The Criminal Justice System Needs Improvement

In 1981, Habe Lawson wrote to Dianne Tramutola-Lawson - a criminal justice activist - from prison,
asking for her help. He had been convicted of a murder he didn’t commit in 1973. Dianne wrote back to
him, then eventually started to visit him regularly. They got married by proxy in 1982.

In 2001, the prison released Lawson to a halfway house, where he spent sixteen months before going
home. After his homecoming, and up until his death in 2016, he mentored other recently released inmates. Tramutola-Lawson describes him as a very warm, loving person who did not deserve to be in jail for almost thirty years.

Tramutola-Lawson thinks that the criminal justice system extends excessively long sentences. She
believes that the maximum sentence should be for 20 years (except in outstanding cases), and that the
system should do a better job in helping prisoners reintegrate into society.

She says that “People are just people, they make mistakes.”

Many people believe that the criminal justice system needs improvement because the U.S. has the highest
incarceration rates, detaining 25% of the world’s prison population. In addition, the system does not
effectively reduce recidivism. Some of the issues that need work are reducing sentence length, providing
help to troubled and at-risk people and normalizing the prison experience.

Sentence Length

In recent months, the Trump administration has taken steps toward prison reform. In December, President
Trump signed a bill called the First Step Act. This bill increases “good time” and “earned time” credits for
decreased sentences, as well as reduces the sentences for some drug convictions. The bill, however, only
applies to federal, nonviolent offenders, which is a small percentage of total prisoners in the country. At
most, the bill could affect 8.62 percent of the prison population. The First Step Act is a small step in the
right direction.

Tramutola-Lawson thinks inmates need more work, more earned time off of their sentences, and more
options for parole in order to reduce the prison population. Colorado prisons, in particular, are
overcrowded, and the cost of keeping an inmate imprisoned, sometimes for decades on end, is a heavy
burden on the taxpayers.

The average cost per prisoner per year in Colorado is $39,701. The average cost to keep someone in
prison in Colorado for one year is 73.5 percent of the average income in Colorado. At the end of 2018,
Colorado held 20,200 inmates. This is about $802 million per year to keep inmates in Colorado prisons.

Of these 20,200 prisoners, 14 percent of them are serving life sentences. That is about 2,800 inmates.
These prisoners cost upwards of $3 million.

Adam Murphy, a lawyer with Equal Justice Initiative - an organization that seeks to reduce long sentences
and integrates people back into society - says that the United States has 5 percent of the world’s
population, but 25 percent of the world’s prison population. He says this is largely because of excessive
sentences. According to Murphy, nonviolent people should not be in prison, and even a handful of people
who commit violent crimes should have alternatives. Murphy believes that, if a person is not a threat to
public safety, they should not be incarcerated. They should still be punished and held accountable, but not
incarcerated.

“Everybody who doesn’t pose a public safety threat should be released,” Murphy said. “We are such an
extreme outlier. We weaponize drug use and addiction. I think possession shouldn’t send someone to
prison. Eliminating the death penalty is important because it anchors the other excessive punishments.
Cash bail should not be a thing because someone should not be in jail because they are poor…
Incarcerated people are very human and no less human than the rest of us.”

Troubled and At-risk Individuals

Equal Justice Initiative frequently works with inmates who, as minors, were sentenced to life without
parole. The organization believes that no child should be sentenced to life in prison, and that they should
not be treated as adults. Murphy says that the system treats children like adults in court, but not in real life.
Most of these children have similar narratives. They has a traumatic childhood, were severely abused,
never got help for it, then turned to drugs. As a result, they commit crimes that land them in prison for life.
Murphy believes that, if the criminal justice system could better prevent crime on the front end, such as
with childhood trauma centers, then we would have fewer children resorting to crime to cope with their
trauma, and therefore, in the long run, fewer prisoners.

In addition, alternatives to prison and post-prison programs are vital to reducing recidivism rates, and
thereby the prison population. Tramutola-Lawson believes programs such as the Second Chance Center
and Reemerge.com are great alternatives to prison. They help prisoners rebuild their lives after conviction
so they they can again live normal, healthy lives.

Rehabilitation Instead of Punishment

Dean Williams, executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, believes that an important
key to reducing the prison population is normalizing the prison experience. Essentially, this would be a
system that focuses more on rehabilitation and less on punishment. He says that prison is already a
traumatic experience, and making it more traumatic does not do the prisoners any good. In fact, it messes
them up even more, so when they get out, they are more likely to commit crimes than they would have
been had they had had a more normalized prison experience. In order to normalize prison, inmates would
need to have more access to different activities and jobs, and the prison environment would need to be
safer. This would reduce recidivism rates.

“Safety has to be a paramount objective… If I can make it safer behind the walls, I’m gonna make it safer
for the community too because the people who are going to be getting out aren’t going to be as angry and
as hateful as when you put people in where the focus is on punishment,” Williams said.

In addition, Williams would like to redefine incarceration. He believes that putting non-dangerous people
back to work while they’re still serving their sentences would help with their reentry into society, reduce
the prison population, and would also help them make money. This would include a job, a place to live,
and normal, healthy relationships. This redefinition of incarceration would look similar to parole, but
more controlled and purposeful in making the inmates ready for society once their sentence is complete.

Each of these solutions - reducing sentences, helping troubled people before they commit crimes and
rehabilitating - could help to reduce the prison population, especially in Colorado.

By Sarah Golden