
2. How would comprehensive reform of the criminal justice system be achieved since the American criminal justice system is fragmented and there is no central oversight of thousands of criminal justice agencies? Will it be necessary to adopt a centralized criminal justice system of federal oversight and authority?
3. How much would it cost to implement comprehensive reform and who would pay for it?
4. How long would it take to achieve comprehensive reform of the criminal justice system and where should the reform begin?