Excerpted from the first edition: (Copyright, Prentice-Hall, 2002)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

This book shows the reader that the American criminal justice system fails to achieve its goals of doing justice and reducing crime.  Of course, it is very easy to criticize people, institutions, and policies without attempting to suggest alternatives.  This seems to be the American way.  We seem to know how to criticize but are apparently less equipped to offer alternatives for our own failures.

To counter this, I provide 50 recommendations for creating positive change within the American criminal justice system.  Each recommendation suggests an alternative to the current direction of criminal justice policy in the United States.  Since the recommendations stem directly from the literature reviewed in this book, I arrange them in a manner consistent with the overall organization of the book.  Thus, I offer recommendations in the following areas: general recommendations about government and informing citizens; recommendations about law and crime; recommendations about the media; recommendations about police; recommendations about the courts and sentencing; and recommendations about corrections.

I firmly believe that we can change the direction of American criminal justice to make it more just and more effective at reducing crime.  These recommendations are a step in that direction (for other ideas, see Currie’s Crime and Punishment in America, 1998).

...............
 

Below, I offer suggestions to prevent crime and promote justice in America.  I believe our only hope lies in the careful creation of criminal justice policies that strive to move away from the reactive, carelessly constructed criminal justice policies of the late 20th Century.  As explained by Muraskin: “Policies are needed that attack the root of the problem.  ‘Band-aid’ programs do not work.  Without strong policies, the next millennium will see crime as a growing and larger problem than in prior centuries” (p. 436).

General recommendations about government and informing citizens:

1) Our government should write clear statements reflecting the goals of American criminal justice.

Given the importance of justice as a process, emphasis should be placed on Due Process values more so than Crime Control values.  This means that at every step of the criminal justice process, we must assure that every individual’s Constitutional protections are protected and that innocent people are not wrongfully subjected to the criminal justice system.  In other words, we must act in ways consistent with the ideal of “innocent until proven guilty.”
 

2) Our government should develop clearly stated policies of government aimed at not discriminating based on race, social class, and gender.

If justice is to be blind, and thus fair, we must first state clearly that we will not, under any circumstances, tolerate discrimination based on factors such as race, class, and gender.  These values should be codified and exhibited by government for all to see.
 

3) The government should also commit itself to evaluate the performance of the criminal justice system at regular periods of time, in order to assess how well we are achieving our stated goals.

How can we know how well we are doing unless we carefully assess our performance?  The cost of evaluation can be relatively inexpensive.  Given the importance of the goal to provide justice, an evaluation of criminal justice system’s performance is warranted, on a regular basis.  Criminologists and criminal justice experts should be involved in this regular evaluation.
 

4) In order to be more effective at reducing crime, our government must encourage a fundamental shift away from punitiveness toward prevention, treatment, and restoration.

This means that conditions in communities and society which produce criminality must be eliminated, that sick people who commit crimes must be treated, and that both victims of crime and criminal offenders work together toward restoration of each to a non-criminal and non-victim state.  For this to happen, we must commit ourselves to  forgiveness rather than vengeance.  Forgiveness is the only mechanism proven to produce peace for victims of crime.
 

5) Our government must shift its focus from criminal justice system responses to violence toward medical, public-health models to treat violence as an epidemic in America.

As I explained in this book, violence is the main problem in American when it comes to crime.  Crime rates are not exceedingly high relative to other like countries.  Yet, we suffer from alarmingly high violent victimizations, especially murder.  We must shift our focus away from criminal justice approaches toward public health approaches to reducing violence by treating violence as the epidemic that it is.
 

6) Our government should also stop “shooting itself in the foot” by hurting its own citizens.  Thus, we need to reinvest in American labor – stop engaging in practice such as downsizing for profit.

Government should regulate businesses to require victim impact statements when decisions affecting its workers will be made.  Maximizing profits by moving jobs overseas and south of the border at the expense of American workers and families should not be tolerated by politicians who simultaneously speak about the importance of families.  Sudden unemployment has been related to many adverse consequences, including depression, family instability, and domestic violence.  When corporations plan to make decisions that will affect American workers and their families, criminal justice implications should be considered.
 

7) Other forms of legitimate opportunities must be developed for citizens ho find themselves living in conditions of poverty.

Based on the review of evidence, street crimes are not the most harmful types of crime committed.  Yet, street crime is tremendously harmful and disproportionately effects poor people.  Based on the claims of politicians, poor people choose to commit criminal acts in order to maximize their pleasure, gain rewards, earn money, and so forth.  Our response, based on this premise, has been to make the punishments and other pains associated with choosing crime more weighty.  An alternative to this futile approach would be to increase the benefits associated with choosing non-criminal acts.  That is, the American Dream must be made available to all Americans.

8) Overall, Americans must insist that politics be taken out of crime and criminal justice issues.

Politicians have created cynicism in Americans by using partial facts and distorted truths about crime that have made developing sensible policy impossible.  Recall the Willie Horton example from Chapter 1.  Horton had been out on furlough eight times in Massachusetts without committing any apparent criminal acts.  On his ninth release, he committed a rape and aggravated assault.  Presidential candidate George Bush used the image of Horton as evidence to depict Michael Dukakis (who was governor of Massachusetts and Bush’s opponent), as soft on crime.  This was, at the least, very dishonest of the Bush campaign.  At the worst, it was downright deceitful and racist.  Politicians promote policies which they should know do not and cannot work.  Americans should call them on it.
 

9) A rational system of planned change should be used to reduce crime in America.

Currently, criminal justice policy seems to be made based on “subjective, ‘in the head’ decisions, which are subject to unreliability, low validity, bias, and much variability among decision makers” (Gottfredson, 1999: 443).  According to Walker (1998: xxi), most American crime control policies simply do not work: “they are nonsense.”  Walker critically assesses American criminal justice policy, including both conservative “get tough” approaches and liberal efforts at “rehabilitation,” and concludes that almost none of it is effective.  This is because conservative and liberal approaches are not carefully planned.  As I discussed in this book, the conservative approach has traditionally involved more cops, more prisons, and swifter, more severe punishment.  The liberal approach has traditionally included forms of rehabilitation and treatment.  Of course, as noted in Chapter 1, both conservatives and liberals now support more police, more prisons, and the death penalty as an effective means to fight crime.
 

10) The nation’s crime experts must strive to educate citizens about injustice in American criminal justice and about their true risks of victimization.

It is highly unlikely that many Americans are aware of how the criminal law is biased against particular groups of people in the United States.  Given our devotion to justice, it is likely that when Americans become aware of injustice, they will revolt against it and demand change, as they did during the Civil Rights movement.  Victims of other forms of culpable harmful acts, such as victims of white-collar deviance, “are often much more confused than are victims of conventional crime about where to turn for help, and a much larger group of such victims are not even conscious about having been victimized” (Friedrichs, 1996: 277).  If we truly want to stop victimization, we must make sure people know they are being victimized, and then increase and clarify their options for law enforcement assistance.
 

Recommendations about reforming the law and crime:

11) As the criminal law is currently not made by people who are representative of the people, it should not be a surprise that the criminal law does not serve the interests of most Americans.  Thus, we need to make the law more representative by increasing the representativeness of law-makers.

This would entail increasing informed voting behavior by educating citizens about crime and criminal justice, as well as minimizing and equalizing the funding of elections, candidates, and parties by special interests/lobbying.
 

12) We must shift our focus to one of harm reduction rather than criminalization.

Americans and their leaders apparently think that we can stop people from engaging in harmful behaviors by criminalizing them.  In fact, the most effective controls may very well be informal in nature – that is, instilled by families, peers, churches, and schools rather than by police, courts, and corrections.  Instead of criminalizing behaviors to reduce harms, we ought to encourage policies of harm reduction, aimed at preventing harms associated with behaviors such as drug use and abuse.  Thus, rather than punishing drug users and sellers, for example, treatment options ought to be available for addicts and alternative means of employment ought to be made available for sellers.
 

13) The government must define crimes based on degree of harm caused.

This entails careful study (much of which has already been done and is discussed in this book), about which behaviors are really most likely to kill, injure, and result in property loss for Americans.  Those behaviors that are most harmful ought to be called the most “serious” and ought to be the focus of law enforcement, courts, and corrections.
 

14) “Victimless” crimes such as drug use and possession ought to be decriminalized.

American police spend a disproportionate amount of time and resources on some “victimless” street crimes, called this not because they are truly harmless but because they are engaged in by consenting adults so that no one involved feels victimized.  The best example is the “war on drugs.”  As explained in this book,  factors such as law enforcement focus on drug crimes and mandatory sentencing laws which call for longer minimum sentences for drug offenders, explain America’s unprecedented over-reliance on imprisonment.  Many of the people we are incarcerating are first-time, low level drug dealers or people who simply were found in possession of marijuana.  Meanwhile, victims of other forms of harms are virtually ignored.  Drug use is a normal behavior that occurs in various recreational contexts.  Government can decriminalize drug use while simultaneously discouraging people from using drugs.  Drug use must not be made criminal to deter our children from experimenting.  In fact, their illegal status is precisely what leads to much drug use, as well as a lot of crime and violence in America.
 

15) Create and administer a national source of data on white-collar deviance.

In order to discover more accurately how much damage is caused by these types of acts, our government must create a measure to gather valid data on acts of white-collar deviance, much like it does on street crime.  If we are to shift our focus toward the acts that cause the most harm in society, we must first commit ourselves to collecting data on the acts.
 

Recommendations about the media:

16) Educate the media about crime and criminal justice through planned workshops.

The nation’s crime experts cannot afford to sit on the sidelines anymore by watching the media continue to get it wrong.  We seem to know how and why the media are misinforming citizens about the true nature of crime and criminal justice in America.  It is our responsibility to assure that this process stops, especially given that most Americans get their crime information from media outlets.
 

17) Insist that the media get it right by reducing demand of consumers for sleazy news.

We must encourage citizens to pursue alternative forms of education and news rather than crime shows and news.  Research clearly shows that crime entertainment and news promotes a “siege mentality” among some of its viewers, who become more likely to stay inside and fear the poor and people of color rather than helping them achieve legitimate success.  News agencies should also develop and broadcast clear statements reflecting their intent to cease broadcasting sleazy crime stories.
 

18) Develop a network of contacts among criminal justice scholars with the media.

Every criminologist and criminal justice expert owes it to the nation to insert himself or herself into the media when stories about crime and criminal justice are discussed.  We cannot afford to allow politicians and the police to the primary sources of information about crime and criminal justice in America given their clear biases in favor of the status quo.
 

Recommendations about the police:

19) Reorganize police resources (including the numbers of law enforcement officers allocated to each level of government, the types of behaviors they focus on, and the ways in which they use their time) so that victims of all culpable harmful acts, whether legal or illegal, will be served by law enforcement.

Policing in America is organized in a manner which mandates that officers focus on street crime victimizations almost exclusively.  Simultaneously, police officers in America spend most of their time doing work not related to crime or victimization.  This must change so that police can serve all victims of culpable harms.

 To correct this, we must:

20) Reallocate policing resources away from local government to states and to a lesser degree to the federal government;

21) Increase training of local, state, and federal police on matters related to white-collar deviance; and

22) Reallocate policing resources to better assist victims of all culpable, harmful acts.

We must reeducate police officers about forms of victimization other than street crimes because state and federal officers are currently best equipped to provide assistance to victims of other forms of victimizations, given their special training.  In order to assure that victims of such acts are sufficiently attended to, police at the state and federal levels must be granted more resources.  This means relative to local police, state and federal law enforcement agencies should be granted more employees and financial resources.  Police at the local level must be educated about forms of culpable harms other than street crimes, particularly to the degree that they will likely be called to assist with their victims.  City and county law enforcement assistance would not be possible unless allocation of local police personnel by location and time would be systematically changed from urban areas where street crime is perceived to be occurring to areas where other forms of culpable harms occur.  That is, for local police to provide their traditional services to a more diverse set of victims, where and when they patrol would also change.  Since police “tend to respond most emphatically to ... events that they perceive as conforming to legal definitions of serious crimes” (Sacco and Kennedy, 1996:65), they would be unlikely to sympathize with victims of culpable behaviors other than street crimes, unless such acts were recognized as serious crimes by society and treated as such by the criminal justice system.

Police should devote free time to other forms of victimization than street crimes committed by individuals against individuals.  We might also decide as a society to let police fight victimization exclusively, and leave service functions to other agencies.  Perhaps we could also redesign our social service agencies to operate on a twenty-four hour basis, so that police may exclusively fight victimization and/or crime through their law enforcement function?  Given the amount of time police at all levels of government spend on service functions, it is apparent that a great deal of time is not being allocated to victim assistance, although it is difficult to ascertain how much of police service time is spent on precisely this function.  Additionally, many criminal victimizations are never discovered and virtually all non-criminal victimizations are ignored.  From these facts, we can confidently conclude that police are not very effectively serving victims of culpable harms.
 

23) Increase educational qualifications for American police officers to a minimum of a Bachelor’s degree.

The Police Executive Research Forum claims that education benefits the police and the community.  Through education, police gain greater maturity and increase their knowledge base about criminal justice, American government, and also an increased understanding and appreciation of people of different cultures (Carter and Sapp, 1991).  These factors, along with high intelligence, flexibility, and honesty, have been shown to be related to better policing.
 

24) Increase police officer pay to reduce police corruption.

In some ways, it is understandable why some good cops “go bad” when they are paid so little and work in criminal rackets where huge amounts of money are exchanged regularly.  To reduce the likelihood that police will steal cash from offenders, we must pay our police officers more and create other mechanisms to show our appreciation for the valuable services they provide to Americans.
 

25) Develop mandatory multi-cultural educational efforts within police academies.

As evidence shows that police disproportionately hassle ethnic minorities and people of color, police should be exposed to more educational materials about other cultures.  This would logically increase their understanding of, and appreciation for, people unlike themselves, especially given that most police are Caucasians.
 

26) Outlaw the use of “police profiling” based on race and ethnicity.

There is no valid justification for this process by police.  Even if the process results in more arrests, more seizures of evidence related to criminal activity, and so on, the ends cannot be justified by the means.  Recall that justice as a process is what the criminal justice system in America ideally values.  The process of police profiling is an ugly, horrendous practice that should not be tolerated under any circumstances.  We should require police to gather statistics about interactions with citizens and then evaluate each jurisdiction for evidence of racial profiling.  When racial profiling is found, departments must be punished accordingly.
 

27) Develop police-community partnerships where they are needed most.

Community policing, the buzz word in policing for the past three decades or so, has not been beneficial to communities where it is needed most.  Inner-cities and high crime areas have witnessed the highest lack of respect for police and the least amount of involvement in community policing.  These are the areas where community policing strategies must be stepped up.
 

Recommendations about the courts and about sentencing:

28) Reallocate resources of criminal justice so that they are more equitable, particularly to “courthouse regular” defense attorneys.

This book showed that most money on criminal justice is allocated to law enforcement and then to corrections.  In essence, we spend more money trying to catch criminals and punish them than making sure that we have caught the right ones.  Is it any wonder, given the presumption of guilt inherent in plea bargaining, that sometimes we end up punishing the wrong people for crimes they did not commit.  If we truly believe in due process and “innocent until proven guilty,” we must give defense attorneys the resources necessary to adequately defend their clients.  Ideally, each side must be assured of the resources necessary to take cases to trial.
 

29) Increase representation by racial and ethnic minorities in courtroom workgroups.

Here, the government could assist by providing targeted scholarships to people of color to provide for law school, with the stipulation that they will serve a minimum number of years working for the government as an officer of the court.  As shown, people of color are underrepresented as members of the courtroom workgroup.
 

30) Reassign sentencing discretion to judges, take it away from prosecutors.

The current move to allow prosecutors to decide resulting sentences by the charging process has resulted in an imbalance in the court.  Sentencing discretion must reside in the hands of judges rather than prosecutors.  Judges tell researchers that they do not support mandatory sentences such as “Three Strikes” laws because of their inability to consider mitigating factors when sentencing some of the nation’s truly disadvantaged.  Prosecutors, as elected officials, are so much more likely to be concerned about their image as “tough on crime” and to maintain high conviction rates at virtually any costs.  Because of this, their discretion must be reduced if we want to assure that justice is done.
 

31) Prohibit preventive detention based on the criteria of “to protect the community” and only permit it under conditions where a significant flight risk exists.

Stated plainly, there can be no justification for locking up people who have yet to be convicted of criminal offenses.  Under rare circumstances where officers witness a person in the act of committing violence or when a person is found to be mentally unstable because of a severe brain disorder can we justify locking up a person who is supposedly “innocent until proven guilty.”  Currently, approximately half of people in our nation’s jails have not been convicted for any crimes.  These people are being punished without conviction.
 

32) Assess bail outcomes regularly to assure that bail is not being used to discriminate against any group of persons.

Given the evidence showing biases in bail against the poor and people of color, something must be done with regard to correcting bail biases.  At regular intervals, bail outcomes should be evaluated to assure that unreasonably high bail amounts are not being used disproportionately against any group in America.  If they are found to be differentially applied, mandatory bail amounts ought to be established by independent assessors of the courts.
 

33) Create a system of structured bail based on how much the accused can afford to pay.

If bail is simply to be used to assure presence of defendant at trial and not as punishment, it cannot be tolerated to set bails for the poor that are unreasonably high.  In essence, many poor citizens are forced to sit in jail even for accusations of relatively minor criminality because of low bails that they cannot afford.
 

34) Prohibit plea bargaining.

Plea bargaining is a process that does not address guilt or innocence of the accused. The issue addressed by plea bargaining is what to do about the defendant, who is assumed to be guilty by everyone involved in the criminal justice process.  Neither justice as an outcome nor justice as a process is achieved through the process of plea bargaining.  Decriminalization efforts would ease in the effort to assure that caseloads of courts do not grow to the point where it would be impossible to have trials for each criminal case.
 

35) Insist that indigent clients be given quality counsel by creating incentives to represent poor clients zealously.

Part of this incentive should be financial.  Courthouse regulars who make their living defending the poor ought to be able to thoroughly investigate the charges against their clients and be able to afford to put on an adequate defense.
 

36) Jurors ought to be selected from sources other than voter lists, for most people in America do not vote.

Voters tend to be unrepresentative of the nation’s population, as well, so logically biases will result against those that do not vote.  Alternative jury lists must be created from other sources.
 

37) Prohibit the use of peremptory challenges in jury selection.

There is no valid reason to allow any challenge to a juror without adequate cause, which ought to be stated to (and supported by) a judge.  Since peremptory challenges can and are used to disqualify people of color and people who “look suspicious,” the jury process has been corrupted by the use of peremptory challenges.
 

38) Encourage citizens to participate in jury duty by providing adequate financial compensation.

Jurors provide a valuable service to America.  They are supposed to be the backbone of the criminal justice system, assuring that arbitrary and overzealous governments do not unnecessarily interfere in the lives of America’s citizens.  Thus, they should be paid a reasonable amount to compensate for their lost wages and service to the government and people of the United States.  Jury duty should not be dreaded by Americans.
 

39) Prohibit the use of jury consultants during voir dire.

The use of jury consultants clearly biases the trial phase in favor of those clients who can hire individuals to hand pick a jury that will be sympathetic to its case.  The poor and often people of color do not enjoy this privilege.
 

40) Allow jurors to ask questions and take notes during the trial phase.

Currently, jurors must sit and listen to long trials and complex testimony and other forms of evidence without being able to write anything down or ask questions for clarification.  This likely gives more credence to opening and closing arguments rather than the actual evidence presented during trial.
 

41) Make jury instructions understandable.

Since the research clearly shows that jury instructions cannot be understood by many Americans, they should be written with the lay person in mind, and examples of major terms should be provided to assist the jury make just decisions.
 

42) Require monitoring of jury deliberations.

In order to be sure that juries are considering only the evidence allowed by judges when making their decisions, jury deliberations should be subjected to judicial review in order to identify and correct unjust decisions of juries.  This does not mean that jury verdicts should be overturned upon review; it means when juries use invalid criteria in their decisions, verdicts should be reconsidered by a panel of judges and perhaps adjusted based on legal precedent.
 

43) Acknowledge that deterrence is a myth and not a likely outcome of criminal sentencing.

Very few criminal sanctions provide a deterrent effect, especially for those most likely to commit street crimes.  Those with little legitimate opportunity for success – a “stake in conformity” – are far less likely to be scared into crime-free lifestyles when other means of earning income are so restricted and unavailable to them.
 

44) Eliminate “Three Strikes” laws unless it will be assured that they will be used only against repeat violent felons.

We may very well need to lock some criminals away from society for our own protection.  Many relatively minor offenders do not warrant such severe sentences.  Mandatory sentences are not a cost effective way to punish these offenders.  These sanctions also contribute to the “get tough” approach which permeates much of American society, a major impediment to effective change within the criminal justice system.
 

Recommendations about corrections:

45) Increase the use of intermediate sanctions as cost-effective alternatives to prison.

It is not that these sanctions are necessarily any more effective than prison, but they are certainly less expensive.  Many such sanctions are at least considered promising by criminologists and criminal justice experts, but they are not utilized widely enough to determine how well they work.  For relatively minor offenders likely to end up locked up in prison, these sanctions seem to be a better investment.
 

46) Humanize prisons – minimize the pains of imprisonment.

For those criminals that simply must be kept away from society for our protection, offenders should not be subjected to unnecessary forms of punishment while incarcerated.  Instead, they should be humanely incapacitated and treated like human beings rather than like wild animals.
 

47) Insist on educational and vocational skills development in prison as a criteria for release.

Prisoners should be required to demonstrate that they will likely make it in the free world before they are released.  This means correctional facilities must do more than simply warehouse offenders.  Imprisoned offenders ought to be encouraged, indeed required, to work, study, make decisions for themselves, and be prepared to live in the free world.  This may be unpopular with Americans who want to see the guilty suffer, but it likely will be more effective in preventing future crimes than brutal punishment.
 

48) Shift the role of probation and parole officer to social service functions rather than supervisory, law enforcement functions.

It is a terrible thing that probationers and parolees are sent to prison for violating rules not required of free people.  Those who are charged with supervising the progress of such offenders ought to be rewarded for successes and should be urged to help offenders make it in the free world by assisting their clients with necessary vocational, educational, and medical rehabilitation.
 

49) Provide more resources for probation and parole officers.

Currently, it is impossible for probation and parole officers to supervise their large caseloads.  A society as wealthy as America ought to be able to afford to pay for a sufficient amount of officers to assure successful integration into society during and after punishment.
 

50) Prohibit the death penalty.

Capital punishment is a horrible practice that is so rarely and arbitrarily applied that it is being used in an unjust manner.  It is so clearly biased against the poor and minorities that one wonders how it can possibly be legal.  There is no valid evidence showing that the death penalty deters crime and there is some evidence that an opposite effect may occur.  The United States is the only Western democracy in the world that still practices capital punishment.  It is a shameful American punishment.  Capital punishment should be replaced by a system of LWOP+R (life without possibility of parole plus restitution for victims).
 

LIKELIHOOD OF SUCCESS

 I do not pretend that these reforms will be rapidly accepted and implemented in America.  In fact, based on past efforts by criminologists and criminal justice scholars to make the criminal justice system more just, it may be unwise to expect many of these reforms to be adopted in the immediate future.  Yet, change is possible.  And based on the evidence presented in this book, change is necessary.  American criminal justice policy is misconceived and dangerous.  We must invest in prevention rather than more prisons (Greenwood, 1998).

Most change is gradual, but gradualism can lull us all to sleep.  As Americans, lucky enough to be living in what is supposed to be the greatest country in the history of the world, we must insist that the criminal justice system achieve justice as both an outcome and as a process.  The debate over the death penalty is now raging across the country, so it is possible that capital punishment will soon be stopped (probably through a temporary moratorium, but perhaps through a permanent abolition).  Some discussion has occurred with regard to police profiling and abuse of power by criminal justice professionals, but less debate is occurring with regard to many of the other issues addressed in this book.  I hope this book serves as a starting point for such debate.

Vila (1997) has pointed out how ironic it is that as knowledge about what works to reduce crime becomes more clear, we live in a time when effective or promising efforts are less likely to be implemented.  His research, like this presented here, suggests that the media, politicians, and public impatience will be significant barriers to effective change.  I advocate a team approach, based on consensus building between the media, politicians, and the public, to bring about effective change.  You, the reader of this book, have a tremendous opportunity to work from within the system, to bring about positive change.