Justice & The Next 250: What Will Be the Price of Justice?

By Zachary R. Ruppel (JLUSA Policy Analyst / Leading with Conviction™ 2021)

The idea of “Justice & the Next 250” is complicated, at best. That complexity is only deepened by the reality of now. News about affordability crises, loss of basic human needs, and predatory markets dominate headlines. For people living with the impact of the justice system, however, this reality is all-too common and hardly breaking news. Lost wages, rising debt, and food insecurity are typically attributed to the “collateral consequences” of a conviction. But with only one in three individuals knowing the sting of impact from the criminal legal system, it has taken rampant inflation, the destruction of entitlement programs, and deregulation en masse for the remainder of society to get a peek behind the curtain of these “collateral consequences.”

In order to consider both the problems plaguing America on this 250th “celebration” and to effectively advocate for those who have been living with the plague of a conviction long before July 4, 2026, a common question must be asked: “What is the price?” That question has always had an answer. The problem is who has been expected to pay it. It is simply, therefore, not possible to consider a forward-looking reflection on justice and this semiquincentennial (yes, I looked it up), without fully considering the question, What is the price of justice?

The word “price” carries with it three very different approaches to how I consider justice in the next 250 years of this country. On one hand, it is the amount of money expected to be paid for an agreed upon outcome. Take, for example, the price one must pay in fees for community supervision unless an officer deems them waivable. Additionally, it could mean creating or deciding on the value of that same item or outcome. Such as the mayor who decides to increase the price of traffic citations to offset surveillance in “at-risk” communities.

But the price of something also implies the experience of loss, punishment, or consequence. Such as the profound grief experienced daily as loved ones part ways in carceral visitation rooms. Justice in the next 250 years must carefully consider each of these three “prices” in order to fully realize a systemic approach that is grounded not in loss and punishment, but rather in fully understanding the value of each individual person that shoulders the cost.

Justice in the next 250 years must carefully consider each of these three “prices” …

As a policy analyst and administrator, I have spent my career shedding light on the price of justice and advocating for a better way. But no policy brief, no testimony, and no data set has taught me more about that price than living it myself. From the price of supervision requiring 10% of my income, to a bond hearing to set the cost of my freedom (only to be reset hours later via a politically driven prosecutor), to the immense grief of writing my grandmother’s eulogy from a prison, knowing I would never say it at her memorial. Each of these costs, and so many more, are felt everyday across the country by the hundreds of thousands of individuals who know the price of justice and who continue to pay it.

As the historical influence of vagrancy laws, poll taxes, and redlining continue to echo louder and louder in current policymaking, justice in the next 250 years must confront the inextricable relationship between money, debt, and the criminal legal system.

Reckoning with the costs of a conviction in the next 250 years requires carefully examining not just the processes and policies of this nation, but also authentically centering the voice of experts who have and are paying the price of justice. There are no shortage of policy platforms throughout the criminal legal system in which to do so: bail reform, court costs, correctional corporations, supervision and electronic monitoring, fair chance employment and licensure, supportive housing in reentry, and the list goes on.

But in order to fully address and begin to curb the impact of the price of justice, this country must also zoom out and consider the unique vulnerabilities that people living with a conviction face outside of traditional judicial processes. The positionality of an individual with lived experience must be considered in every aspect of society in order to begin addressing justice in the next 250 years, and this bold reexamination will continue to test the depths to which this country actually believes in redemption and a fair chance.

Justice in the next 250 years must weigh both the impact of the criminal legal system, as well as its price within consumer, financial, and economic realities.

In doing so, this nation must remember that people reentering are coming home to a market that, in many cases, has never been designed to include them and that predatory practices and financial schemes stand ready to fill that gap.

Policymakers and justice actors must come to terms with the fact that economic mobility requires not just ensuring a fair chance to earn a livable wage, but also the protections, enforcement, and empowerment necessary to protect consumers navigating personal finance after being forcibly removed from society.

Public administrators must reexamine how justice systems are funded and the extent to which judicial accountability also benefits their agency accounting. And fear-based exclusions driven by false narratives of risk must be reenvisioned at every level, from human resource managers and financial institutions to consumer reporting and corporate reinsurers.

Justice in the next 250 years must weigh both the impact of the criminal legal system, as well as its price within consumer, financial, and economic realities.

I never got to deliver my grandmother’s eulogy. But I am still here, still writing, still paying … and still believing that the price of justice does not have to be this high.

Justice & The Next 250 will be measured by the willingness of policymakers to ask (and honestly answer) who has always paid this price of justice. But will they listen?

Zachary R. Ruppel (Leading with Conviction™ 2021) is a Policy Analyst at JustLeadershipUSA, where he is a passionate advocate at the federal level for restorative reentry practices and ending the permanent punishments of a conviction.

Published in partnership with the Justice & The Next 250 campaign