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Such efforts at reform may ultimately rebut the militant argument that crime will decrease only if the cops and courts get tougher. Admittedly, fear of dire punishment is often an effective deterrent. So, for that matter, is torture. But the reformers argue that the hope of an orderly society lies in making "equal and exact justice" more equal and more exact. As Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr has observed, "Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary."
What the controversy over crime and punishment tends to overlook is that the Bill of Rights must protect everyone—the unsavory as well as the savory—or it protects no one. The goal of judicial reform should be a system that genuinely safeguards the rights of the accused wrongdoer, yet effectively upholds the innocent citizen's right to be protected from the criminal. If it can achieve both these objectives, the revolution in criminal justice will have been well fought.