Getting Away with Murder: How Politics is Destroying the Criminal Justice System

Susan Estrich appears to be a lecturer in law. She is a rape victim, but that fact has probably been mentioned, as a good deal of her book is an attack on the current sentence system in America. It establishes her credentials as someone who is not a bleeding heart liberal but someone who has thought about the issues carefully. The book is very short, easy to read and passionate in its call for change. By way of background America has seen a huge increase in the number of people put in prison over the last ten years. Despite falling crime rates the number of people in prison is equivalent to countries such as Russia and South Africa. Whilst America is generally a well ordered country with low crime rates in all categories except for homicide countries such as Russia and South Africa are experiencing social break down. The placing of large numbers of people in prison has a number of negative consequences. It is extremely expensive and the sorts of people who end up in jail will always be from the poorer sections of the community. In the United States this means that the prisons have very large numbers of Afro Americans and Hispanics in the prison population. Estrich suggest that the basis of this occurring is a move away from the sentencing discretion of the courts and the introduction of mandatory sentences. She argues that basic criminology shows that people who commit crimes have very different prognosis for re-offending. A small percentage of offenders will commit most of the crimes whilst the broad mass will have a limited contact with the system. She argues that what you should do is to lock up the people who are likely to offend and not lock up those who are not likely. She further suggests that there are easy ways to predict criminal behavior based on the type of offense priors and drug use. She believes that a significant proportion of low level offenders could be let out of jail with massive savings to the community and no likelihood of an increase in the crime rate. Against this background she says that the high levels of imprisonment combined with the high proportion of black people being locked up has started to corrupt the judicial system. Juries especially black juries are becoming sympathetic to calls by lawyers acquit guilty people as a way of showing that the system is wrong. This is at odds with the very notion of the law. She also explains the Willie Horton case and the process by which the current system is now supported by both the major parties in America. In summary a passionate and interesting book.