In Rich Thanks to Racism: How the Ultra Wealthy Profit from Racial Injustice, I introduce the concept of “strategic racism,” which is when efforts to defend or expand systemic racism result in greater economic or political power for oneself. Perhaps the quintessential example of strategic racism is the pushback against criminal justice reform in the US. For example, there has been a determined effort to portray the killing of George Floyd, Daunte Wright, and so many other Black and Brown people as anomalies, or as the result of a few “bad cops.” The reality, however, is that they are the predictable results of a vastly oversized, overbroad, and violent criminal justice system that is being used within Black and Brown communities as a catch-all solution for an enormous variety of public health and safety issues. And as should be obvious by now, they will continue to occur until we collectively decide to eliminate this particularly virulent form of systemic racism.

The challenge, of course, is what to do about it. Most of us have become so accustomed to our current system of mass criminalization and incarceration that it can be difficult to imagine something different. However, it really shouldn’t be that difficult. There are superior options virtually everywhere we look.

For example, in the early 1970s our public investment in the criminal justice system was only about one-fifth of what it is now, and our incarcerated population was 85 percent lower than it is currently.

Additionally, there are already numerous places in the US where we have been able to advance public safety without creating the type of police state that exists within many Black and Brown communities—namely, virtually every predominantly white community in the country.

In fact, if we are looking for other models of places that don’t rely on incarceration as much as we do, we can just pull out a map and throw a dart. Any other country in the world that we hit is going to have a lower incarceration rate than we do.

The fact is that almost every other place in the world, at almost every point in history, has used criminalization and incarceration less than the US does within communities of color. So it shouldn’t be that hard to envision something better.

Read the full article about investing in systems of care by Jim Freeman at Stanford Social Innovation Review.