If the cops arrest you, you’re going to jail.
And that’s regardless of the alleged offense against you, even in a case where most people might reasonably view the criminal charge against you as minor or even trifling.
That is the decided conclusion derived by researchers at the national nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice, an organization focused on the collection and accurate analysis of empirical data germane to the American criminal justice system. Although there are exceptions to Vera’s bottom-line take on the matter, of course, institute principals stand staunchly by what they say relevant data flatly tell them.
That is this, as their report prominently states: “Police enforcement has become an expressway to jail.”
Many Colorado residents, coupled with legions of other individuals nationally, will readily endorse the conclusion. Based on their own experience, they unquestionably have no doubt concerning Vera’s data-culled and startling estimate concerning incarceration in the United States relevant to a recent year.
That is this: A nearly unbelievable 99% of all people arrested during that measuring period were carted off to jail.
That costs money, of course. Moreover, it clogs the courts and diverts police attention from criminal activity that is truly material. And, of course, it subjects many individuals charged with minor offenses and often having no history of violent behavior or prior criminal activity to harrowing punishment and penalties.
That’s just wrong, stresses Vera. The institute states that high numbers of cases can be far better managed pursuant to an alternative-to-incarceration strategy.
And that can only occur, states the justice organization, if authorities “chart a new course in American policing” that employs arrest only “sparingly, intentionally and transparently.”