Nearly everyone is disenchanted with the U.S. criminal justice system, which is seen as excessively expensive, conceptually confused, increasingly unfair and pervasively ineffectual. Social scientists espouse views wedded to determinism, insisting that now this and now that social dynamic biological condition or psychological force causes criminal behavior and that self-control has little, if anything, to do with one's conduct.
Politicians leap from captious harangues to capricious remedies without reflection or inspiration.
Frustrated citizens cling to the fundamental ideals that individuals are responsible for their acts and must be held accountable. Flawed studies and statistics are used to promote whatever policy is in vogue. In sum, truth takes a holiday, and special interests burrow into the sources of wealth and influence. The result is waste and nonsense that in any other human endeavor would be intolerable. If there is a key to understanding America's-criminal justice problem, it lies in recognizing that the war on drugs has been lost and never was winable.