This last reading, for the most part, shifts away from a courthouse perspective. I think if anything, these last few chapters summed up a lot of Just Mercy's main points: we have a judicial system, a flawed prison system, and race and poverty have everything to do with inequality.
But Stevenson for once does also show us the light. He talks about how his organization worked with the supreme court to make big changes to US law - giving hundreds of mistreated prisoners their freedom. Stevenson meets with Rosa Parks, makes peace with an angry church and gives his condolences to Walter's family at his funeral. I love the scene where Rosa Parks asks Stevenson about all the work he has been doing. Stevenson goes on an on. After a while, Ms. Parks responds,
"Ooooh, honey, all that's going to make you tired, tired" (293).
But there still has been an overarching theme in Stevenson's last few chapters. If the first half of Stevenson's book was about the court system, then the second half was definitely about the US prison system. If you've been following the comment section of my blog posts, last reading there was one topic that I was really passionate about. I even wrote up a mini-blog post in the comment section of my last post - see here -> (https://theodoresjustmercyblog.blogspot.com/2020/03/just-mercy-reading-4-prison-20-years.html#comment-form)
Again and again, throughout Stevenson's book, he makes it seem like the US has one of the worst prison and court systems in the world. He describes in so much detail the injustices that happen to so many of his clients. This got some of my readers and me thinking - is this really true? Specifically, do we have the worst prison system in the world? Yes, I do think we do.
Adapting some of my ideas from my recent comment on my previous post and adding a lot of new ones: here is my argument.
First off, I simply can't say the US has the worst prison system in the world (worst meaning the most brutal, least forgiving). To a lot of different people, "worst" can have a lot of different meanings in the same way that a lot of words have a lot of different meanings. Let's look at the word "best," for example. If one person said Tom Brady is the "best" quarterback of all time, even though there is very substantial evidence to back up the claim, "best" is really hard to prove. Here's a classic example: it's really hard to tell whose pie was better in a family bakeoff, your grandma's or your mom's after you've eaten them both. "Good", "better", "bad", "worst" - these aren't really quantifiable things. Therefore, it's really hard to prove that something is the best or the worst.
To think about how to prove the US has the "worst" criminal justice system, we should think about what "worst" even means and create a suitable definition. To do this, we should take a look at other criminal justice systems and prison systems abroad.
It is easy to say that the US is one the better side of world poverty. There are many developing countries that simply do not have the resources to invest in better living conditions for prisoners versus what we have to offer. These prisoners may not be mistreated by intent so much as they are mistreated by an underfunded system and poorly supported government. Countries like Venezuela and Vietnam are struggling in ways we can not even understand in the US, and while it is no means right to say that it is okay what they are doing to their prisoners, I do think we have to find a specific definition of "worst" when it comes to talking about prisons in the US - because frankly, we cannot compare ourselves to many other countries abroad.
(US GDP rankings - screenshot from https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/ - formal citation also below)
(GDP per capitalist. Personally, I found the GDP per capita to be a lot more relevant in this kind of argument, because it actually affects how much of an influence we could have with our money)
The facts are plain and simple. The US has a GDP per capita (wealth/people) ranked 13th in the world, only trailing Luxembourg, San Mario, UAE, Kuwait, Norway, Switzerland, etc. Many of these other countries are artificially supported by (relatively unsustainable) oil wealth. Oil and gas make up 8% of the US GDP, as compared to 18% of Norway's GDP for instance. Even when we do account for the number of people in our country, the US still has an economy that tops the world charts. In fact, my choice in my blog post to say we can't compare the US prison system to Sweden may not be justified. According to what I just read, our GDP per capita is even higher than Sweden's (Obviously how we manage our wealth and what we consider to be pressing issues are certainly different).
Based on the fact that "worst" does have a variety of definitions, I think there is a viable argument to say the US does have one of the "worst" prison systems in the world - we just have to be careful how to define "worst." We are given two things: the US does have one of the world's leading economies and at the same time, of the most brutal prison systems, maybe not the most brutal, but clearly in the top 25%. There are the truths: we have privatized prisons, the death sentence, and juvenile sentencing. There are still a lot of remnants of civil rights issues in our court system. We admittedly and statistically do have the power to stop prisoner mistreatment, but we do not do so. In a lot of ways, this may be "worse" than what Venezuela is doing. If we are doing something and have the possibility to stop it and we make the choice not to stop doing it, is this worse than if the same thing is happening and we have no control over it? Maybe in this sense, we do have the "worst" prison systems in the world.
Our definition of "worst" is then simple. "Worst" means ethical. We do have the least ethical prison system in the world. Unlike a lot of other countries, we have time and resources to prevent thousands of prison deaths and hundreds of thousands of more traumas caused by prison. We can stop what happened to Walter but we do simply do not. This is extremely unethical and disappointing.
Works Cited
"GDP per Capita" ["GDP per Capita"]. WorldOMoter, 3 Apr. 2020,
www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/. Accessed 3 Apr. 2020.
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. First edition.
New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2014.
"Norway Trade Picture" ["Norway Trade Picture"]. European Commision,
European Union, 13 Nov. 2019,
ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/countries/norway/.
Accessed 3 Apr. 2020.
Again, thanks to readers for trudging through that with me. If you have any counterarguments or notice any logical flaws, feel free to comment down below and I will discuss them with you :)
This is a really cool and interesting way to wrap up such a great book! I think that it was very interesting when you made the connection at the end between how the United States is one of the best economies ever and yet has such an awful prison system. How do you think that our government could make it so the prisons have stricter rules (not for the prisoners themselves)? Do you think we could distribute the money better?
ReplyDeleteThis is great!
Thank you for the feedback! :)
DeleteMeg your question of how to better distribute our tax dollars in my opinion is a really a hard one to crack. There are lots of places tax dollars go - into social programs, to politicians, to our military, etc. With these tax dollars, some financial corruption is always bound to happen. Failed social programs, misdirected funds, and financial loopholes are all ways that we loose some of our GDP each year - and also why, evidently, having the most money doesn't mean you have the best systems.
If we're looking to solve our prison problem, instead, as a nation, we should be trying to better budget what we have, and making sure we are spending more equal amounts of tax dollars between our military, schools, etc. Unfortunately, (in my opinion) I think were a lot of our tax dollars go is often determined by politics and not by actual policy. For example, I wholehearted think our military budget vastly exceeds what is actually necessary for us to remain a dominant world power - and that we could actually with the right leader direct more funding to prisons and more social programs (to rebuild neighborhoods). It is really unfortunately a lot of Americans only watch the news and do not understand the fact behind the policies they may be supporting. We all may support a bigger military budget, but perhaps not one that is bigger than every single other world power on Earth combined (our's actually is!)
If anything, this is more a political question than a social one, but I hope we can keep the discussion going. Here's another question. Do you think fixing the issue of inequality should come down to more throwing money at our courts or trying to improve conditions in low income neighborhoods?
Hi Theodore,
ReplyDeleteI think this is an interesting topic you wrote about in this post. As I was reading it though I was wondering - is it really necessary to define the US criminal justice system as the "worst"? Does it have to be proven that it is the "worst" for people to realize and start making the effort to make changes? I feel like it is impossible to determine what is the "worst" and what is the "best" when you are trying to compare two things, because everyone is going to have different opinions and everything is going to have pros and cons that may be stronger or weaker. I think criminal justice systems all around the world struggle and there are many countries that have unjust, unfair systems in place. It is true that the US has the time and resources to make sure that we are accusing the right person of a crime and not an innocent man, and to make sure that the sentences we give are appropriate for the actions that were committed. Yes, the fact that the US has the privilege to be able to do that and takes it for granted while countries struggle with their systems simply because they don't have what we have is upsetting. I think something Stevenson wanted us to learn from this book is that not only does the US criminal justice system need to change but the mindsets of the people need to change as well. Right now it is the people and their judgments that are allowing justice to be thrown away and the fairness in the system to crumble. Even though the book focuses on the criminal justice system, in the end the problem still lies in the people and the fact that they still have not been able to let go of racism and it is continuing to affect their daily lives.
Yes, I completely agree! More than anything, I just chose to argue that our prison system was "the worst" just to make a point. However at any level it is important to fight injustice where it arises. However, I don't think our criminal justice system is by any means crumbling - our supreme court does really help set the standard for judicial policy around the world. This is not to say there are things we can work on improving.
DeleteEmma, what specifically do you mean by a mindset change? Do you think people don't acknowledge there are problems with prisons or racism or that people just don't care or just are too self centered, etc?
Theo, I again appreciated your use of specific data in your post to back up your position. I think you did a really thorough job of explaining why the US has so many issues with our prison system. Here is a parting question: do you think private prisons can ever be viable if we enact reforms?
ReplyDeleteThank you Spencer! To me, the idea that a private prison system could ever be viable or ethical or viable is absurd. This is like saying that a rock could grow wings and fly - I don't know, just an analogy :)
DeleteI don't think any financially driven institution has ever not cut corners or misled a consumer. Financial policy almost never aligns with human ethics (maybe this does say something about the human condition). This fact is one that our government knows and acknowledges, yet we do have private prisons anyway.
Maybe there is a place for privately run rehabilitation clinics, etc - but in a place where so many lives are at stake, like in a prison, I don't think there is a place for private companies. However, this argument is mostly philosophic, so I challenge you to prove me wrong.