Rayshard Brooks Told Us How To Fix The System: The Time to Listen Is Now.
By: Nathan Coss
Tags: Equity, Social Justice, Social Change, BlackLivesMatter, Criminal Justice Reform

Earlier this year I took a design course centered on entrepreneurship and innovation within healthcare. The course taught me many things, and chief among them was the need to conduct informational interviews with people to discover their needs. You can design an amazing product, but it does not matter if it does not meet the needs of the people who use it.

From the reading, listening, and learning I have done over the past month it is clear the current United States criminal justice system, including policing, prisons, and probation, has failed its constituents. Rather than listening to the needs of the people most adversely affected by this system, especially BIPOC communities, to find how to best help them, the United States criminal justice system has instead focused on how to best profit from these communities. The criminal justice system has done this by continuing the perpetuating cycle of poverty and imprisonment. The rise in the number of private prisons has financially incentivized an increase in prison populations to drive increases in profits. Therefore, the United States has put forth a poor system and rather than helping people this system further worsens the needs of these already vulnerable communities by tearing away humans from these communities.

Listening to Rayshard Brooks’ interview illustrated the many ways the criminal justice system is currently failing those affected by the system. Rayshard details how he was a full-time carpenter, but often found it mentally draining to have to fill out the prior criminal convictions portion of job applications. Throughout the interview Rayshard mentions how he wishes he had a mentor and how he feels there is a missed opportunity in not having the probation officer function as more of a mentor in applying for jobs and getting his life back on track following being released from prison. He also talks about how he became hardened as an individual by the process of returning to society. He feels the criminal justice system is built to allow success for only those with resources and money. It is clear we need more support for folks as they transition from prison back to society.

Often when it comes time to make changes in society we look towards our politicians to make the necessary changes, and this functions when the constituents most affected by policies are allowed to voice their opinions through the voting process. One huge issue I see with this process is that in denying voting rights to those convicted of crimes we are allowing others to decide the policies for these individuals when many have no personal experience with the criminal justice system. Maine and Vermont are two states who never take away voting rights from individuals regardless of their criminal record and I believe every state in the nation should follow this precedent.

The development of policy regarding those who have been affected by the criminal justice system should be done in consultation with those directly affected by the criminal justice system rather than excluding them from the decision-making process. Take the example of Rayshard Brooks. He is a gentleman who knew the system was stacked against him and still managed to persist through all obstacles until the criminal justice system took his life away from him. In losing Rayshard Brooks we lost not only a human life, but a person with intimate knowledge of the system who could have provided valuable insight to others about how to change the system to empower others.

We need to refocus our efforts in the criminal justice system to design a system that empowers individuals from BIPOC communities, instead of stripping them of their rights and hope they land on their feet once they exit the prison system. In pursuit of racial justice every system created by the government needs to achieve equity in this country. We cannot get to that point without our government conducting informational interviews with those most affected by policies to determine rather than conducting fundraisers with donors who directly profit from the imprisonment of our citizens. We are all Rayshard Brooks in that we have all needed help at some point in our lives. It is high time we listened to the needs of those who need our help the most in our fight towards achieving racial justice.