This July 4, the United States turns 250. We’ll celebrate with fireworks, parades, and barbecues. But for millions of Americans, the promise of that American Dream looks very different. On that same day, a 15-year-old will wake up behind bars, away from his family. A house will be burglarized, a car stolen, a person assaulted. A crime survivor will wake up feeling unsupported and unheard. An elderly woman serving a life sentence might take her final breath in a prison hospice.
Most of us believe in accountability for wrongdoing, which means having laws and practices that uphold order and promote safety. But the way most people in this country actually experience the justice system is not through theoretical discussions regarding policy or infrastructure, it’s through everyday interactions.
The American justice system is experienced when someone feels unsafe walking to their car at night or opening up their store for the day. It is experienced when people—like my own brother—are locked up for years. It is experienced when Americans with records can’t get jobs or housing, violate their parole, and go right back to prison.
Two hundred fifty years' worth of increasingly punitive decisions have brought us here; an era in which the intent of the justice system feels deeply disconnected from how it plays out for real people. A sprawling, expensive infrastructure that punishes crime but fails to adopt strategies that actually prevent it. One that excels at warehousing people in jails and prisons, but fails at true healing and rehabilitation, so people come home as better neighbors. A system quick to utilize the grief and pain of crime survivors to justify harsh punishments, but that rarely supports those victims so that justice feels like more than vengeance.
All of this begs the question: After decades of watching this all play out in American life—of watching the justice system fall short of its ideals through its structural deficiencies, what have we learned? We’ve reached historically high incarceration rates, so why do we feel so far from peak safety, stability, and prosperity in so many communities? Perhaps we missed a very important lesson our founders left us.
Not long after the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia, Quaker reformers alongside Benjamin Franklin made a bold decision to overhaul the prevailing system of punishment. They shifted from beatings and executions in the town square toward something they described as “moderate, just, and private.” The penitentiary. At the time, it was radical and more humane. They believed our young country could do better.
Though America’s founders, of course, did not always live up to these ideals themselves, this early reform shows us that American justice was meant to be resolute, principled, and restrained. And our founders always imagined our system would evolve. We were never meant to run with the model the country needed back in 1790 and never look back. From the country’s earliest years, reformers believed a “more perfect” union required constant improvement. A quarter-millennium later, we’ve forgotten their mandate.
We have a chance to find that spirit again as we shape the next 250 years of justice. Americans are increasingly open to approaches that reduce harm, strengthen communities, and deliver safety that lasts. People want their tax dollars spent on strategies that benefit them and deliver outcomes that improve society.
Let me be clear: Any honest conversation about crime and justice requires us to hold two truths at once. People sometimes make terrible choices, and those choices should have consequences. This was true at our founding, and it’s true now. But here in 2026, we know human behavior is more complicated than a simple good-guy/bad-guy narrative, and we need to be more sophisticated in our responses.
We know that poverty, trauma, violence, and systemic bias—while not excuses for behavior—shape what options people have in the first place. Ignoring this reality leads to bad policy, polarization, and band-aid solutions. We cannot punish our way out of systemic failures, and we cannot excuse away personal responsibility. The next era of American justice must balance these truths carefully and humanely.
Over the last 250 years, we’ve learned a lot about what improves safety, supports victims, and helps communities thrive—and we have clearer evidence than ever about where to go from here. We also have helpful guideposts.
Last year, 14 national organizations from the left and right—who agree on almost nothing else—agreed on four principles to guide the next era of justice: safety, accountability, fairness, and dignity. Those principles aren’t abstract. They’re already being built into real systems, by real people, right now.
In Dayton, Ohio, a blind man with mental illness was hours from being evicted from his apartment of 35 years. When he became agitated and the situation escalated, his landlord called a civilian crisis response unit for help instead of the police. The situation de-escalated. The man stayed out of jail, and he got connected to new housing. That’s dignity in action.
In Seminole, Oklahoma, a survivor of extreme physical and sexual violence, who was sentenced to life in prison for her role in the murder of her abuser, went home. She is the first person released under a new state law letting courts revisit cases where abuse played a role, and where time has already been served. That’s fairness in action.
In Newark, New Jersey, the homicide rate dropped to a 60-year low, driven by community-based public safety partnerships with police that didn’t exist a decade ago. That’s safety in action.
In the state of Arkansas, lawmakers worked across the aisle on a bold bill that categorizes kids recruited into gangs and coerced into committing crimes as victims. It unlocked a suite of resources to help support children who suffered intense trauma—pairing age-appropriate consequences with substantial support to grow, learn, and contribute to their communities. That’s accountability in action.
These are the building blocks for a better justice system. These are the seeds we need for America’s next 250 years.
The founders were problem-solvers. So are the people already building this next chapter—in courtrooms and community centers, in statehouses, and on neighborhood streets. The question on this 250th birthday is whether we’ll water those seeds. Whether we'll build on what’s working and have the courage to let go of what isn’t.
In the United States, we must believe in second chances—for our people and for our institutions. We must revise and redeem, amend and repair, evolve and improve. That instinct is as old as the republic itself.
Two hundred and fifty years in, it is time to use it.
