A Modest Proposal for a Partial Reform of Our System of Criminal Law and Its Enforcement

No fair observer could deny that there are glaring flaws in our system of criminal justice. The mention of only a few will suffice to illustrate the point: The police are insensitive to civil rights, and brutal to the poor and to minorities; prosecutors victimize the defenseless who are unable to obtain adequate counsel to protect their rights. And all this is done in the name of law and order. Only the brutalized members of minorities-both racial, ethnic, and financial-are more aware of these injustices than are today's law students.

These students rightly burn with a combination of indignation at the system and a zeal for its reform. We can and we must use that zeal and that indignation to accomplish an immediate and apparent reform.