It's Not Just the Cops.

• Author: Strang, Dean A.

The calls for real transformation of policing are urgent and needed, but not enough. Transformation can start, but not end, there.

The police, after all, are only the front end of the criminal justice system. Prosecutors' offices are next in line; then courts, trial and appellate. Prisons and corrections departments are the back end. Together, these institutions compose a dehumanizing system, one that speaks invariably of "processing" cases.

Racial disparities increase, rather than decrease, at each step. Disproportionately, people of color are stopped, harassed, and arrested by the police; this is especially true for Black people. They and many other people of color also face racial inequities in terms of charging, plea bargaining, and sentencing.

By 2018, Black Americans accounted for just 12 percent of the nations population but one-third of its prison population. They are incarcerated at five times the rate of whites.

When it comes to systemic racism, prosecutors, courts, and corrections departments deserve at least as much attention as police officers. Recent years have seen the election of so-called progressive prosecutors. But only a few, including San Francisco's Chesa Boudin and Philadelphia's Larry Krasner, have attempted real structural changes in the system.

Overall, courts give structure and durability to systemic racism and antipathy toward the impoverished. Courts tolerate two subsystems. Those with money often can achieve relatively good outcomes, while the millions who are poor usually are consigned to overworked, underfunded indigent defenders and often "processed" into bad outcomes.

In courts, an accuseds wrongs are "crimes," but the wrongs of police, prosecutors, and judges are "errors" routinely excused as harmless. This leads to impunity and a repetition of wrongs by emboldened government actors, and a corresponding loss of public faith in police, prosecutors, and the courts.

Thanks to the courts, too, police officers who violate the U.S. Constitution in "good faith" are usually immune from liability. No criminal defendant gets a pass for good faith. Further, bad faith or the biases of police officers mostly don't count. Even if the traffic stop was motivated by racism or a desire to snoop, by judicial rule it is fine if the officer claims a minor traffic violation.

At the system's back...