Crossposted from Matt again, guys.
The news that Virginia has performed it's first execution in two years got me thinking about a topic that seemingly fallen off the radar this season--criminal justice reform. The death penalty, sadly, seems here to stay. But one of the reasons I so emphatically fell for Jim Webb (before Kathy took him apart) was because in addition to being outspoken about veterans issues, he's probably the most prominent senator i've heard speak on reforming our prisons. I could be wrong on that, and would love to be corrected. That said, I have heard very little about this issue out on the campaign trail. Frankly, this is as it should be--you don't win elections by talking about shortening the sentences of criminals.
Still, I hope this issue is a priority, should Obama win.
Indeed, to me, one of the promises of an Obama administration would be that he could (hopefully) deracialize certain issues that really occur to me as matters of basic fairness and justice. Heather Macdonald has had a field day dismantling those who claim that the criminal justice is racist. But I think that's a strawman. Frankly, I don't much care about whether the law was intended to hurt black people, nor do I care whether it's called racist or not. To the extent that the "racist" label is a distraction, it should be jettisoned. It seems like the real question should be, Does our drug policy make sense? Are we helping or hurting the situation in our inner cities?
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Does our drug policy make sense? One of the all time most obvious rhetorical questions.
Given that Richard Nixon launched the "War on Drugs" back in 1970, we are now approaching the 40th anniversary of this campaign. A quick look at the scoreboard tells us that:
- drugs are still plentiful on our streets
- drug prices are cheaper than ever
- in all avenues of battle - interdiction, prevention, anti-drug use education - we are in retreat
There is not a single, positive measure of benefit from this war and the costs have not even begun to be tallied accurately. By any objective assessment, this war has failed.
Does an Obama administration present us with an opportunity for a drastic directional change - a new vector - in our approach to preventing drug use?
This entry reminded me of a video I just watched of Kenji Yoshino, a law professor at Yale, about "equality" arguments versus "liberty" arguments in terms of discrimination against gays and the disabled.
http://www.bigthink.com/identity/8199
I use the scare quotes because I think those are weird names for those arguments; It seems to be more like identity politics, which isn't always a bad thing, versus universalism.
Seeing that LA, Chicago, and NYC are all at 35-40 year lows in the number of homicides perhaps we should look to see what those cities are doing to reduce violence and examine any possible negatives (e.g. losses to civil liberties, economic costs, increase in police abuse etc.). As far as I can tell, these cities have used police solutions to reduce violence. I really don't see the public being all that open to criminal justice reforms right now. Even here in Oakland, one of the most left leaning places in the country, people want more cops because locally crime has been increasing the last few years.
I believe the system has racist bearings to it particularly when it's fueled with disdain for people of color and poor people. The majority of cops don't understand the culture of culprits they are trying to catch, most DAs stretch the law to get better conviction rates, most judges are former prosecutors and so on and so on. Not all cops, judges, prosecutors, etc., are racist but I think they end result just can't be justified by saying blacks have higher crime rates. Blacks and latinos are profiled and arrested more. Some of the arrests, not all, are unwarranted or don't fit what they've been charged with. This is not something I'm hypothetically pondering about. This is something I know. This is something I experienced. Like spending a night in jail because you've moved and the cop believes your lying about your current address. Like getting a jaywalking ticket after cops call you across the street to interogate you about a friend of yours. Like getting stopped repeatedly just so a cop can run your tags and check for warrants, regardless if you've done anything at all. Of course, these could all be coincidences and at the end of the day, I deal with them and move on. But I'm just saying don't give me that we don't have a racist problem we just have a black crime problem. We have both.
By the way, this blog is going to steal my heart with the MF Doom quote at the top. The supervillian!
Sorry. My inner hip-hop geek just showed himself. lol.
Obama has stayed well away from this issue during his run. You kinda putting blind faith into hoping ya boy Barack is gonna right the wrongs of the criminal justice system. I support Obama but am realistic about the brotha.
This post is a perfect example of why people like Al Sharpton are still relevant. Dumb niggas like Ta-Nehisi are so willing to concede off-the-wall arguments like Macdonald's in an attempt to be "mainstream" or "respectable," we need disreputable people like Sharpton to actually argue the truth.
I'll add (to my comment that got caught in the spam filter) that to understand this issue more, and that majorly backs up of all I wrote in my comment awaiting moderation which may or may not get posted I suppose, that laid out how our criminal justice system is most definitly racist as the result of 4 decades of Republican efforts to make it so for political advantage, read Nixonland by Rick Perlstein. Our racist criminal justice system is just one aspect/tactic/result of a political football game that has been being played in DC ever since Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and the Watts Riots in LA, and until now the GOP has been winning handily.
"Nixonland" One of the best books, ever. It'll open your eyes.
I can believe most of what the author of the article says. We do have a lot of brothers opting out of the mainstream and going the drug route to have a little something. Of course selling dope inevitably leads most to get involved in other criminal activity. It's just how the game goes. I've never been a big fan of the racist component of the argument. However, as far as the failure of the war on drugs goes, she failed to convince me that it isn't a major factor of disproportionate number of black men in jails. I think if we look at the specific cases we'll see a lot of that criminal activity stems from the illegal drug trade.