Since 2020, the disparity between Black and white Americans in prisons has declined by more than 40 percent according to the Council on Criminal Justice. Reform groups say it’s a major step in fighting inequalities, but there is still work to be done to narrow the gap.
On April 16, a group of Georgia leaders, criminal justice experts and Georgia State University professors gathered for “Justice for All,” a day of panel discussions oriented around disparities in the criminal justice system in Georgia and across the country.
Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies put on the joint event with the Council on Criminal Justice, an invitational membership organization and think tank, founded on the belief that “a fair and effective criminal justice system is essential to democracy.”
Former Atlanta mayor, U.S. congressman and United States ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young gave remarks on Atlanta’s history as a city “sensitive to those struggles,” recalling inequalities in race, workers’ strikes and public education access.
Young said it “all boils down to education,” echoing a holistic approach to preventing crime by keeping kids in school.
“We still have to come back, I think, to public education and public health,” Young said.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens also promoted an all-angle approach to disparities in short prerecorded remarks.
“The challenges we face when seeking to reduce disparities in our justice system are complex, and they require well-researched and evidence-based conversations and solutions,” Dickens said.
In 2023, Dickens launched a team to implement his policy agenda aimed at tackling inequality in affordable housing, youth development, education, economic mobility and neighborhood empowerment. Data from the United States Census Bureau in 2022 revealed that Georgia has the highest income inequality in the nation.
Across the two panels, experts and officials talked about addressing disparities with different policy changes. One key change is through sentencing reforms, pushing for shorter sentencing rates for infractions like drug possession.
Throughout the Council for Criminal Justice study on disparities, researchers found that the rates of prison admissions for drug offenses dropped by 90 percent for Black women and increased by 70 percent for white women.
Council policy director Stephanie Kennedy said the group is seeing “differential enforcement policies coming into play.”
While some researchers found sentencing changes did not contribute to more disparity, the council members said it is a positive sign — making the landscape more “race-neutral.”
The second panel honed in on Georgia’s criminal justice landscape since the statewide disparity has fallen in recent years. Georgia officials credited the change to “reform mindsets” across policing and prosecution.
The Atlanta Police Department’s Violent Crime Interdiction Section Commander Major Ralph Woolfolk said one solution is to look at particular people “driving violence” rather than putting large control on communities.
“What I mean by that is a more detailed focus on precision policing and intelligence policing data to drive some of the decisions we make,” Woolfolk said. “What we have seen over the years is a greater emphasis on what the evidence tells us are the best practices.”
Assistant Attorney General for the gang unit Cara Convery said the reform mindset is present for some district attorneys who do more work around rehabilitation for drug-addicted populations.
However, Douglas County District Attorney Dalia Racine said some across the state are “very proactive with ensuring that there is incarceration of users, regardless of how they look.”
However, the council’s biggest question at the event was how deeply the criminal justice system reflects and amplifies inequities in American society and how the system can broaden or narrow those gaps.
Grady Memorial Hospital trauma surgeon Dr. Randi Smith said inequities show up in public health, too. The hospital takes on prison prevention through programs like the IVYY project: Interrupting Violence with Youth and Young Adults, which offers wraparound services intended to reduce re-injury, retaliation and symptoms of PTSD.
The program centers the patient’s life experiences as key to interrupting the cycle of violence to prevent more incarceration.
“That’s how we’re going to effectively create change, working together, addressing the root causes, loving on our people and not criminalizing them and always punishing them,” Smith said.
Education and equal opportunities! Good article