Comment by pessimizer

> The reality is that most people who become subject to criminal prosecution are guilty.

This is not the reality, but your own justifying premise. which is why you instinctively began it with the proclamation "this is the reality."

I personally pled guilty for something that I didn't do, and that no one involved thought I did. I was offered a plea bargain of zero time, zero fine, and it would be expunged from my record in a year if I weren't convicted of anything else - which is evidence that the prosecution knew that I hadn't done anything. This was actually a systemic kindness - the people involved in the system couldn't live with the idea that they were punishing me for nothing.

The alternative was going on trial for a stupid felony called "possession of the instrument of a crime" which not only had nothing to do with the conditions of my initial arrest, but carried something like a 5-15 year sentence. The odds that they would have gotten a conviction on such a bizarre felony (the only reason it existed was to have a lower standard) in the state I lived, and with the race I was, and with a public defender, was around 100% imo. They go hard as a punishment for forcing them to hold a trial - that would be the excuse for those same kind people as before to label me a troublemaker who had turned down their kindness, and now deserved to go to prison for nothing.

You've made a comment with a lot of words, but the only reasoning you have is "the reality is," and you surrounded it with pronouncements and some personal anecdote about one woman. You're talking about a system that convicts 90% of the people (unlike me) who said "I didn't do anything, they know I didn't do anything, they certainly will let me go once they figure it out."

> if you end up coerced into accepting a plea deal despite your innocence, you are not a normal person.

The system is unjust because people like you support it exactly as it is...

> need to stop the school to prison pipeline,

...with lefty sloganistic jargon, playing the part of a good progressive prosecutor. You won't see it until it happens to you or someone you care about, then it will become the most important issue in the world. The fact that the US criminal justice system is hard on black Americans is not "racism" or "white supremacy" but because black Americans are not the friends or loved ones of people in power, and will never be. When you personally are prosecuted for nothing, or even for a crime that your peers deem trivial, the resumes of the people at your protest and your candlelight vigil will force people to pay attention, or risk their own comfort. Most people are not so lucky.

The system is an atrocity. It fails the victims of crimes, the accused of crimes, the perpetrators of crimes, and to protect the safety of the public in the aftermath of crime. It is simply an enrichment device for its participants, and an empty performance to mollify the middle class. It also serves to warehouse the wealthless underclass of the descendants of freed slaves away from view when they are found unfit for menial work.