The grand jury decision in Ferguson Missouri today enrages many people – but the lack of an indictment actually opens more options for systemic reform to police-community relations, says Joe Margulies, civil rights attorney and visiting professor of government and law at Cornell University.

Margulies says:

“Many people are enraged that Darren Wilson has not been indicted for having shot Michael Brown. I do not begrudge them their fury, but I urge them to see this as an opportunity rather than a defeat, and to consider what would have happened had the result been different.

“To put it simply, if Wilson had been indicted, his prosecution would have eliminated any hope of meaningful reform. The mere existence of the prosecution would have been interpreted as the solution, particularly in the wider political community. Wilson’s prosecution would have been seen as confirmation that police practices are perfectly adequate, and that society needs only punish the occasional officer who breaks the rules.

“But because the problem is systemic, so must be the solution. The shooting of Michael Brown was the inevitable product of the same punitive turn in American life that produced the War on Drugs, the militarization of local police, and mass incarceration. Rather than a defeat for justice, the decision by the Grand Jury is a claxon call for reform.”