Time to Reform a Broken Justice System

by: Juan Melli

Fri Aug 17, 2007 at 07:59:57 AM EDT

For one, he could change the drug laws so that we stop flooding the system with nonviolent offenders. That would allow cops, prosecutors and judges to focus on cases like these murders. And it would free up space in our prisons for the robbers, rapists and killers.

"Our system of justice is just not made for the volume of cases we have today," says Barnett Hoffman, a retired judge from Middlesex County and chairman of the state's criminal sentencing commission. "It would be helpful to concentrate on the violent offenses."

New Jersey is way behind the curve on this. Nonviolent drug offenders occupy about one-third of our prison beds, the highest portion in the nation. Even Texas diverts more drug offenders into cheaper and more effective treatment programs.

Our nation is not expending all of these national resources on violent offenders. The majority of the Americans clogging our courts and prisons are nonviolent offenders primarily engaged in the use, sale or distribution of drugs. Violent or not, offenders should face punishment -- whether they throw litter on a Newark street or come to a Newark street to buy heroin. But when the punishment perpetuates the problem, when it destroys lives instead of correcting them, when it saps taxpayers of their precious resources, when it perpetuates the hideous legacy of racial injustice, when it aggravates cycles of poverty and undermines the very principles we seek to uphold, we must seek change.