criminal justice

If people could hold the same open-mindedness and sympathy (aka “benefit of the doubt”) for real-life criminals that they hold for The Blues Brothers, we’d be in a much better place in our country in regard to incarceration. Rehabilitation-centered prisons within Nordic cultures have shown to result in reduced recidivism, to the extent of some prisons literally having to close down due to lack of inmates. This all stems from the notion that prisoners are people too, and they can be taught how to be responsible working citizens when they re-enter society. We, on the other hand, consistently hold high rates of incarceration and recidivism, and our culture continues to treat all who have broken the law as though they are too rotten to ever be employed, healed, or rehabilitated. Many American legislators want to clean the streets of all these people, even intentionally making criminals out of good people through the drug war, so that they may continue the wage slavery that is modern prison labor within our largely-privatized system. Due to this societal dehumanization, the term “criminal justice” has become kind of a cruel joke in America.

-- Ezra Kronfeld