Giving Compass' Take:
- Udi Ofer discusses the continued prevalence of bipartisan criminal justice reform despite this progress happening more slowly than in previous years.
- How can donors and funders encourage bipartisan collaboration on criminal justice systems change that addresses the root causes of inequities?
- Learn more about key issues in criminal justice and how you can help.
- Search our Guide to Good for nonprofits focused on criminal justice in your area.
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Yes, the pace of progress has slowed on bipartisan criminal justice reform, but it certainly continues.
Not that long ago, in the summer of 2020, the moment seemed ripe for meaningful criminal justice reform in America. Millions of people joined demonstrations denouncing the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, among others, and to call for racial justice and equity. There was a feeling that real progress was about to be made in tackling the problem of mass incarceration in the United States that began in the 1970s and that disproportionately affects communities of color.
Over the four years since, a new narrative has taken hold—that criminal justice reform is dead, certainly in its bipartisan form. “What’s now clear is that the support for criminal justice reform was a mile wide and an inch deep,” David A. Graham wrote in The Atlantic. Kinsey Crowley concluded in USA Today that “political leaders across the country are returning to a tough-on-crime approach.” Josh Hammer remarked in Newsweek that “criminal justice reform … may have finally met its death sentence.”
But this is wrong. Much of the bipartisan agreement on criminal justice reform is alive and well; its advocates continued to slowly score wins even as crime rose, and are now still pushing for reforms as it declines again.
Their victories are not always flashy, and their policy goals have become less audacious. The reform movement has entered a new era of quiet pragmatism, which focuses on practical solutions and consensus-building rather than ideological purity. Although most of the reforms are modest when compared with the gravity of the problem—1.9 million people are incarcerated in America today, and millions of formerly incarcerated people in the U.S. are being denied the full privileges of citizenship—they are nonetheless crucial to constructing a fairer system that treats people with dignity and where incarceration is a last resort.
Read the full article about bipartisan criminal justice reform by Udi Ofer at The Atlantic.