Human Dignity

Reforming our entire criminal justice system

Congressional action is necessary to implement respect for human dignity as a path toward healing the lasting damage caused by slavery and genocide in America.  Outlawing choke holds is a bandage where major surgery is required. Beyond choke-holds there are infinite methods both blatant and subtle to maim, torture and kill for those who have antisocial, psychopathic or sociopath tendencies.  Sociopaths, psychopaths and antisocial personalities are attracted to a system where they can control and brutalize others.  Such deep disturbances in personnel must be rooted out of our criminal justice system.

Multiple screening tests given by psychologists can root out such persons from our criminal justice system and can be used to qualify new recruits.  When such tests were routinely given, they repeatedly showed approximately 20% of persons applying for such positions are totally unsuited and should never be allowed to be in such positions of authority.  Administrators and unions didn’t like those results and stopped allowing the tests.  Such testing needs to now be federally mandated at all levels to clean up our police and criminal justice system and to support the honest civil servants who daily work in that system and the communities they are mandated to protect.  

Following the atrocities of Nazi rule, the German people wrote a new constitution with the intention to never repeat such atrocities.  Respect for human dignity was written into their constitution as the central core of their new government.  One result of this change was to abolish their entire former criminal justice system.  They replaced the Nazi system with a system based on human dignity.  They replaced their prisons with rehabilitation centers.  Rehabilitation replaced punishment. Unlike our system which returns criminals to society when their time is up regardless of their likelihood of recommitting crimes, the very successful German system returns persons to society only if and when they are rehabilitated and no longer a danger.  It also educates and trains them to be able to work as useful citizens benefiting everyone.  The result of this change In Germany is reduced crime, reduced prison population, reduced recidivism and reduced costs.

In 1922 the White House commissioned the Menninger Foundation to write a white paper evaluating our criminal justice system.  Their conclusion was that our criminal justice system is based on revenge and actually increases the criminality.  100 years later we are still using the same system.  Our current antiquated criminal justice system not only returns unrepentant criminals to society, it erodes the human dignity of those incarcerated as well as those in charge.  Proven psycho therapeutic practices need to replace our abusive system of punishment.

LEGISLATIVE ACTION STEPS: Mandate psychological screening of all current and incoming criminal justice personnel including administrators. Mandate reform of our entire criminal justice system based on human dignity, replacing prisons with rehabilitation centers. 

These are steps to protect all our citizens. Reform of policing is only the beginning of necessary changes in our criminal justice system. Honoring the human dignity of all people is the foundation of democracy and the underlying basis of American liberty.  Respect for human dignity is at the very heart of what makes democracy work.                                        

Contact: Susan Fey     susanfey@live.com