"Usually the first response I get when talking about radically re-envisioning our criminal legal system away from mass incarceration is: 'But what are we going to do about the violent criminals who are a danger to us?' Putting aside the fact that only a slice of incarcerated people are in jails and prisons due to violent crime, the argument assumes that there is a separate category of 'us' and 'them,' and that you can somehow lock away the 'problem' people and not have it create a destructive ripple effect for the individual, their families and all of our communities," write Naomi Ishisaka. "Our existing system of criminalization and mass incarceration is not working, by any measure."