Few areas of public policy better illustrate what he was talking about than the criminal justice system. After a generation of "tough-on-crime" policies, here are some examples of how what we see often obscures what we can't see.
We can see cops stopping and arresting people, roughing people up, and administering street justice. We think, 'Good. They're getting the bad guys off the streets.'
What we don't see: The orders from mayors and senior officials in cities like Baltimore, St. Louis, and Chicago for police to initiate mass arrests, usually for petty offenses, sometimes for no offense at all. We don't see the bulk of the arrestees who are later released with no charges, but who now have an arrest record that can be crippling. We don't see the mistrust and anger these kinds of police actions sow between police and the communities they serve—feelings that last for generations and present major barriers to fighting crime. We won't see if just as much crime—or perhaps even more—could have been prevented with a more rights-oriented approach to policing, an approach less apt to destroy lives.
We see stories about deportations of undocumented immigrants and we think, 'Good. We're taking people who don't deserve to be here off of public assistance, and sending back to from where they came.'
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