There’s lots of talk these days about criminal-justice reform, from both sides of the aisle: “Mass incarceration” is the Left’s term of opprobrium, and “overcriminalization” is the Right’s. I’m sure there’s plenty of room for improvement in anything run by government bureaucrats, but I do have one caveat: the reforms should not be designed to have a particular racial result, one way or the other.

If the system is broken — that is, if people are being prosecuted or sentenced or imprisoned in a way that makes no sense as a matter of policy — then by all means fix it, but if it isn’t, don’t. And the definition of “is broken” and “make no sense” should not hinge on racial bean-counting. I’m very skeptical that the racial disparities in imprisonment are caused in any significant degree by racism; the fact is that at any point in time there will not be uniformity in crime rates across all demographic groups. The War on Drugs is commonly decried as racist; not only is that dubious, but nonviolent drug offenders are a relatively small part of the prison population, and there is no serious dispute that there are also, for example, racial disparities among violent criminals.

Bottom line: If there is racism then by all means address it, but don’t assume that racial disparities equal racism or that any racial disparity is a problem that has to be fixed.