The 50th Anniversary and the Way Forward

Reflecting on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s famous march, I am most moved by the need for fundamental reforms in our criminal justice system and our immigration system.

Let us first give thanks for MLK’s leadership and the great progress we have, in fact, made. While there are some who might aspire to turn the clock back to an era of lawful discrimination, they will never succeed. Our country is irrevocably committed to equality for all its citizens. MLK and those who marched with him, created an upwelling of egalitarian energy that has carried forward, not only African-American citizens, but also women and LGBT Americans.

Despite the great reduction in lawful discrimination, many Americans remain in poverty. African-Americans have poverty and unemployment rates that are more than double those of white Americans. I support many remedial measures — especially improved education — to help more Americans out of poverty.

But of equal or greater importance, I feel we need to reform the systems that tend to hold people in poverty. The many policies we have put in place in the criminal justice system each made sense in isolation, but together they operate to trap young men in poverty. Overall incarceration rates in the United States are the highest in the world, and in poverty neighborhoods, they are dramatically higher.

Too many young men in poverty areas — disproportionately men of color — get drawn into the drug trade or other forms of income-producing crime. Once they become engaged with the criminal justice system, it is terribly difficult for them to extricate themselves. Of course, a criminal record scares employers. More than that, well intentioned supervision through parole or probation is often humiliating and disruptive. In-person check-in schedules are often inconsistent with employment. Forced treatment for substance abuse, while sometimes helpful, may also disrupt job and housing arrangements. High supervision fees payable by the probationer or parolee may render it impossible for them to get up on their feet financially.

It is no surprise that high proportions of those released from prison soon end up returning to prison. And repeated prison experiences degrade both basic social graces and lawful initiative, making it harder and harder for prisoners to reintegrate in society.

While we cannot back away from our commitment to safety and order in every community, we need to recognize that involvement in the criminal justice system is intrinsically harmful for defendants and do everything we can to reduce the frequency and duration of criminal justice involvement in poverty communities. That means concentrating our supervisory and prison resources on the most dangerous violent offenders. Decriminalizing marijuana possession was a step forward in Massachusetts and the federal government should support state decisions about marijuana policy. We should also eliminate mandatory sentences for drug crimes, which tend to inflate terms of incarceration.

Overall, reducing the use of long sentences will free people sooner to take a clean shot at contributing to society. It will also reduce the number of people involved (whether on probation, in prison or on parole) at any one time, so allowing the system to do a better job with positive rehabilitation. As a member of Congress, I will support measures to reduce the burden of federal drug law enforcement on poverty communities by shortening sentences and will also support parallel grant-making to states to encourage state level reforms.

The immigration system is another bureaucracy from which people have great trouble extricating themselves. Keeping people in the legal shadows without a legal residency status deprives them of the most basic legal protections, making them vulnerable to unscrupulous employers, but also to batterers and other criminals. Like an overbearing criminal justice system, an overbearing immigration system can operate to undermine order in society.

We need to recognize in our hearts that crushing official supervision, even if well-intentioned and color-blind, is part of what is holding back people of color in America. I pledge to do all I can as a member of Congress to reform these systems and lighten the burden they place on those in poverty.

Please visit wb4congress.com to learn more about my candidacy and don't hesitate to reach out to me personally -- my email is willbrownsberger@gmail.com and my cell phone is 617-771-8274.