The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

Carrington — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:31:30 -0000

I'm a conservative in that I am 'tough on crime' and I believe that crimes against society must be punished severely.

However, as a conservative, I believe that the worst capital crimes are committed by those who betray the trust of the society and the state.

A conservative's reason for a lightly-policed society: there are fewer opportunities for the kind of socially-corrosive corruption that (inevitably) arises because it is so difficult to "watch the watchers."

But this is the reasoning of a conservative who, in essence, believes in the doctrine of original sin.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

Yakub's Dream — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:21:28 -0000

Does anyone think that the disparity in the arrest statistics between white and black drug offenders has anything to do with all the drug-related murders that take place in black communities? The imprisonment rate also has a great deal to do with this, since police are trying to get people to roll over on higher-ups.

5-0 be down here about the bodies.

I'm no defender of the police or the drug war, which if anything creates the black market that is the impetus behind a lot of these murders, but you can't expect the drug-related murders to not draw increased police attention to where they take place, which is overwhelmingly in black neighborhoods. That will inevitably lead to a higher arrest rate, and many of those arrests will inevitably be made with the intention of moving up the supply chain, which will make cops/prosecutors far less inclined to cut deals when they are trying to use jail time as a stick to elicit information on criminals involved in serious violence.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

Eduardo — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:15:24 -0000

I don't equate this lack of empathy with "subconscious" action. Not caring, by choice or inability, in this case stems from an active (willful) refusal to critique one's surrounding environment

Uhmmm... you are right. I also think that many people get a kick out of "theming" other groups not realizing that indirectly --and sometimes not so indirectly-- they are f__ing up themselves.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

Calvin Jones and the 13th Apos — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:47:05 -0000

Ross always sees the world from the perspective of a gated community.

There. Fixed it for you.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

Sorn — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:33:03 -0000

Mr. C.

The day before yesterday, you had a post about the wealth gap. Today you had an interesting post about the war on crime/drugs. It seems to me that these two issues are related. In America we seem to lock people up for comitting crimes rather than pay attention to the poverty that leads to crime.

On a side note it seems to me that the war on drugs is misdirected. I grew up on a dry reservation, and people drank lysol/aquanet hairspay to get high. No amount of legislation will change people's behavior, however if the poverty that causes such conditions is dealt with it seems that people's behavior changes naturally.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

Lee — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:44:23 -0000

I found this in the WaPo, a more recent article than the one I read previously. Maybe it's worth mentioning that the cop was also african american- it shouldn't matter, but for whatever reason it's not what I thought when I first heard the story.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/20/AR2007062001058.html

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

Lee — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:27:17 -0000

Carlton Jones was the cop- I googled the story. The prosecutor's office threw out every criminal case where he was a key witness, saying he was not credible. The family got a 3.5 million dollar civil verdict but no criminal case was ever brought. The cop is apparently now doing desk work of some sort. Prosecutors can't bring a criminal case unless they think there is enough hard evidence for a conviction, which can be difficult, and maybe they really couldn't get the necessary evidence for a criminal conviction on this. But it is clear that this dude should have been FIRED, not sent to do desk work. If I "accidentally" killed an innocent person while doing my job, it resulted in $3.5 million loss to my employer, and it became so well known that I was a liar that the people relying on me at work had to throw out every project I had ever touched, I know for damn sure they wouldn't just assign me to a different division. This is insane.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

shahid — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:25:52 -0000

I got to disagree with you on the tough on crime approach - not only does it essentially turn out to be tough on black people, but it also is a bootleg kind of argument. I mean, the reality is that in the US there haven't been effective measures to counteract crime and the things that lead to them. If you look at the system, you realize that it's the same model for the past 140 years. Going back to the Parchman Farm things have not changed. Americans might believe this is a working situation, but it's primarily because they read the recidivism numbers as a product of the inherent criminality of the incarcerated, instead of as a result of a system that largely exacerbates existing problems.

You can take it to the juvenile justice front. Despite evidence showing that alternative means of treatment are more effective and cost efficient, across the country as the budgets tighten, the lock em and cuff approach is being reinforced. The thing about what Ross wrote is that it wasn't at all nuanced, it didn't explore the alternatives and it wasn't aimed at creating discussion around things that might be working. This technique is another way of framing the discussion so that your answer seems to be the only one. I think you did the same thing, though I don't think it was intentional, as much as, most of us don't have access to the information about these issues and the alternatives. The Annie Casey Foundation does great work around this and so does the Campaign for Youth Justice - although they both focus on the juvenile system they use fact and result based research that is verifiable.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

Galen Kim Davis — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:18:19 -0000

Prince Jones was a high school classmate of mine. Anyone who had any contact with him at all knew the idea that he was some drug dealer who needed to be followed across state lines was patently absurd. Whatever the situation, if a suspect represents such a high risk to the public that following him across jurisdictions is justified, then his detention warrants setting up a roadblock or at least capturing him with a team of police officers, not a lone officer.

Unfortunately, this type of police behavior is not unusual. The Agitator reports enough incidents to make me perpetually angry. If Prince was Douthat's friend, he'd probably have a different attitude.

The silver lining, though terribly thin, is that Prince's death offended every one who ever knew him. There are a lot of non-black people who now know, in an undeniable way, that this bullshit exists and it stinks something fierce. It's easy to remain unaware of stuff like this -- we have our lives with spouses, kids, jobs, etc. But when you hear that someone you liked and respected, someone you know is fundamentally good, is killed for no good reason and no one is held accountable for it, anger ensues. Hopefully that anger is the seed of change and we start cleaning some of this shit up.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

Fishbulb — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:17:17 -0000

Maybe one of the reasons why conservatives have so much more credibility on crime is the need for liberals to frame it as a racial issue. Of course disparities in enforcement and sentencing exist, but most of the American public doesn't believe that this is because of racism in the law itself, not just the biases of cops, jurors, and judges. There isn't a feasible policy that can deal with the latter.

I would argue that this racial view of crime is what feeds black distrust of the criminal justice system. This is in irrational distrust, in my view, to the extent that it causes ordinary people to celebrate the murder of police officers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/us/22oakland.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=oakland%20police&st=cse

Criminals are a blight on any community, black or white. Most victims are the same race as the perpetrators. Identifying and punishing police misconduct is certainly necessary, but fostering an us-vs.-them mentality towards law enforcement is unhealthy and self-defeating. I don't think there are many people in the inner city who long for a return to the 80's.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

Donald — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:10:28 -0000

The police officer was allegedly looking for a drug dealer--a short man with long dreads. Prince was about 6'3 and wore a low caesar. The officer and Prince ended up in a confrontation, merely yards away from the home of Prince's girlfriend. He produced no badge, just a gun and a claim that he was a cop. Prince didn't believe him (and without a badge, I wouldn't have either) and rammed the guy's car. The cop shot Prince eight times, killing him.
...
The only thing he shared in common with the drug-dealer the cops were seeking out was color. Despite a botched operation, that spanned three jurisdictions, and resulted in the death of an innocent man, and orphaned a girl who will have no memories of her father, the officer was neither prosecuted, nor bounced off the force.

Honestly TNC, I think you'd be perfectly justified, and probably doing a public service, to publicize the name of the police officer who did this.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

Jay A — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:10:22 -0000

Wish I would have jumped in on this discussion before...

I've commented before on the topic of prison reform, and while I agree generally with the sentiment primarily voiced here against the "war on drugs", I think that it tends to be oversimplified in the comments.

As a previous commenter noted, plea bargains skew the statistics on the drug possession versus drug dealing charges. I'm a therapist in a medium-security prison and have worked with lots of guys down on drug cases. I think the notion that there are a lot of guys locked up on drug possession cases who were just drug addicts is false. I would say, anecdotally speaking, that most of the guys I work with that have drug cases were dealing. Often they were dealing to support their own habit, but nevertheless...

What is more common with the addicts is that they get arrested for theft, residential entry, battery, etc. That list includes violent and non-violent offenses.

The whole criminal justice/corrections system handling of drugs is a mess. I agree with the majority of what is said here about it, but I think we need to realize that the diagnosis of the problem is not as simple as it often is portrayed here.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

zic — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:47:31 -0000

And on that logic, what happens when you release young men after they've been locked up with real criminals for a few years?

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

irishpirate — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:47:59 -0000

Part of the problem with this discussion is the word "conservatives".

The saner, libertarian conservatives of the Goldwaterian variety might suggest changes in criminal justice policy and ending the "drug war", but the "Christianist" moralist base of the party would oppose it. Just like they want to regulate or prohibit various forms of sexual expression that offend them.

I'm old enough to remember the beginnings of the "broken windows" theory of policing.

These discussions have been going on for 25 years+. Calling anything a "war" outside of an actual war is stupid. "The War on Fat". "The War on Poverty". "The War on the Use of the Term War".

When guys like George Schultz and the late William F Buckley suggest legalizing or decriminalizing drug use the country needs to listen.

When you look at the problems caused by the drug war in Mexico the true blame lies not with the Mexican government, but with the United States government and the voracious appetite of the American people for drugs. Legalize drugs, regulate and tax the sale, and treat it like a public health problem.

There is a debate going on in the Illinois legislature about legalizing medical marijuana. The arguments being made against it by the law enforcement community and the moralist community are both wrong and laughable.

I'm going to grab a drink now. Thankfully that is still legal.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

Sime — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:33:25 -0000

To be fair, Ross Douthat doesn't mix up correlation with causality, stating:

most scholars agree that increased incarceration played a substantial role in the plunging crime rates of the 1990s.

The key word here is "incapacitation", meaning the potential criminals didn't commit crimes because they were locked up. I wouldn't say this can't have an effect on the statistics on short-term. Imprison your young men and crimes might drop. But what does that say about your society? Isn't having your young men out of prison an end in itself?

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

Sebastian H — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:15:18 -0000

I think there is a distinction that could be made between the vindication of a get tough on crime policy and a vindiciation of the drug policy.

I think they are related in our minds, but separate in reality. The get tough approach on violent crime really does seem to be a success--violent crime was way down after the shift in punishing philosophy in the 1980s.

The adoption of that same approach to low level drug crimes, however, seems disproportionate if not downright crazy. And it furthermore it seems very unsuccessful in dramatically lowering the amount of drugs available.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

Andrew Nichols — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:31:30 -0000

I wish I could plaster "correlation does not imply causality" all over the internet. It just doesn't, as any cursory study of statistics will drill into your head. TNC isn't conceding anything by agreeing that there has been a correlation; that is a question of fact.

Things get interesting when someone tries to take two trends that occurred over the same time period (a correlation) and attempt to say that one caused the other, as Ross is doing. It's wrong, and virtually impossible to prove one way or the other, given the vast amount of policies created, not to mention demographic/cultural/economic changes. It's when people try to make the claim that a correlation necessarily implies a cause that they need to be challenged. Their argument is seldom based on anything other than their own preconceptions about "how the world works."

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

DougEMI — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:16:08 -0000

This might be the wrong blog to make this confession on, but I have never seen The Wire.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

R.oB. — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:09:40 -0000

I think Ross (though I can't be sure) sees the ends justifying the means. But the means are disproportionately born by people who live far away from those "Nixon to China" conservatives.

And that's what I tell my white friends, when I see cops get off for killing innocent black men. It's a tragedy, etc. But this is all a jury predisposed to cops (white? suburban?) needs for a not guilty verdict. Me and my son have to bear that burden for others. We can be legally murdered "by accident" or "out of fear for one's life" by the police. It's harsh to say. And I got heat for putting that way. But that's real. I merely had to list the newspaper accounts for recent happenings for proof. Stuff that happened to me and mine was thankfully was non-fatal so the examples were not as compelling.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

CitizenE — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:08:31 -0000

From Forbes Magazine:

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2006/0424/034.html--

"Some states have turned to for-profit firms to run their prisons. But these private firms quickly get addicted to the government cash. They, too, have poor rehabilitation rates and spend their time lobbying state legislatures for tougher laws and longer sentences.

If you want to take on a big, failing, self-dealing bureaucracy that succeeds (and grows) by betraying the public interest, don't focus on the welfare system. Deal with the prison system. California spends $7.4 billion a year on prisons, more than on all its four-year colleges and universities combined. Nearly a dime out of every state dollar goes into California prisons, which house 170,000 inmates. What return do Californians get on their investment? An alarming 57% recidivism rate.

How can we justify continuing to spend $40,000 to $100,000 annually per inmate in neighborhoods where we spend less than $9,000 per pupil?"

And this article does not substantially take on the "free labor" aspect of some prison industries in other states discussed in the first paragraph above. As with so much conservative mind think, the front ideology masks a reality that is institutionally classist and racist, and universally bankrupting morally and economically.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

Tony Comstock — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:08:10 -0000

The other thing I have with "Well it worked didn't it?" coming from Douchat is that he makes quite a spectacle of his Christianity. Yet over and over again in his opinions about this or that, he seems utterly oblivious to Jesus most profound sermon: love thy neighbor as thyself. He speaks from within a theoretical world of his own construction with apparent obliviousness to the reality of the flesh and blood lives about which he opines.

I am not a fan, and thus not particularly familiar with his writing. But sometimes it seems as if greatest horror he has experienced is being subject to the amorous advances of a chubby co-ed; and for all his intellectual imagination, he reads like a savant with a gift of rhetoric, but with no emotional curiosity, let alone empathy.

"Well it worked, didn't it?"

It certainly worked for me. Where I live I leave my house unlocked and the key in the ignition of my car, and it's lovely. But I don't confuse my experience with being the typical experience, and I try to remember another bit of wisdom from Douchat's guru:

"Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

Rottin' in Denmark — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:52:32 -0000

There's a means/ends issue here. Even if it was demonstrably true that our current crime policies had significantly lowered the crime rate, the benefits have to be weighed against the true costs.

The crime rate would drop pretty low if, for example, the US incarcerated every single individual from their 14th birthday until their 30th. Crying 'But look how safe we are!' wouldn't remotely justify the moral or economic costs of such an arrangement.

Imprisoning 1 percent of your citizens, disproportionately those of an already marginalized majority, can't be justified no matter how low the crime rate is.

More anecdotally, my mom always tells the story of her black dental receptionist, who one day realized she had left her driver's license at home and made her husband take the afternoon off work to pick it up and drive it to the dental office for her. My mom would have just driven home licence-less, and tried to explain her mistake to the police officer if she got pulled over. But the receptionist was *terrified* of being pulled over without a license.

Not as dramatic a story as TNC's, but somewhat of a wakeup call to a suburban white kid who grew up taking for granted that the cops were more or less on the same team as him.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

shelli nelson — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:45:52 -0000

first time poster here. ta-nehisi -- i just wanted to comment on the tragedy of prince jones. i lived in dc for many years, and was in the area when prince was bascialy executed. i was stunned that the cop, who recklessly and illegally pursued your friend through 3 jurisdictions, was never charged with any wrongdoing at all.

i am a recovering alcoholic and have watched with horror over the years as a medical and social problem (addiction) has become criminalized -- and yes, there is an unjust, purposeful focus on the black community.

i would like to see and end to the mindless "war on drugs" which does nothing but claim many lives that could have been helped with medical intervention.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

geehosophat — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:05:50 -0000

I guess I would admit that "they" (those that have advanced these drug/crime policies) may honestly not view Blacks as subjects of social experimentation. I can agree with your point there. But, here we are discussing a body of evidence that suggest that for decades, and across all measures of success and viability, these programs (experiments) have not only failed, but have had a disastrous impact upon these communities.

To extrapolate our shared view that the Black community is seen as foreign (even by those within it - I'll agree with you there too), how are these policies, with their attendent economic and moral costs, continued?

One point I will disagree with - I don't equate this lack of empathy with "subconscious" action. Not caring, by choice or inability, in this case stems from an active (willful) refusal to critique one's surrounding environment. This is why I made the sincere apology for my generalization. Many people (many whites) have exhibited the courage to challenge prevailing thought within the larger discourse. Far too many have not.

Re: Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

Sime — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:59:33 -0000

The Committee on Understanding Crime Rates' 2008-Workshop Report seems to indicate that the most valuable answer to the question why crime rates have fallen is: One doesn't know for sure. The shift in democraphics is certainly a factor, but "producing less young men" is not exactly an attractive political platfrom to run with, of course.

However, from a European perspective, an incarceration rate of 1/100 adults seems to be a failure per se. Not exactly a result that would help you bulid up much Crime Policy-credibility.