CDZ Issues for discussion on the reform of the Criminal Justice System (CJS)

[Wry Catcher]

As it seems this issue will be one debated by the candidates in this election season, consider these eight points during the debates and stump speeches from now until Nov. 2016;

1. SENTENCING POLICY - Changes in sentencing law and policy, not increases in crime rates, explain most of the six-fold increase in the national prison population. These changes have significantly impacted racial disparities in sentencing, as well as increased the use of “one size fits all" mandatory minimum sentences that allow little consideration for individual characteristics.
2. INCARCERATION - The United States is the world's leader in incarceration with 2.2 million people currently in the nation's prisons or jails -- a 500% increase over the past thirty years. These trends have resulted in prison overcrowding and state governments being overwhelmed by the burden of funding a rapidly expanding penal system, despite increasing evidence that large-scale incarceration is not the most effective means of achieving public safety.
3. RACIAL DISPARITY - More than 60% of the people in prison are now racial and ethnic minorities. For Black males in their thirties, 1 in every 10 is in prison or jail on any given day. These trends have been intensified by the disproportionate impact of the "war on drugs," in which two-thirds of all persons in prison for drug offenses are people of color.
4. DRUG POLICY - Sentencing policies brought about by the "war on drugs" resulted in a dramatic growth in incarceration for drug offenses. At the Federal level, prisoners incarcerated on a drug charge comprise half of the prison population, while the number of drug offenders in state prisons has increased thirteen-fold since 1980. Most of these people are not high-level actors in the drug trade, and most have no prior criminal record for a violent offense.
5. JUVENILE JUSTICE There has been a troubling shift in the nation’s responses to at-risk youth over the past 25 years. The creators of the juvenile justice system originally viewed it as a system for providing prevention, protection, and redirection to youth, but it is more common for juveniles today to experience tough sanctions and adult-type punishments instead. While reforms are underway in many places, there remains an urgent need to reframe our responses to juvenile delinquency.
6. FELONY DISENFRANCHISEMENT - Nationally, an estimated 5.85 million Americans are denied the right to vote because of laws that prohibit voting by people with felony convictions. Felony disenfranchisement is an obstacle to participation in democratic life which is exacerbated by racial disparities in the criminal justice system, resulting in 1 of every 13 African Americans unable to vote.
7. WOMEN IN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM - The number of women in prison, a third of whom are incarcerated for drug offenses, is increasing at nearly double the rate for men. These women often have significant histories of physical and sexual abuse, high rates of HIV infection, and substance abuse. Large-scale women's imprisonment has resulted in an increasing number of children who suffer from their mother's incarceration and the loss of family ties.
8. COLLATERAL CONSEQUENCES - Increasingly, laws and policies are being enacted to restrict persons with a felony conviction (particularly convictions for drug offenses) from employment, receipt of welfare benefits, access to public housing, and eligibility for student loans for higher education. Such collateral penalties place substantial barriers to an individual's social and economic advancement.

Link: The Sentencing Project News - Sentencing Policy

 

[Sonny Clark]

As it seems this issue will be one debated by the candidates in this election season, consider these eight points during the debates and stump speeches from now until Nov. 2016;

1. SENTENCING POLICY - Changes in sentencing law and policy, not increases in crime rates, explain most of the six-fold increase in the national prison population. These changes have significantly impacted racial disparities in sentencing, as well as increased the use of “one size fits all" mandatory minimum sentences that allow little consideration for individual characteristics.
2. INCARCERATION - The United States is the world's leader in incarceration with 2.2 million people currently in the nation's prisons or jails -- a 500% increase over the past thirty years. These trends have resulted in prison overcrowding and state governments being overwhelmed by the burden of funding a rapidly expanding penal system, despite increasing evidence that large-scale incarceration is not the most effective means of achieving public safety.
3. RACIAL DISPARITY - More than 60% of the people in prison are now racial and ethnic minorities. For Black males in their thirties, 1 in every 10 is in prison or jail on any given day. These trends have been intensified by the disproportionate impact of the "war on drugs," in which two-thirds of all persons in prison for drug offenses are people of color.
4. DRUG POLICY - Sentencing policies brought about by the "war on drugs" resulted in a dramatic growth in incarceration for drug offenses. At the Federal level, prisoners incarcerated on a drug charge comprise half of the prison population, while the number of drug offenders in state prisons has increased thirteen-fold since 1980. Most of these people are not high-level actors in the drug trade, and most have no prior criminal record for a violent offense.
5. JUVENILE JUSTICE There has been a troubling shift in the nation’s responses to at-risk youth over the past 25 years. The creators of the juvenile justice system originally viewed it as a system for providing prevention, protection, and redirection to youth, but it is more common for juveniles today to experience tough sanctions and adult-type punishments instead. While reforms are underway in many places, there remains an urgent need to reframe our responses to juvenile delinquency.
6. FELONY DISENFRANCHISEMENT - Nationally, an estimated 5.85 million Americans are denied the right to vote because of laws that prohibit voting by people with felony convictions. Felony disenfranchisement is an obstacle to participation in democratic life which is exacerbated by racial disparities in the criminal justice system, resulting in 1 of every 13 African Americans unable to vote.
7. WOMEN IN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM - The number of women in prison, a third of whom are incarcerated for drug offenses, is increasing at nearly double the rate for men. These women often have significant histories of physical and sexual abuse, high rates of HIV infection, and substance abuse. Large-scale women's imprisonment has resulted in an increasing number of children who suffer from their mother's incarceration and the loss of family ties.
8. COLLATERAL CONSEQUENCES - Increasingly, laws and policies are being enacted to restrict persons with a felony conviction (particularly convictions for drug offenses) from employment, receipt of welfare benefits, access to public housing, and eligibility for student loans for higher education. Such collateral penalties place substantial barriers to an individual's social and economic advancement.

Link: The Sentencing Project News - Sentencing Policy

Thanks for posting such an important subject. This topic is long over-due for discussion and consideration by members of Congress. Our judicial system is presently a joke when it comes to justice. Recent events concerning members of law enforcement emphasize the urgency of this discussion by our law makers. We have long been in need of a complete revamping of the legal system, our laws, and punishment for crimes. One of the shameful and disgraceful elements of the present system, is the circumstantial evidence cases allowed in our courtrooms. Guilt should ALWAYS be based on hard rock solid undeniable undisputable concrete evidence, and not on the word of jailhouse snitches, tainted witnesses, planted evidence, false lab reports, lying cops and other members of law enforcement, obviously biased so-called experts, and the ability of a smooth talking D.A. or prosecuting attorney. Guilt is like a woman being pregnant, either she is, or she isn't, no grey area.

We have way too many innocent citizens in our jails and prisons, and "The Innocence Project", and other groups, are a testament to that fact. Also, fines and punishment are basically a joke when it comes to who you are, your fame, celebrity, your wealth, and other factors. In short, freedom is a joke, justice is a joke, and our entire judicial system is an embarrassment to all of us.

Yes, our prisons are an embarrassment to this entire nation, especially the number we hold in prisons and jails. But, of course, with privately owned facilities, inmates are like cash money. Also, we lock people up as punishment, then make sure they have TV, libraries, gyms, exercise equipment, basketball courts, games, and other amenities for comfort and pleasure. Some prisons even furnish computers and law classes.

Again, thanks for bringing this subject up, it needs to be discussed and considered. I hope we hear about members of Congress raising this issue soon.

 

[Josf]

It was well known before the enactment and enforcement of the Judiciary Act of 1789 that the palladium of Liberty in America was trial by jury, not a "Criminal Justice System" enforced by a so called "Elite" club of Union Members who belong to a Union of Foreign Corporate Interests. When rule of law (not "Criminal Justice System" run by so called "Elite" members of a foreign Union) works as intended there is a process afforded to every legitimate accuser and every legitimate defender against false accusations, which means everyone, without exception, is inside rule of law, so long as no one is actually proven to be a criminal (outside of rule of law) through the tried and true trial by jury process, also known as the law of the land, due process, and legem terrae in Latin. And then, having been proven to have been a criminal (outside the law) the criminal who was presumed to be innocent until proven guilty through due process, is afforded a remedy to restore their standing inside the law.

That is not only the means by which innocent people defend themselves from guilty criminals, that is also the means (process) by which Liberty is defended against criminal take-over of the government, when the government is nothing more than, but nothing less than, the defensive means against large armies of criminals intent upon destroying or enslaving people in Liberty.

So that due process is what it is, was what it was, and can be what we the people make it, instead of the "Criminal Justice System" put in place by the criminals, for the criminals, and of the criminals who take over governments, as those criminals did in 1787, and then in 1789 with the so called Judiciary Act of 1789; whereby the criminals used their kangaroo courts (Admiralty/Equity/Exchequer) to collect their criminal extortion payments they claimed to be taxes or "National Debt," or whatever false words work to control the minds of the targeted victims.

Here are words that describe what happens when the criminals take over and the criminals replace a trial by jury system with a so called "Criminal Justice System:"

Argus tell us How the FBI solves its cases Gerry Spence s Blog

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation has merely fallen in line with the preponderant persuasion in America—that deals are what it’s all about—mergers, takeovers, magical paper transactions that reap immediate wealth and make the dull and unproductive instantly rich and famous."

When people, on their own say so, their own authority, assemble into Grand Juries, their people power is expressed in the form once known as a presentment, whereby an accuser of any crime is represented by those people in that Grand Jury of the people, by the people, and for the people, and the accused (presumed to be innocent) is then afforded a trial by jury made up of randomly selected people, or peers, from the local community where the alleged crime was allegedly perpetrated by the presumed to be innocent accused.

The example above is an example of a criminal version of JUST US, or the criminal version of trial by someone, where the one deciding the facts, or the law, is a high paid Union Member who has a monetary interest (conflict of interest) in the decision he alone makes, in that case: to arrest, detain, hold, set in motion extraordinary rendition, enhanced interrogation techniques, torture, or murder, or fine, or imprison, at the discretion of the Union Member, without any trial by the country, which is trial by jury, as trial by jury was once, is now, and can be, the palladium of Liberty. Here is an example of a Grand Jury working as due process in America before the criminals took over:

RESPUBLICA v. CARLISLE 1 U.S. 35 1778 Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center

______________________________________________________________________________________________quote:
U.S. Supreme Court
RESPUBLICA v. CARLISLE, 1 U.S. 35 (1778)

1 U.S. 35 (Dall.)
Respublica
v.
Abraham Carlisle
Court of Oyer and Terminer, at Philadelphia

September Sessions, 1778
This was an indictment for High Treason, which was set forth in the following words:
________________________________________________________________________________________________end

The example above exemplifies how people process an accusation by someone concerning someone who is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty by the same due process that is due everyone, meaning every accuser, and everyone who may be accused, including UNION MEMBERS.

Next is a similar example of the palladium of Liberty explained in a time in American while the criminal Union Members were taking over the exiting Federation where, demonstrably, trial by jury, or the Palladium of Liberty, still worked for the people, because the palladium of Liberty is by the people, and of the people, not by the criminal Union members, of the criminal union members, and for the criminal union members.

RESPUBLICA v. SHAFFER 1 U.S. 236 1788 Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center

_______________________________________________________________________quote:
It is a matter well known, and well understood, that by the laws of our country, every question which affects a man's life, reputation, or property, must be tried by twelve of his peers; and that their unanimous verdict is, alone, competent to determine the fact in issue.
________________________________________________________________________end

It is now a matter well unknown. The kangaroo court "system" restarted in American with the Judiciary Act of 1789, by the criminal Union Members who took over a working Federation (working to preserve trial by jury), affords to the criminals all the power they need to conduct "judicial" business their way, as exemplified in the explanation offered by Professor George Washington Carver Jones in those words quoted. Out with rule of law, and in with criminals making their crimes just for them to do, and anyone daring to fail to obey their orders, without question, will be punished on the spot.

 

[jwoodie]

I suggest you change your name to ThreadKiller or FiliBuster.

 

[Josf]

Note, anyone, please, that the subject matter is stated clearly by the original starter of the forum topic in the Clean Debate Zone.

The subject matter is clearly a subject concerning [edit] justice, as a specific word chosen by the original author of the subject that is then up for debate in the Clean Debate Zone.

A revolution of mind must come before a revolution of action, such as a revolutionary idea whereby people volunteer to follow simple rules offered in common language.

"I suggest you change your name to ThreadKiller or FiliBuster."

The above is another example, in a series of examples, of someone volunteering to turn from the subject matter (revolution and uprising) to personal characterizations of forum members. To turn back to the subject matter, clearly, the revolutionary idea is to follow the rules, and to work toward keeping the record straight, rather than have the topic turned from revolutionary ideas that rise people up to old, tired, destructive, derogatory, ideas.

 

[Josf]

Having been given a measure of credit for offering information I take that as an opportunity to add to that offer of information.

It was clearly understood before the criminal takeover of a working federation that the criminals (federalist party members) were going to destroy trial by jury according to the common law.

Evidence A warnings of clear and present dangers:
Anti-Federalist Papers Pennsylvania Minority
"We have before noticed the judicial power as it would effect a consolidation of the states into one government; we will now examine it, as it would affect the liberties and welfare of the people, supposing such a government were practicable and proper."

Evidence B clear and present dangers arrive in demonstrable fact:
http://www.fjc.gov/history/docs/seditionacts.pdf

"The U.S. circuit courts had jurisdiction over all prosecutions under the Sedition Act. The circuit courts were established by the Judiciary Act of 1789 to serve as the most
important trial courts in the federal judiciary. These courts, which operated until 1911, had jurisdiction over most federal crimes, over suits between citizens from different states (known as diversity jurisdiction), and over most cases in which the federal government was a party. The circuit courts also heard some appeals from the district courts. Since the Sedition Act authorized criminal penalties of greater than six months’ imprisonment or $100 fi ne, the circuit courts had jurisdiction rather than the district courts."

Evidence C returning back to early warnings from the 6th President of the United States in Congress Assembled, an abolitionist named Richard Henry Lee, explaining exactly how the takeover would follow through in the usual manner.

"All questions, civil and criminal, arising on the laws of these places, which must be the laws of congress, must be decided in the federal courts; and also, all questions that may, by such judicial fictions as these courts may consider reasonable, be supposed to arise within this city, or any of these places, may be brought into these courts. By a very common legal fiction, any personal contract may be supposed to have been made in any place. A contract made in Georgia may be supposed to have been made in the federal city; the courts will admit the fiction. . . .
Every suit in which an inhabitant of a federal district may be a party, of course may be instituted in the federal courts; also, every suit in which it may be alleged and not denied, that a party in it is an inhabitant of such a district; also, every suit to which a foreign state or subject, the union, a state, citizens of different states in fact, or by reasonable legal fictions, may be a party or parties. And thus, by means of bankrupt laws, federal districts, etc., almost all judicial business, I apprehend may be carried into the federal courts, without essentially departing from the usual course of judicial proceedings. The courts in Great Britain have acquired their powers, and extended very greatly their jurisdictions by such :fiction and suppositions as I have mentioned."

Slavery, as a (counterfeit) government enforced market, was all but at the end of its rope in America when the people of the independent State of Rhode Island outlawed the heinous criminal marketing of people. Pennsylvania was soon to follow, and that would supply many opportunities for runaway slaves to find sanctuary. That was not to be, however, because the criminals did take over, and they did abolish rule of law, and they did accelerate, and subsidize, the marketing, sale, and profit making of abusing, owning, and forced labor of human beings.

So anyone claiming that there is any moral legitimacy earned by the so called "Justice System" as it was enacted and enforced by criminals, for criminals, beginning in 1787, is someone in dire need of a reality check.