The justice system in the United States is broken in many, many places. And the issues that spawn from a broken justice system leak into every other facet of life.

I could talk about privately owned prisons that are incentivized to keep bodies in cells (that's how they get compensated). I could talk about the judges that are bribed to ensure these prisons get filled.

We could move on to things like jail-time for minor drug offenses. Is this a DA problem? Or a policing problem? I'm not sure.

Or, conversely, violent criminals who get their jail time commuted. This is a judge and DA problem.

Or, continuing, the definition of "felon" in the United States is a byzantine thing. See [0].

Our laws are too jumbled and onerous. Justice, the ideal, is not sought nor executed in many cases. I don't know how to fix this. A part of me wants to burn two centuries of case law and go back to a bare Constitution, with an emphasis on personal conduct and responsibility (those darn Puritans were on to something). But that's too simple. We're caught in a trap, and I honestly don't see a way out.

There's a quote that comes to mind "representative rule only works when the people are moral". Something like that. Are we moral?

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp...