Perspective on Law Enforcement : Justice Unrealized : Failure to admit inequities makes it impossible to solve problems that contribute to antisocial conduct.

Contrary to recent assertions from the White House, the fury that swept the nation after the acquittals of the four policemen charged with assaulting Rodney King was not the product of failed ‘60s social programs or fatherless families.

That fury was fueled in large part by frustrations arising from a history of injustice visited upon the powerless within our society by our justice system.

These frustrations are the consequence of race and class-based inequities that have infected all aspects of American life since its inception.

For far too many Americans, there remains that persistent gap between promise and fulfillment in our fundamental precept of equal justice under the law for all.

Recognizing the role racial injustice played in precipitating the rioting in Los Angeles is not a rationalization for lawlessness. Criminal conduct can never be condoned, whither it is the looting of a ghetto grocery store during a riot or the quiet looting of a suburban savings and loan by bandits in business suits.

However, failure to honestly acknowledge the corrosive impact that ingrained inequities have on the justice system precludes meaningful amelioration of the problems that produce the frustrations that contribute to anti-social conduct.

Our system of justice works only if there is confidence by all sectors of society that they will be treated fairly.

Perceptions of fairness must be justified by experience. This confidence in the law, which is the cement of the system, cannot be maintained if the lawless conduct of law enforcement is condoned, while lawless behavior of the less-privileged is penalized.

The precept of justice for all is what gives our society its distinguishing characteristic.

Regardless of creed, color or national origin, Americans share a unique sense of justice and fair play. Freedom from injustice is what impelled our nation’s founders to rebel against the king of England. The establishment of “justice” is enshrined as one of the stated goals contained in the preamble of the U.S. Constitution.

Louis Brandeis, the distinguished legal scholar and jurist, once remarked that “justice is but truth in action, and we cannot hope to attain justice until we have the proper respect for the truth.”

The plain truth today is that justice for all remains unrealized two centuries after the adoption of the Constitution. Race, ethnic and gender biases remain pervasive in our nation’s criminal- and civil-justice systems, according to repeated studies conducted during the past decade, many under the auspices of state supreme courts.

There is ample documented evidence that minorities experience more unnecessary force from police, are subjected to stiffer criminal charges than whites under similar circumstances, receive more severe prison terms, obtain lower settlements than whites in civil proceedings and are underrepresented in positions of authority in the justice system.

These studies have set forth voluminous recommendations for the removal of debilitating biases from our justice systems. But the question remains as to whether these recommendations will be earnestly implemented or briefly extolled and then ignored like the recommendations of the three presidential study commissions of the 1960s that examined the phenomenon of individual and collective violence.

A progress report of the 1969 Violence Commission stated, “Group attitudes about lawful behavior depend on the group’s view of the justice provided by the legal order and of the society which created it. . . . (A) widespread conviction of the essential justice and decency of the social order is an indispensable condition of civil peace in a free society.”

In our scheme of democratic government, it is the justice system that is the forum of fairness for society. The justice system cannot adequately discharge its duty to fairness if it is fraught with ingrained inequities.

If there is a lesson to be learned from the events in Los Angeles, it is that the nation’s justice system must fulfill its responsibility to accord fairness to all.