What state is our Criminal Justice System in?
It is an interesting question. It also one that was addressed over ten years ago in the book Guilty: The Collapse of Criminal Justice by Harold Rothwax. Then I came across the blog out of Tennessee that stated Why the Criminal Justice System is Broke in Tennessee by Rob McKinney. Both bring up excellent points of how politicians are constantly trying to "fix" the system. But is the system really in need of repair? At least to the extent the politicians think?
In my own locale politics has even entered our judicial system. Not one who likes to state his political views to loudly, I am concerned though about the race for one of our judges seats. In the race is a politician who, in the over ten years I have been in this area, I have not seen in a court room. I didn't even know he was an attorney. I knew he was a State Representative, but not a practicing attorney. Now at age 65, he claims to have all this wealth of knowledge able to make him a judge. Sometimes you just have to wonder. Like Tennessee, our ads have been the same, ready to fix a system I didn't even know was broken (again).
Sometimes, I think the repairs are from the damage we cause ourselves and not from a "broken" system.
Another example in our local community is the recent disclosure of a survey taken inside our police department over 4 years ago. The city fought, in court, to keep it confidential (and lost). Now, this week it is out and there are no big surprises. We, the community, knew there were problems inside the department, but the city wanted to keep it quiet. Why? Even our local paper's blog wondered that.
Society views some of this with true scepticism. And so they should. Politicians win on campaigns that state a problem, whether it exists or not, and the solution they can bring to it, whether true or not. My only request is the same as Rob McKinney, we should not be your politicial football that can be tossed back and forth as you please.
