In his acceptance speech on Election eve, Governor Cuomo made reference to closing more prisons than any Governor before him. We of course remain the most incarcerated nation on the planet but the Governor’s re-election and the vacancies in prosecutorial offices are an opportunity to significantly change the entire criminal justice system, both federal and state, away from the knee jerk reaction to crime which is to punish and throw away the key. The system provides for retribution instead of forgiveness and rehabilitation. I am not referring to vicious killers or terrorists who generally do not deserve forgiveness. Our jails are made for them in order to protect society.
But the longer that I work within the criminal justice system, the more I learn that crime for the most part exists for three reasons: 1) poverty and lack of education; 2) mental illness and 3) improper or illegal use of drugs and alcohol. There are of course exceptions such as the so-called “murder gene” or someone who is an incurable sociopath or pedophile or has been brain washed to kill for misguided religious or cultural reasons such as car bombers.
Taxpayers desperately need national and statewide Commissions to make recommendations for change within our criminal justice system accounting for what it may be able to solve and what is otherwise beyond its means. These Commissions should be prepared to focus on such subjects as prosecutorial discretion in deciding what cases should be prosecuted and which ones should not. We must begin to look at other alternatives to jail, giving people hope, allowing them to earn their way to being productive members of society and expunging criminal records to help people get jobs. We should have re-sentencing statutes because a defendant may be completely rehabilitated and yet interminably jailed with no hope of release. For the same reasons we should do away with mandatory minimum sentences and indeterminate sentences. We should look critically at probation and parole. Gangs, gun violence and bullying in particular in our schools have to be dealt with in realistic ways without violating the civil liberties of our residents. We have to find better means of the early detection of mental illness.
Tom Liotti
