“Many people who commit crimes do so in order to survive...and so we need to support housing, education, healthcare, childcare, the arts, in all communities. These are all things that have actually been shown to promote real, long-term safety,” says  Maya Schenwar, prison reform advocate. She argues that the real fix for “criminal” behaviour is not the flawed system we use today: prison. Prison has become our general response to criminal behavior from kids to adults. The idea of prison itself is to punish people by closing them off from society for a specific period of time with the goal of rehabilitation. But in practice, the system is filled with flaws. We cage people, make them pay compensation, and do nothing to address the general cause of criminality, while wasting precious resources like money, time, and effort. Though there is no perfect solution to this problem, the problem still needs be solved.

The criminal justice system unfairly targets people of color and those living in poverty. While Blacks are only 13% of the total US population they are 40% of our prison population. Our justice system discriminates against people of color. People of color are usually more policed and they have less resources to help them through a trial. “Five times as many Whites are using drugs as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of Whites” (NAACP).  This shows the difference in the treatment of ethnic groups and that Whites are often thought of as innocent until proven guilty while Blacks are often thought of as guilty until proven innocent. Some people have it built into them, an inherent bias, which is a mental condition that makes people believe people of their own ethnic group are better or more trustworthy than people from other groups.

There are people in law enforcement who have shown heavy bias, corruption, and racism and they need to be removed.  A Black 12-year-old named Tamir Rice was shot by police officer Timothy Loehmann for the possession of a pellet gun—Rice was not even asked to put the gun down or if it was real. It turned out that Loehmann had been fired by the Independence, Ohio police force for “his poor performance in gun training, his continued emotional instability, his willingness to lie, and their final recommendation that he be terminated and never employed as an officer again” (dailykos). This shows that it is very easy to be biased or racist and remain a police officer because of the the lack of communication and oversight between different police departments. In another case in Cincinnati, a white UC police officer wearing a confederate flag T-shirt underneath his uniform fatally shot a Black male named Sam DuBose. Thankfully, he was fired and is awaiting trial, but this situation shows the deep racism and bias in some police departments. Law enforcement officers need to more thoroughly investigated so as to prevent racist policing.

Maya Schenwar says, “For a human being there is no such thing as a good cage.”  We need to fix the prison system to improve the justice system.  We imprison people because we think it reforms criminals but it has actually been shown to increase criminality. Also, heavy bias in police forces targets minorities. The prison system at its core is flawed and needs to improved or replaced by a better way dealing with criminality.