Evil in the American Justice System
FIVE EXAMPLES OF EVIL IN THE AMERICAN LEGAL SYSTEM
What went wrong?
The war on drugs, the war on child pornography, the war on child molesters in daycare centers, the war on terrorism.  All popular causes.  All worthy causes.  All causes with which key decisionmakers (legislators, prosecutors, or judges) overidentified.  The result, predictably, was evil.

No member of Congress wants to be seen as being "soft on crime."  Crime legislation takes on the look of a poker game.  If one party proposes, as a sentence for a particular crime, five years with no chance of parole, the response of the other party is likely to be, "We'll see that and raise it to ten years!"

Postal inspectors in Project Looking Glass needed to justify their existence.  "Don't just sit there, find some consumers of child pornography."  What region will produce the most convictions?  Which inspector will get the next promotion? 

The daycare center cases of the late 1980s became modern-day witchcraft trials.  Accusations of child molestation spiralled.  Few had the courage to come forward and defend the accused, for fear that they too might be charged with molestation or condemned by an outraged citizenry.  True believers intent on proving the accusations suggestively interviewed children--and, in the process, made the children their victims.

Today, the cause is a war on terrorism.  A worthy cause, but one that already has claimed innocent victims and is certain to claim more. 

This is bleak.  What might reduce the frequency and severity of evil?

 
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