Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 06/2012

Race, Crime, and Punishment: Breaking the Connection in America

Keith O. Lawrence (ed)

May 2011

Aspen Institute

Abstract

More than 2.3 million people in America are in jail or prison.  Sixty percent are African American and Latino. Of all the statistics portraying racial inequity in our country, this is the most alarming: it indicates the failure of so many of our society’s institutions; it predicts dire consequences for millions of children and families of color who are already at socioeconomic disadvantage; and it challenges the very definition of our democracy. As our national story goes, the U.S. criminal justice system ensures fairness and equality to all under the law. In reality, the system fails to deliver on that democratic ideal. Although generations of policy makers, analysts, practitioners, advocates, and ordinary citizens have worked to “fix” the criminal justice process and correct its most egregious injustices, the system continues to produce negative and inequitable outcomes for too many people of color. Why? What should we be doing differently? To paraphrase Albert Einstein, we cannot solve the problems of the criminal justice system with the same thinking that created them; we need to approach the issue from a new perspective. This means that we need to take a step back and reflect on how our criminal justice system reflects, and even perpetuates, inequities that underlie all of our social institutions.