The Integrity In Justice Website and its mission to achieve justice for every person in the USA

Do we advocate for no punishment for non violent crime?

Shouldn't we be supportive of the hard working men and women who work in our criminal justice system?

Why we do what we do?

We believe that every individual is entitled to equal opportunity to study, work, housing and all other aspects of daily life. We also believe that every person is entitled to equal treatment under the law. Indeed, the American Constitution provides every individual this right. Yet when it comes to the criminal justice system in America, it is very clear that we have some real issues as we hear more and more that instead of there being a consistent format of rehabilitation and support for those committing non-violent crimes (especially for rebellious youth, those who have addictions to alcohol and drugs and the mentally ill), our society taints these people with arrest records and introduces them to the revolving doors of the criminal justice system. More and more it is those from socio-economic backgrounds that are in our justice system. It is also important to state that there are more African American, Latinos and other minority groups that fall within this category

There are some in law enforcement that will pursue more serious charges in order to get the "criminal" to accept a plea deal as there is much fear put into people, particularly young people, immigrants, African Americans and generally people coming from lower socio-economic backgrounds that without a "plea deal’"(which means guilt as far as the criminal justice system is concerned) they could spend many years in jail. Therefore, these people usually accept plea deals. Our criminal justice system seems to be skewed at this group of people - who readily accept plea deals and thereby, provide a higher conversion rate from arrest to "convictions". In short, there is inconsistency right across the US on how Police and Prosecutors deal with these issues and something needs to be done to address these concerns. Our view is that to address these issues, we will need dialogue in the community and plenty of it.

Another trait of the American justice system is that it is a growing business. The revolving doors of the criminal justice system, attracts the same people over and over again, thereby, guaranteeing larger police forces, incarceration facilities and related services. A continuous supply chain of potential criminals makes the case for an increase in funding for the various arms of the judiciary. The revolving doors of our justice system means that once demonized through their first arrests particularly due to non-violent, often drug and alcohol related crimes, these "criminals" tend to follow the same pattern throughout their lives because they are simply not able to get proper jobs, study opportunities and often even housing. Indeed many young "criminals" involved in drug, alcohol and petty non-violent crime are not even able to go abroad to study, work or volunteer because they cannot get a student, work, volunteer (and even tourist) visa due to their arrest record in America. We don’t believe this to be fair.

REFERENCE
"Between 1985 and 2004, states increased corrections spending by 202 percent. By comparison, spending on higher education grew by just 3 percent, Medicaid by 47 percent, and secondary and elementary education by 55 percent; spending on public assistance decreased by more than 60 percent during the same period (see Figure 1).86 Public opinion appears to be in harmony with a move away from incarceration spending. Whereas 75 percent of Americans believed that too little money was spent on halting rising crime rates in 1994, by 2002, this had declined to 56 percent. "
"Reconsidering Incarceration: New Directions for Reducing Crime". Report written by Don Stemen, Director of Research, Center on Sentencing and Corrections and published in Jan 2007 by the Vera Institute in New York. Full copy of the Report is at http://www.vera.org/publications/publications_5.asp?publication_id=379 If this link is broken go to www.vera.org

Most societies around the world safeguard their young and take extraordinary measures to provide them with support from teenage rebellion years to young adolescence and beyond. This includes even periods of despair when these young people become involved in drinking and drug use and resulting from this behavior, get involved with petty crime. In America however, while accepting that some counties and cities do have special programs for rehabilitation, there appears to generally be a lack of consistency in who gets access to these programs. Therefore, we are more likely to toss young people in jail and expect them to be "normal" when they come out with arrest records. We further expect them not to be affected when they are denied jobs by employers, denied housing by landlords and sometimes denied housing at state universities - all because no one is interested in talking to the "criminal" even with a non-violent record. We rely on Police, Prosecutors and District Attorneys to always get it right, yet when we look at stories right across America about cases of wrongful convictions, evidence tampering, police brutality, abuse of power, and other such issues, we are still not prepared to raise concerns and demand change. Our elected leaders and people in our judiciary continue to create a climate of fear on the basis of zero tolerance. Above all, we are the generation of the 1950s, 1960s and the 1970s who believed drinking and partying were a right of passage during our growing up years, yet it is the same generation that has initiated zero tolerance as a way of reducing crime but how many lives have we really affected? How many families have we really torn apart through these draconian practices? How many young lives did we jeopardize that are now serving adult time in jail because of being handicapped with an initial arrest record for a non-violent crime? We believe it is unfair for the generation of the 50s, 60s and 70s to have lived in a world where they could learn from their mistakes (we are talking about minor infractions and non-violent crime here) during their young years and not have a lifetime of consequences and yet to arrest the current generation of young people for non-violent crime and then put them through a lifetime of suffering. We have a moral responsibility to change this.

Whilst we concern ourselves with creating democracies in the world at large, we forget the people in our own democracy, our own backyard - particularly our young people, our mentally ill, our immigrant and African American populations and most definitely those that come from lower socio-economic backgrounds. We continue to arrest them at an alarming rate.

Our treatment of legal immigrants (green card holders) in the criminal justice system and through immigration court is also at times questionable. We do not object to the deportation of immigrants that have committed violent crimes. However, for legal immigrants that have committed non violent crimes, there must be recognition that our criminal justice system does have some serious flaws. It is also fair to assume that some legal immigrants do get caught up in the criminal justice system with the wrong charges or wrongly arrested to begin with, leading them then to suffer not just the consequences of the criminal justice system, but also then be held in immigration detention centers pending the government’s decision to deport them. This can lead to even more suffering for those that were initially wrongly dealt with by the criminal justice system. This group therefore, has to first navigate themselves through the criminal justice system and then again through immigration court.

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Read "Jon's Story" - a fascinating encounter with the criminal justice system, followed with a dose of immigration Justice! Click here...

Do we advocate for no punishment for non violent crime?

No. We do expect every person, including a young person to take responsibility for bad behavior and poor choices and the issue here is not about punishment but the type of punishment, the lack of consistency in charging (why is it that some are arrested, others aren’t; some receive minor charges yet the same crime by another person brings about a higher charge and an offer of a plea deal); the lack of oversight from outside the judiciary, drawn from every day citizens. If we can draw jury pools randomly from our general population, surely we can draw randomly from our communities to oversee these issues in a far more productive manner than our current system!

Shouldn't we be supportive of the hard working men and women who work in our criminal justice system?

Yes, of course! We understand that because this web site raises some real concerns with the criminal justice system, there will also be concerns raised by those good people in law enforcement that do keep us safe and do keep criminal elements in check. Some in law enforcement will wonder why their hard work and commitment is under valued or questioned. This web site does not suggest that every person working in the criminal justice system is there to create a climate of fear in our communities and abuse their power! Instead this site recognizes that we do have systemic problems through our criminal justice system and there are some who do abuse their power. Only in this way (by raising concerns) can we raise awareness in our communities so that the disadvantaged - (particularly those that cannot afford the "dream team" lawyers and are more likely to end up in jail for even the most minor infractions) can understand the criminal justice system with its flaws and attempt to protect themselves because there are issues. There are people that are arrested and go through our correctional facilities who should never have been in the system in the first place or deserved more in the way of rehabilitation and other measures before arrest and/or jail were ever considered an option.

It is hard to raise concerns about a system that does have some well intentioned, law abiding, hard working and dedicated people working in it. But at the same time, we need to ask ourselves whether these good people would want to work side by side with the few that do abuse power and therefore, cause a life time of pain and suffering to some in our communities. The answer should be no. We are also sure that the good people in our criminal justice system would want to see the issues addressed so that they truly represent the communities they work in and bring confidence in our criminal justice system. It should be a system for all people

We should remind ourselves that to date we have 212 people that have been freed from death row and/or life sentences due to the work of projects such as the Innocence Project – this happened because people took an interest and showed their cared. It was the criminal justice system that put these people in prison; so we can assume that they can get it wrong. To give them the benefit of the doubt, we can assume some were genuine mistakes but we need to ask ourselves that if there were 212 genuine mistakes made in relation to life sentences and Death Row cases, in a system which has many checks and balances in place (like jury trials) then how many people are we arresting and sentencing where there are no checks and balances and we rely wholly on police, probation officers and/or prosecutors? Importantly, we also need to address the serious issue of why we have more and more of the poor in our criminal justice system for non-violent crime.

It is therefore, our hope that those in our criminal justice system that work so hard and give so much to public service will keep an open mind about the issues raised on this website so that dialogue does take place. Dialogue and a commitment to address these issues would bring about far more positive change and bring confidence in our system of justice, than simply assuming these issues do not exist because they do! Read material at http://www.vera.org/project/project1_73.asp?section_id=2&sub_section_id=73&project_id=7 which highlights some of the work that is being undertaken with monitoring police departments. This work would not be undertaken if we did not have issues requiring to be addressed.

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Our aim

We believe the best way we could help raise awareness about issues in the criminal justice system is by making people aware through advocacy that there are issues out there that need to be urgently addressed if we are to truly have a just justice system where everyone is treated equally under the law. We believe the awareness campaign should also include potential employers, educational institutions, landlords/housing conglomerates and even overseas governments so that they become aware that not all those that are "arrested" in America are bad people and that many have been arrested for non violent crimes and deserve a second chance; some were not even supposed to have been arrested in the first place, but given an opportunity for rehabilitation (like sensible alcohol and drug rehabilitation) in return for charges being dropped. We don’t believe special arrangements for rehabilitation in return for dropping charges should be a one-off arrangement only for the rich and the famous or the well connected.

REFERENCE
"U.S. prisons already housed the most serious violent offenders in the early 1980s, they argue; prison expansion since then has resulted in nothing more than the imprisonment of large numbers of nonviolent, "marginal" offenders.”
Full copy of the Report is at http://www.vera.org/publications/publications_5.asp?publication_id=379 If the link is broken go to www.vera.org

We believe through raising awareness, we can have communities become more engaged in the problems that exist in the current justice system and change it for the betterment of all people – where justice is truly equal under the law. We also believe that by making it a grass roots campaign we may get the younger generation (e.g. students) interested in learning about these issues and adding their voice to the debate. It is through collective effort that we may be able to resolve these issues in a focused, consistent and compassionate manner.

REFERENCE
"Police experts and civil rights leaders have believed that minority youth in the United States are especially likely to be disrespected verbally, threatened, or shoved by the police and that this leads to antipathy toward the police, particularly among African-Americans." From "The Use of Citizen Surveys as a Tool for Police Reform" by the Vera Institute, Jully 2000.
http://www.vera.org/publication_pdf/citizenssurveys.pdf

Our aim is to advocate for a more consistent (whereby, everyone is treated equally under the law), safer and kinder criminal justice system for all Americans and not just those that can afford justice through "dream teams" and having the right connections. We will advocate and raise awareness so that families and particularly young people who have committed non violent crimes (often related to drug and alcohol use or minor infractions) are handled in a manner where we can save these young lives and make a difference to them rather than create a lifetime of lost opportunity. This is our aim.

Click Here for our Mission Statement

What about funding?

As of 2007 when we originally decided to work on this website, we did not have funding. Despite this and because we are passionate about the need to bring about change in our criminal justice system, we decided this is far too important to wait for funding from potential donors, sponsors or individuals. So, we have used our own personal funds to set up the web site and we will keep the work going as long as possible.

Our hope is that we do receive financial support from our community and at the least we would appreciate the purchase of T-shirts, bumper stickers and coffee mugs from our "shop" so that we can get the message out. Click Here for details of the shop. The products we intend selling are intended to get our message out – we want people to know about the criminal justice system - the barriers and limitations of the system. We believe only through dialogue can these issues be addressed. Importantly, if people understand the issues, they may be able to protect themselves from coming in contact with the criminal justice. Our intent therefore, is to engage the community at large and do what each of us can do in our small or big way to begin the process of dialogue and information

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