FB

From what I see there are two different types of disingenuous criminal justice reform advocates. There are the reactionary Koch Brothers types who want to dismantle government power, like you say. That’s their end game. And they also probably believe that focusing on mass incarceration gives them some strategic credibility, so they can say, “We’re not total ideologues, we’ll be consistent in our demands to eliminate government spending.”

And then there’s another, more common group, which includes liberals and conservatives, who are trying to co-opt criminal justice reform. I’ve been making a concerted effort to talk to people in Harris County about the criminal justice system here for over a year, and nobody has said they think the system is working fine. Everyone knows it needs to be fixed.

So there are now lots of nonprofits chasing hot grant money that are able to co-opt the demand for “reform.” There’s a lot of money and a lot of resources aimed at perfecting pieces of this system instead of taking it apart.

Nonprofits are getting expensive contracts to come in and take over swaths of this system. For example, we know that many people are jailed because they’re poor. To address this, some experts have created an algorithm, and nonprofits want to come in with that algorithm and run part of the system for us. In return, they get big consulting money.

Locally that nonprofit is the John and Laura Arnold Foundation. John Arnold is a billionaire who leveraged his Enron money into even more money in the private equity markets, and now he and his wife fashion themselves as criminal justice reformers. I think their motivation is a combination of the prestige of doing what appears to be necessary work and keeping a real danger to order at bay, preventing the thought that the whole system needs to be replaced. In a moment of honesty, I think the higher-ups at these foundations would admit that.