The Gaping Hole in Clinton’s and Sanders’s Plans for Criminal Justice Reform

[eridani]

Good suggestions here

http://www.thenation.com/article/the-gaping-hole-in-clinton-and-sanders-plans-for-criminal-justice-reform/

So what’s the solution? While the ACLU is trying to hold state and local governments accountable in court, the federal government could invest more in public defense, suggests John Pfaff, who teaches criminal law at Fordham University. Pfaff points out that there’s actually very little the president can do to reduce mass incarceration, since most inmates are held in state prisons, and states have their own sentencing laws. (Bernie Sanders’s pledge to dramatically reduce the prison population in his first term has been treated skeptically for this reason.) But funding for public defense is one area where the federal government could make a big impact. For instance, Pfaff suggests, if the feds put $4 billion into public defense grants, it would triple budgets nationwide, yet still account for less than half of 1 percent of the nation’s total discretionary spending.

Given the scope of the problem and the potential for a federal fix, it’s strange that so little of the political debate about criminal justice reform covers indigent defense. “I’m particularly surprised Sanders hasn’t talked about it, because it fits very well with his class-based argument,” Pfaff said. “These are the poorest people…. They’re required to have protection, but it’s effectively being denied to them.” Advocating for billions of dollars to defend murderers and rapists might be politically unsavory; but some people charged with crimes aren’t guilty at all, and if the goal is to reduce the number of people in prison or the time they spend there, adequate representation is a basic first step. Pfaff did offer one caveat: A grant program might have to incorporate a mechanism to make sure states don’t take an influx of federal cash as an opportunity to reduce their own contributions to public defense even further.

At a really basic level, the quality and the extent to which public defense is available to people can make a big difference in their outcomes,” said Jesse Jannetta, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute. He agrees with Pfaff that funding for indigent defense should be part of any serious criminal justice reform platform, particularly for the Democratic presidential candidates. “A lot of the focus ends up being on what the sentencing laws are, but that’s just a part of what ends up determining how many people are in prison,” he said. “Both campaigns have been concerned about criminal justice reform, and issues of poverty and inequality, and public defense really touches on both of those things.”