Improving Criminal Justice Decisions
Michael Serota* Full Article. All government decisions matter. But few matter more—or are more consequential for society—than those involving the criminal justice system.[1] That’s because we depend upon the criminal justice system to perform two of the government’s most critical functions: securing justice and promoting public safety. To achieve these goals, we afford those who operate the criminal justice system great authority: the power to investigate and monitor, to arrest and detain, to convict and punish. But with this delegation of power comes great vulnerability: we must trust that the government officials who make criminal justice decisions will exercise their authority responsibly, in a manner that respects individual rights, preserves communities, avoids undue delay, and conserves limited societal resources. Today, there is an emerging societal consensus that the U.S. criminal…