The Everyday Injustice of Cyntoia Brown

Last week, outgoing Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam granted clemency to Cyntoia Brown, a victim of sex trafficking who was convicted of murdering a man who had “bought” her. After being arrested at 16 and sentenced at 18, Brown served 14 years of a life sentence before her release was scheduled for August 2019. Various celebrities and advocacy groups have applauded Haslam’s decision regarding the highly publicized case.

While Brown’s release is certainly a win for justice, her experiences are reflected in broad trends in the American criminal justice system. While courts and jails are in desperate need of empathy for convicts, pardons and clemency are unlikely to provide long-term solutions to their inherent inequities.

Brown was disadvantaged in various ways from birth. Her mother, Georgina Mitchell, was 16 when Brown was born. She also drank during her pregnancy and began using cocaine soon after. Her daughter was promptly adopted by Ellenette Brown, a single mother who raised her for the next 16 years until she ran away from home in 2004.

Brown was soon picked up by Garion L. McGlothlen, a pimp who sexually abused her and forced her into prostitution. She was sold to a 43-year-old real estate agent named Johnny Allen, whom she shot while he was sleeping. After being arrested for Allen’s murder, she was tried as an adult and sentenced to life in prison.

Given her circumstances, it seems absurd that Brown was given such a harsh sentence. But virtually every factor worked against her. First and foremost, she is black, and African-Americans receive, on average, 60% longer sentences than whites for the same crime.

Brown also came from a single-family home. A 1994 study of incarcerated Wisconsin minors found that, like Brown, 87% grew up without two married parents.

Mitchell’s drinking during her pregnancy may have also resulted in Brown being born with fetal alcohol syndrome. If this is the case, her disability worked against her as well: federal prisoners report having a disability at three times the rate of the general population.

Brown’s release is a huge victory for criminal justice reform, and should be celebrated as such. But it doesn’t end here. Advocates for justice can’t pack up and go home because one governor in one state commuted one sentence in an exceptional case. Brown will never truly be given justice until the prejudices that led to her extreme sentence are fully erased.