Former Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow argues for greater forgiveness by the law and the justice system. Using examples from around the world, she shares how forgiveness can lower crime and reduce incarceration.

She warns about the highly punitive American justice system which forgives bankruptcy but not misdemeanors.

The very same kind of crime in the United States and in Sweden or in Finland, will produce in the United States perhaps a 20 years' sentence, and in one of those Scandinavian countries, maybe 5 to 10 years. The US is far more punitive, and Martha argues there is no evidence that that produces lower rates of crime. In fact, the US has higher rates of crime.

What‘s the right balance between forgiveness and punishment? It's not an easy question. A justice system needs to hold people accountable for their crimes and be fair, treating people the same, but when should the law forgive and allow for fresh beginnings? Martha Minow is the perfect person to ask. She’s written a book titled When Should Law Forgive?

Former New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton shares what he thinks good policing looks like, reforms needed in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, the arc of policing and the reasons crime is up in many major cities. He talks about different approaches to policing including broken windows, rapid response and community policing as well as the crisis in relations between the Black community and the police. While he and his team slashed crime rates and created the revolutionary data-driven program CompStat, his career has not been without controversy. He is the only person to have led the police departments of the United States' two largest cities – New York and Los Angeles.

Bratton is currently the chairman of the U.S. Homeland Security Advisory Council and author of The Profession.

Find out how Democratic and Republican judges’ decisions differ and how judges’ decisions can be predicted based on whether they are Democrats or Republicans.