Fixing The System: America's Broken Criminal Justice System

The documentary “Fixing the System: VICE on HBO Special Report Ft. Barack Obama”, examines America’s broken criminal justice system. America, the land of the free, has the world’s largest prison population, at 2.3 million, and the highest incarceration rate. Based on the severe sentences and wrongful convictions, the system fails to reform criminals and is greatly infected with class and racial disparities. Therefore, it is apparent that the school-to-prison pipeline, targeting of minorities by law enforcement officials, and the harsh sentences are just a few examples of how the criminal justice system is broken and can be reformed by supporting alternative punishment for misbehavior in school, holding law-enforcement officials accountable

This injustice is commonly referred to as the school-to- prison pipeline. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, “zero tolerance” policies in schools criminalize minor violations of school rules, resulting in resource officers placed in schools lead students to be criminalized for situations that should be handled within the school. Moreover, students of color are three times more likely to be severely punished for their behavior than white students. This discrimination follows the student into young adulthood where they are more likely to be incarcerated. This continuous cycle of entering the prison system and then continuously going in and out of it was discussed in the documentary. Possible solutions that have been discussed to end the school-to-prison pipeline include: police being the last resort in fixing conflict, improving the student to staff ratio, and providing more alternative discipline practices. Recently, more schools are noticing the damaging effects related to taking students out of class for disciplinary reasons and have since came up with alternatives to suspension such as restorative justice, which allows students to resolve conflict through conversations that may include the student, the person the student hurt and their

During Ronald Reagan’s administration, the War On Drugs was initiated, establishing harsher sentences for drug offences. This initiation has led to the mass incarceration of many drug offenders facing lifetime consequences for minor infractions. The documentary also discusses how the focus on stricter sentences for crack and not powder cocaine meant the people going to prison were largely people of color. The stories of the prisoners in the documentary also speaks volumes for this issue. Bobby Reed went to prison 22 years ago for selling drugs to pay back a loan he got from a drug dealer. Reed said he needed the money to prop up his failing business. He was given life without the possibility of parole. David Shaw took a 15-year plea deal to avoid a long sentence for a drug offense even though he was already in prison for another crime at the time the drug sale was supposed to have been committed. These are just a few examples of how the system has failed to rehabilitate criminals and made them victims to a system that benefits off of these injustices. A solution to this issue would to be lessen the sentences of drug related offences and provide adequate rehabilitation methods for such non-violent