No consequences, profit-driven company, metric-driven agencies, nobody cared.
Constructing a modern-day criminal justice system from the ashes of the Bad Old Days is going to be a project for our generation or the next or the next after that, but it probably requires burning things to the ground.
In the meantime: Most of the liberal democratic ideals you and I were raised on with regard to criminal justice were from academia musing on what should be, or from copaganda television shows lying about what is. They live in our heads - if you want them to be real, you have to make them real.
This would all be because either they didn't care or they didn't realize they should care. Which is to say, I agree with you and the problem you touched on is far more pervasive and effects more people than just the legal system and we need to start doing a better job addressing it.