The Criminal Injustice System

(June 2007)

Benjamin Evans and Benjamin Falkner, issue editors, write:

As Mumia Abu Jamal, Vice President of Jailhouse Lawyers of the NLG, has written, although we often hear about “the criminal justice system,” this is a misnomer, “cause there ain’t no ‘justice’ in it – it’s just a criminal system.” See All Things Censored, page 156 (Seven Stories Press, 2001).

In this issue of Mass Dissent, we critique the current state of this system, and advocate for progressive changes that would result in fewer people being warehoused in jails and prisons.
We open with an article by Bonnie Tennerello in which she discusses the failures of prison reform in Massachusetts. Kathleen Dennehy, hired by the Romney Administration to reform the prison system in Massachusetts, was dismissed in April, under fire for her failure to reform a system which has kept prisoners past the completion of their sentences and which treats mentally ill prisoners disgracefully.

Following, Tony Naro gives us a review of scientific evidence and the impact and dangers of the “CSI Effect,” which leads potential jurors to lend too much weight to scientific evidence, possibly disregarding evidence of innocence.

Next, Benjamin Evans, a staff attorney with the Committee for Public Counsel Services in New Bedford, writes on the “law and order” effect and its repercussions both in and out of the courtroom.

Subsequently, we have a brief essay from the Statewide Harm Reduction Coalition on ways to reduce the number of prisoners in Massachusetts without building jails and prisons.

Our discussion continues with Jaan Laaman’s essay suggesting that we keep in mind the larger societal contradictions while working on behalf of our clients and that we continue to question a legal system that, for example, fails to sanction the accumulation of great wealth by a tiny minority while we lack adequate funding for educating our children.

We close our discussion with Astrid af Klinteberg’s discussion of the role addiction plays in the criminal injustice system and of her proposal for change, given the evolving state of medical research into how drug abuse may affect the brain. Now may be the time to challenge the SJC’s position that addiction cannot be a mental disease or defect for the purposes of a lack of criminal responsibility defense.

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