EMPLOYERS - MAKING A DIFFERENCE

Whilst accepting that there are many committed, hard working, well intentioned and law-abiding people managing our judiciary, our society continues to suffer as a result of some draconian practices in the criminal justice system. Most will agree that there is suffering in America as a direct result of exposure to the justice system - some of this suffering includes issues related to: power and prejudice, abuse of power by people in authority - (false arrests, wrong charges with higher jail terms forcing many to accept plea deals, wrongful convictions, etc.), zero tolerance and its consequences and a lack of appropriate and external oversight on the judiciary

The most worrying trend in our judicial process is the increase in arrests, sometimes for the wrong charges and even those that are not convicted or where charges are dropped, suffer the long term consequences of lack of opportunities with jobs, housing and sometimes even access to academic institutions all because of an `arrest’ record.

It is important for employers to also understand that our criminal justice system is a bureaucracy. It has an ever increasing building program of incarceration and policing facilities. Our incarceration facilities now offer labor services to many counties – yes, it is a good thing to keep people employed but wouldn’t rehabilitation for those committing non-violent crime a better option?

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 the link is broken go to www.vera.org

If one was to look at county statistics for arrests, one would learn that more cases are settled through plea deals rather than through a jury system. There are many reasons for this. Some in our community fear the "establishment" and settle whatever charge that is levied against them as long as they can settle it as a "plea deal" and get on with their then work, study or home life obligations. (This group of people do not realize that whilst their current employment, study and housing may be problem free, they are minimizing their opportunities for future employment, housing and study opportunities as their `arrest’ record will come up over and over again.)

Many people having arrest records in our communities have been arrested for minor, non-violent crime. Often these crimes are related to rebellion years through adolescence. Yet these arrest records taint people throughout their lives. We believe this is unfair and that in many western countries unacceptable.

Many accept plea deals (sometimes "no contest" or "guilty pleas") in return for lighter sentences or because they do not want to be roped in for the wrong crime (charge) and they see a travesty of justice if they go to court and are convicted of the wrong charge. Example: when police and prosecuting attorneys upgrade charges so that where say, a misdemeanor trespassing charge could be appropriate, the police and prosecuting attorneys could upgrade these charges to burglary and a felony in the hope that the "fear" this causes will ensure that the "criminal" will accept a plea deal rather than risk going to a jury. Yet these plea deals as far as the police and the prosecuting attorneys are concerned are a conviction!

People from the upper echelons of our society seem not to be tainted as much with arrest records because they have the know-how to navigate the criminal justice system and they can afford the "dream team" lawyers which can represent them and have their charges dropped. So, police – particularly those in our law enforcement communities that are there to abuse power – will not go after those that can afford the dream teams; instead they will target people from lower socio economic backgrounds. The ones who can’t afford to fight them.

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"The disparate impact of our criminal justice system on racial and ethnic minorities raises serious questions about the way law enforcement officials, prosecutors, courts, and juries go about their jobs. Whatever their cause, racial disparities are stark throughout the system. At current levels of incarceration, for example, newborn black males have a greater than 1-in-4 chance of serving prison time, while Latinos have a 1-in-6 chance and whites 1-in-23. "
"Racial Profiling" produced by the Police Assessment Resource Center. A full copy of the report can be found at http://www.vera.org/publication_pdf/162_249.pdf
If the link is broken go to www.vera.org

Often where there is mental illness, alcoholism and drug use, particularly amongst young people, instead of rehabilitation in the true sense, our current system believes any infraction of the law whatsoever deserves a lifetime of punishment through lost opportunities. How fair a system is this? What type of society have we created?

It is important to mention that some communities in America are better equipped and more tolerant. They work hard to maintain fairness, common courtesies and fair play in the justice system - they treat the non-violent criminal and the young person with a lot of care and compassion. They understand that they need to provide support and rehabilitation. Still this is not enough. It is not enough to have only some communities working hard to promote fair play in our criminal justice system. We must do more. Right around the US we continue to have an alarming increase of arrest rates for non violent crimes and disproportionately it is people of color and people from lower socio economic backgrounds that get arrested.

As a leader of the western world, America needs to do more to address the issues existing in our criminal justice system. Our current system is simply not working. In the name of zero tolerance we are locking up the mentally ill and people committing non-violent crimes due to abuse of alcohol and/or drugs. We are also at times convicting innocent people and/or charging people with the wrong crime just to "get them" or to "get even". Instead of finding ways to rehabilitate, our law enforcement is trained to "lock them up" because the data on numbers of arrested makes sensational reading and provides even more city, county, State and country resources to develop a high powered incarceration structure ranging from county jails to prisons, to halfway houses to privatized prisons. The future of the next generation of Americans is being jeopardized because they are being stigmatized through arrests and the consequences thereof.

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We ask employers to please keep an open mind when recruiting. Do not always assume that the person with an arrest record isn’t deserving of a job. We ask that you request more information/references for people with arrest records and view the applicant with an open mind rather than simply rejecting applications on the basis of an "arrest record", often for non-violent crimes.

Social responsibility in the corporate world requires a passion for being fair and for interacting better with the communities you operate in. We ask employers to be fair minded particularly in light of the shortcomings in the American criminal justice system. To do otherwise, would be a further travesty of justice.