Portside

The 2020 Democratic campaign is already shaping up to be a battle of big ideas. But when it comes to reforming our criminal legal system, the conversation hasn’t been as visionary — in fact, it’s been almost exclusively backward looking.

Manafort showed no remorse. He lied to prosecutors. He refused to cooperate with the investigators. He had shared secret information with Russians. But Paul Manafort is white.

With a few limited exceptions, correctional practice today remains underpinned by retribution, deterrence, and incapacitation. These realities beg the question: isn’t there another way? We have failed to ask this question with sufficient seriousness

Female prison inmates are being disciplined at much higher rates than men for lower-level offenses in many states.

Chicago police and City Hall tracked anti-Trump demonstrators — now state legislators want to let them use drones. Officials are expanding their abilities to watch people in the name of public safety, but the public has little ability to watch back.

New Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is making good on his promise to revolutionize the job of district attorney and, in the process, offering an extraordinary experiment in criminal justice reform at the municipal level that could serve as a national model.

Police have radically cut back their use of stop-and-frisk policies. To the surprise of some, crime didn’t spike, but tumbled yet again.

Some of America’s nearly 20,000 police departments have already started a few reforms, but most have not.

For many people in 1927 and after, the two men were victims of a deep-seated fear of immigrants. For others, they were criminals and terrorists who benefited from a worldwide campaign led by people who despised America and its institutions.Today, the United States is engaged in a bitter struggle between these same two views, with the xenophobic forces currently in political power, especially in the White House.

It is only when there is a particularly dramatic abuse, or a death that can’t be hidden, that the public gets any glimpse of what life on the inside is like for so many Americans. When ordinary citizens learn of atrocities committed behind bars, most are appalled, but the sad reality is that the public has few tools to gain access to those behind bars. Not knowing is what makes it possible for unimaginable suffering to take place in the name of safety and security.