Extending the legacy of George Floyd
Americans continue to be haunted by images of the unfeeling murder of a black man by white police officers in Minneapolis. Those images are shocking, but we know, in this age of cellphones and body cams, that this was not an isolated occurrence. To the name of George Floyd, countless other victims of color could be added. It is no surprise, then, that anger has erupted across the nation as people of all colors protest the injustices suffered, especially by African Americans, and demand the policing reforms that clearly are needed.
However, the grievances that have unleashed this wave of protests are more pervasive, including inequities in education, employment and, as the pandemic has shown, in health care. Within the criminal justice system itself, they include policies and practices that have led to the disproportionate arrest and confinement of people of color, depriving them of years of freedom and resulting in our country being labeled “the incarceration nation.” These, too, are among the many wrongs that must be addressed.
To be clear, the criminal justice system plays a critical role by preserving public safety, a fundamental function of every government. However, that mission must be advanced without sacrificing the individual rights that play a major part in defining what it means to be American, and it must be advanced in ways that are seen to be fair. Unfortunately, the citizen protests taking place across the country today reflect a widely held belief that the criminal justice system is both overused and unjust.
While the United States has just 5% of the world’s population, it houses 25% of the world’s prisoners. Nearly two dozen states have as many individuals in prison as in college, a tragic toll in productive lives lost, but there is more. In Allegheny County, nearly 42% of every property tax dollar goes to support the criminal justice system, and consider these sobering local statistics:
• Although built for a daily population of 1,450 inmates, over the past decades, our county jail has consistently housed more than 2,200 individuals on average, despite dramatic decreases in crime.
• 75% of inmates in the countyjail have a substance abuse or mental health issue, and 48% have both.
• 80% of those housed in the county jail have not been found guilty of the charge for which they are being held, and a similar percentage are being held only for a nonviolent offense.
For African Americans, this bad story is much worse:
• In Allegheny County, the booking rate for black men is 15.4 per 1,000, while the national rate for black men is 8.4 per 1,000.
• Although making up only 13.4% of the population of the county, black people comprise 49% of the county jail’s population.
• African Americans are also more likely to receive jail sentences when convicted of low-level offenses.
Eight of 10 Americans believe that police should cite, rather than arrest, people accused of nonviolent offenses. However, jail bookings exploded during our “war on crime,” and jails accepted anyone sent there, without regard to cost or consequences. Nationally, black men have been booked into jail at six times the rate of white men and, although African Americans and Hispanics constitute only 31% of our country’s population, they constitute over 50% of those incarcerated.
While the vast majority of police work with integrity under difficult circumstances, these significant statistical variations cannot be explained by suggestions that police are simply arresting those who are committing crimes. The Brookings Institution has reported that black people are 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for selling drugs and 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for possession of drugs than white people, even though white people are more likely to sell drugs and equally likely to consume them.
The poor and communities of color have been most victimized by years of inequitable enforcement, and when experts calculate the cost of the war on crime in terms of its impact on families and neighborhoods, cost estimates soar to nearly $1 trillion.
Though much work must yet be done, a multi-year effort to address such inequities is underway in Allegheny County and some promising signs have begun to emerge. In 2016, County Executive Rich Fitzgerald asked the Institute of Politics of the University of Pittsburgh to examine what could be done to make Allegheny County’s current system of justice “fairer and less costly, without compromising public safety.”
The IOP convened a panel of criminal justice professionals, including the police, as well as academics and community leaders, who recommended a series of initiatives addressing each aspect of the criminal justice system. This work not only has benefited from the support of the county executive but also has been embraced by the president judge of the court of common pleas, the judge who heads the criminal division, the county manager, court administrators, the public defender and others.
There already has been progress in reducing racial disparities in the imposition of bail and in reducing the number of African Americans held in the county jail while awaiting trial. These same leaders championed a more recent effort that significantly reduced the jail population by releasing low-risk inmates who were at high risk of being infected with COVID-19.
With the support of the county executive and the courts and with funding from the Heinz Endowments, the IOP is launching a broad review of the county’s criminal justice system to identify and address the racial disparities that exist at every stage of the proceedings. Allegheny County also was awarded a MacArthur Foundation challenge grant to reduce the county jail population by 20% by this September and to launch a process that will reduce racial and ethnic disparities throughout the system.
The MacArthur challenge, if successful, would be a good start, but examples from other cities show that even more dramatic progress can be achieved. New York City’s successes are most striking. The country’s largest city not only is closing its notorious Rikers Island jail, but has reduced its jail population from 22,000 to under 4,000 with a final target of 3,300, and NYC has become the safest major metropolitan area in the country.
When measured against those numbers, Allegheny County’s efforts, while positive, leave room for substantially more progress. If this vision is to be achieved, it needs not only strong leadership but the support of the public at large.
Allegheny County must effectively address the problem of racial disparities and further reduce the population of the county jail, without compromising public safety. Saved taxpayer funds could then be repurposed to support the broader changes necessary to truly empower all citizens.
Those who are peacefully marching could know that their protests have not been in vain, and the legacy of George Floyd would be extended in an appropriate and meaningful way.