Prisons in America are too crowded, too harsh, too isolated, and provide too little treatment and education. But mostly they are too big. With 2.4 million Americans living behind bars (and with 5 million more on probation or parole), the most important step we can take to reform the country’s out-of-control criminal justice system is to shrink it. Sentencing reform and alternatives to incarceration are vital steps, but improving the quality of legal representation at trial—and, more importantly, before trial—could play an even larger role. That’s why Eric Holder’s announcement that the Department of Justice is ramping up a new program to improve the quality of indigent legal defense is so important. Some 80 percent of criminal defendants can’t afford to pay for their own attorney. Give those defendants a fighting chance, and we could end up with a truly adversarial legal system that will produce not just inmates but justice. From NPR: Justice Dept. To Launch Indigent Defense Program : NPR.

A great deal of politically charged chatter will break out in response to the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates outside his home on Thursday. It’s impossible to know what precisely went down: Is conventional racial profiling at work here or did Gates go ballistic after a long flight with no pillows or food service? Still, it’s instructive to read the documents associated with the case that have gone public so far. First, there is the unusually detailed police report that presents a menacing portrait of Gates the Terrible badgering  a doe-eyed police officer and virtually forcing the arrest. (Even in this one-sided version, it’s notable that the officer admits he acted only when scolded in front of fellow officers, only when his honor before peers came into question). This represents only the first word, of course, but it’s worth remembering that in most criminal cases (especially those involving low-income defendants), the police report represents the first and last word. Every day, such incident reports undergrid plea bargaining negotiations between prosectuors and court-appointed counsel; in some cases, defense counsel doesn’t even have full access to the reports. Imagine what a fix Gates would be in in such conventional circumstances. As it happens, the professor is more-than-capably represented by his friend and colleague Charles Ogletree, who has already released a counter-narrative of the altercation with a very different emphasis. As the case develops, pause for a moment to think what this country’s criminal justice system would be like (and look like) if all criminal defendants were capably represented by counsel. Sadly, Gideon’s trumpet scarcely sounds in most court rooms, and our prison cells thus continue to fill up with nary a protest.