When crafting responses to crime, we usually start with the law. If that’s the starting point, we have missed the mark.
Most laws lean toward punishment first, then rehabilitation. Prison sentences are foremost to ensure accountability, and then we’ll work on the rest.
But what does that solve? Prison sentences and permanent criminal records don’t create pathways to success, nor do they on their own make our communities safer.
When most men and women are released from jail or prison, their sentences and records become obstacles as they try to navigate a path to stable housing and employment. These frustrating challenges fuel recidivism. Wash, rinse, repeat.
The fact is there is a real need for rehabilitative programs for returning citizens. These efforts are called reentry, and the city of Chicago now has an entire department dedicated to supporting these services.
But wouldn’t our communities be better served if people accused of crimes had reentry services available from the start during the court process — to both ensure that they attend court appearances as required and avoid any thoughts, words, actions and habits that can lead to rearrest?
And wouldn’t it be better if these social-service needs were built into criminal defense, whereby the legal and social needs of those who are justice-involved are addressed at the same time, producing better outcomes for them and our communities?
A state law signed this year is a step in the right direction. The Funded Advocacy and Independent Representation Act creates the Office of State Public Defender in Illinois and a State Public Defender Commission to appoint chief public defenders, assess resource needs in all 102 counties, distribute funds, release data and set attorney-workload standards.
This crucial measure also opens the door for stakeholders to execute their goals differently, helping those involved in the criminal justice system and the neighborhoods they return to.
Those of us in the reform community are thankful Illinois lawmakers approved the FAIR Act. The men and women this act supports are presumed innocent unless proven otherwise, and they deserve a public defender office with proper resources, reasonable workloads and data-driven solutions for the dedicated public servants who answer the constitutional call to represent people who cannot afford lawyers.
And we can take it further.
We can change the concept of criminal defense to focus on more than lawyering and include social services that lead people to change.
In the communities where violence is historically more common, we can choose to talk to people tangled in the criminal justice system and ask them what they need since they have experience.
These progressive ideas understandably trigger fears about individual accountability and safety. I worked for nearly a quarter-century as a Cook County prosecutor, and I do think there is a need for incarceration and removing certain individuals from society.
But my experience and observations have proved that, for most people in the criminal justice system, holistic social support is the key to spark lasting change. And it’s an extreme exercise in personal accountability for somebody to make daily, monthly and annual efforts to break negative habits and sustain positive actions.
When communities have support services embedded in them, stronger neighborhoods emerge. When you have the courage to connect people to opportunities and give them the chance to be successful, it promotes safety for the larger society.
It’s why the nonprofit where I work has spent 15 years meeting the legal and social needs of our West Side clients, walking them through and away from the criminal justice system permanently. We then went a step further and built 20 free studio apartments for clients in the new office headquarters we opened this year.
We understand a stable housing environment — paired with social support, legal representation and violence intervention — leads to safer neighborhoods and lasting change for our clients. I put this forward as a model for the public sector to emulate in community-based settings and a real opportunity for the State Public Defender Commission to enhance public defense in Illinois.
This simple and structured approach creates safety and can prevent violence. It paves a path to a future, ending the arrest-jail cycle to nowhere.
We should do more of this. Let’s call it “preventry” — an approach that is a smart on crime.
Risa Lanier is vice president of policy and external affairs at Lawndale Christian Legal Center, which provides free attorneys and wraparound social support to juveniles and young adults. Lanier worked for over two decades at the Cook County state’s attorney’s office where she served as first assistant, chief deputy and chief of the Criminal Prosecutions Bureau.