This is the key thing about the Innocence Project that reveals to me that there’s something weird going on in their heads that differs from what most people think. Is happening. If you were going to set out to free the innocent, I would think you’d want to be unassailable; you would want to go after the clearest cases of injustice. But the Innocence Project goes to bat for people like Rodney Reed, a multiple suspected rapist with a long arrest record.
It’s true of course that you want a criminal justice system in which there is an onerous burden on the state to prove guilt. You don’t want it to be the case that a guy like Reed can be imprisoned on the grounds that, “Come on, this is obviously a bad guy.”
But you are not a federal court and neither is the Innocence Project. Given the ordinary constraints of time and resources, why would you put great personal effort into freeing a man like Rodney Reed? Something very weird going on with people who dedicate their lives to that project.
But you are not a federal court and neither is the Innocence Project. Given the ordinary constraints of time and resources, why would you put great personal effort into freeing a man like Rodney Reed? Something very weird going on with people who dedicate their lives to that project.
As I said in another context yesterday, what criminal justice reform activists know that regular people do not is that there are not enough sympathetic cases to go around. If you want to make a meaningful dent in the prison population, then you’re going to have to free legitimately bad people who almost certainly did their crime.
Regular people imagine that there exist obvious reforms that will correct for clear cases of injustice. But, I hate to have to be the one to tell you about Santa Claus: almost everybody involved in the criminal justice system is actually a criminal. What the activists know that you don’t is that criminal justice reform is about making life better for actual criminals.
And that’s not entirely bad! We should have a fair and humane system. And it’s good that some people are oriented toward ensuring that. But it’s not great that they’re all insane liars who are completely dishonest about the nature of their project.
And that’s not entirely bad! We should have a fair and humane system. And it’s good that some people are oriented toward ensuring that. But it’s not great that they’re all insane liars who are completely dishonest about the nature of their project.
The truth is that activists know they’re helping bad guys and they’re fine with that, because they don’t actually believe there’s any such thing as a bad guy. They think “bad guys“ are created by bad societies, which means that the guy who breaks into your grandmother’s house and beats her to death over $15 worth of costume jewelry is actually himself a victim.
And you’re the perpetrator! You did this. You accepted and tolerated the demented, racist society that created him. So you’re actually to blame, which means that you’re obligated to fight for his release.
Support whatever cause you want, but you really should know that this is what criminal justice reform activists think, if they aren’t just completely confused about the composition of the prison population in the first place.
The former group takes advantage of the naïveté of the latter.
Support whatever cause you want, but you really should know that this is what criminal justice reform activists think, if they aren’t just completely confused about the composition of the prison population in the first place.
The former group takes advantage of the naïveté of the latter.
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