A Criminal Justice Reform Strategy

On April 29th, we assembled with other citizens to peacefully raise our voices in protest of what appeared to be another unjust killing of a black man by police officers, this time in Baltimore. Our goal was to again shine a light on the broken relationship between black communities and the police all across the country, and to call for significant criminal justice reform. We did not expect that the sentiment of “Enough is Enough” expressed by a group of nonviolent protesters would be directed back toward us by a number of those who are supposed to protect and serve. 

The people deserve to be heard. Not tackled. Not intimidated. Heard. 

To be clear: the overwhelming majority of the police officers out that evening acted properly and respectfully. We also understand that if someone is breaking the law and not responding to instructions, they should be arrested. 

But when people are peacefully exercising their constitutional right to assembly, they should not be given instructions that are impossible to follow. They should not be grabbed off of sidewalks and thrown to the ground. When they are making a good faith effort to get back onto the sidewalk from the street, they should not be tossed down and arrested, with no respect for their humanity. 

We both witnessed all of these things that night. Yet, when we asked the mayor and the police commissioner for an explanation, we were simply told that our account was not “accurate.” With all due respect to Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, we know what we saw that evening.

The sad reality, however, is that differing accounts over what took place at a protest march, as important as that is, makes us lose focus of the underlying reasons why we took to the streets that night.

We participated in the march that night emphasizing the need for comprehensive criminal justice reform. We believe a “Before, During & After” strategy must be employed to address the persistent problems that plague New York City and the rest of the country.

We need to decriminalize certain nonviolent minor offenses that are clogging our courts and branding thousands of New Yorkers with criminal records unnecessarily. We thus support City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito’s recent efforts to enact those changes. In 2012, New York State passed the Charitable Bail Fund Law, which allows nonprofits to post bail for individuals accused of certain misdemeanors. This program has kept hundreds of Bronxites out of the criminal justice system without threatening public safety. We should expand this program across the city and state.

We need to make grand jury proceedings as transparent as possible without compromising them, and find ways to mitigate the potential conflict of interest between district attorneys and the police. This is why, in certain situations when the police are involved with the injury or death of a civilian, we support a state law creating a special prosecutor or having the state police oversee the investigation with an independent panel of experts providing guidance and oversight.

New York is one of only two states that still treat adolescents as adults and places them in the adult criminal justice system. A child who made a mistake shouldn’t lose their future forever. This does nothing to rehabilitate that individual or further public safety. We therefore support raising the age of criminal responsibility for juveniles. We also need to understand that drug addiction is a problem of public health and not criminal justice, which is why we support legislation decriminalizing syringe access for addicts.

For the formerly incarcerated, we need to provide support networks that help prevent recidivism. We have fervently supported the creation of “Fulton Future”, the Fulton re-entry center in the Crotona section of the Bronx, which will be a model for the rest of the nation on how to assist those returning from prison. We also need to pass legislation expunging the records after one has served time, have uniform standards across all police precincts, end solitary confinement of pregnant inmates and “ban the box” on job applications when the formerly incarcerated are looking for employment.

We need to do all these things to reform our criminal justice system. But it is not enough. 

We need to go further. We need to recognize that criminal justice reform is not divorced from income inequality, urban poverty, gun violence, blighted neighborhoods, drug addiction and failing schools in dire need of more resources. The brother on the corner is a smart young man. He needs direction and a job, not an adult sentence and lack of hope. Our criminal justice institutions, especially our police, are not equipped to deal with these intractable problems. Mass incarceration and the criminalization of entire populations will never remove the polarization and the barriers to equal opportunity our communities currently face. A truly successful “Before, During and After” strategy would fully fund the social programs we need on a scale equal to the dimension of the problems so that we do not continue to ask our criminal justice system to do things it was never meant to do.

State Sen. Gustavo Rivera and Assemblyman Michael Blake both represent districts in the Bronx.