4 ms·

Summary: gibberish >it’s not primarily the War on Drugs that’s driving this beast. Instead, it’s an all-out assault that “extends a brute egalitarianism across

by dandare 10y ago

Summary: gibberish >it’s not primarily the War on Drugs that’s driving this beast. Instead, it’s an all-out assault that “extends a brute egalitarianism across the board.” What that does even mean?

jbrackett 10y ago
My interpretation is that they trying to make the point that it's not just the "War on Drugs" that is causing this massive spike in prison population but is instead being driven by increasing penalties across the board, including increasing the number serving life, stated or otherwise, without possibility of parole. They make this point while acknowledging that the "War on Drugs" does disproportionately affect African Americans and women. Throughout the article they make several statements that indicate to me they think there should be more discretion allowed on deciding which punitive actions should be taken.
- jacobush 10y ago
  My take-away is that not only has some discretion been dis-allowed, but that some discretion is still allowed but stays unused, for some reason. Tough-on-crime and all that.
- cnnsucks 10y ago
  > more discretion Discretion is a big part of how we ended up with "three strikes" and mandatory minimums. People have not forgotten the outrageous abuses of discretion that were common in the '70s and '80s; activist judges abusing their discretion are not a figment of the right wing knuckle dragger imagination and it was routine for some judge to create a headline with lenient sentences that offended all sensibility. The problem extends to prosecutorial discretion as well; this [1] sort of headline from this past Wednesday -- again illustrating the failure of the justice system and reinforcing our current state of affairs -- is still very common and does not escape notice, no matter how much you might wish it would. Then you have the abuses we see on the national stage regarding "prosecutorial discretion" in immigration policy, selective prosecution of violations of classified information handling we've seen recently, and many, many others. It only takes a few activist judges or prosecutors to polarize an electorate. Right or wrong that's the actual world we live in and ignoring that reality won't ever work. [1] http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/drunk-driving/thirteen-time-loser-174935 http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/drunk-driving/thirteen-t...
saint_fiasco 10y ago
"Brute egalitarianism" means giving everyone the same sentence without case-by-case consideration. For example zero-tolerance, mandatory sentencing, not doing pardons anymore, not releasing people on parole when they behave well and so on.
- jacobush 10y ago
  I also struggled with that "brute egalitarianism" phrasing but settled for what you said. I also speculated that it might mean that the same punishment ("LIFETIME. NO PAROLE. "THREE STRIKES AND YOU ARE OUT.") is given for a bunch of unrelated trivial crap crimes. 1. Drunk driving (no victim of course) 2. Evading arrest 3. Apparently you had sex with your girlfriend when you both were 15. Welcome to Oz, citizen! Oh, you can no longer vote, so forget that "citizen" part.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  That's not a real thing. Pardons and commutation still exist, parole exists and is regularly used (not in the federal system, but the vast majority of criminal prosecution is state-level prosecution); mandatory minimums exist, as do some zero-tolerance policies, but those policies are selectively enforced and mandatory minimums aren't mandatory equal sentences and don't stop selective choice of charges. There is no brute egalitarianism in the criminal justice and, in fact, enforcement is radically unequal on both racial and class bases. Also, the area where the policies linked to that alleged "brute egalitarianism" are most prominent are drug offenses and areas related to violence against police officers sold largely by the violence in the war on drugs, so even if they did produce a "brute egalitarianism" it wouldn't be "across the board", it would still stem directly from the war on drugs.
  - jacobush 10y ago
    What is not a real thing? The article argues (correctly or incorrectly?!) that while parole etc still exists, the leeway which still exists in the system, is increasingly used to stop parole, judge the harshest sentence allowed by law, etc. That the leeway in the past was more often used the other way. Consider attenuating circumstances etc.

by dandare 10y ago

jbrackett 10y ago

My interpretation is that they trying to make the point that it's not just the "War on Drugs" that is causing this massive spike in prison population but is instead being driven by increasing penalties across the board, including increasing the number serving life, stated or otherwise, without possibility of parole. They make this point while acknowledging that the "War on Drugs" does disproportionately affect African Americans and women. Throughout the article they make several statements that indicate to me they think there should be more discretion allowed on deciding which punitive actions should be taken.

jacobush 10y ago
My take-away is that not only has some discretion been dis-allowed, but that some discretion is still allowed but stays unused, for some reason. Tough-on-crime and all that.
cnnsucks 10y ago
> more discretion Discretion is a big part of how we ended up with "three strikes" and mandatory minimums. People have not forgotten the outrageous abuses of discretion that were common in the '70s and '80s; activist judges abusing their discretion are not a figment of the right wing knuckle dragger imagination and it was routine for some judge to create a headline with lenient sentences that offended all sensibility. The problem extends to prosecutorial discretion as well; this [1] sort of headline from this past Wednesday -- again illustrating the failure of the justice system and reinforcing our current state of affairs -- is still very common and does not escape notice, no matter how much you might wish it would. Then you have the abuses we see on the national stage regarding "prosecutorial discretion" in immigration policy, selective prosecution of violations of classified information handling we've seen recently, and many, many others. It only takes a few activist judges or prosecutors to polarize an electorate. Right or wrong that's the actual world we live in and ignoring that reality won't ever work. [1] http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/drunk-driving/thirteen-time-loser-174935 http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/drunk-driving/thirteen-t...

saint_fiasco 10y ago

"Brute egalitarianism" means giving everyone the same sentence without case-by-case consideration. For example zero-tolerance, mandatory sentencing, not doing pardons anymore, not releasing people on parole when they behave well and so on.

jacobush 10y ago
I also struggled with that "brute egalitarianism" phrasing but settled for what you said. I also speculated that it might mean that the same punishment ("LIFETIME. NO PAROLE. "THREE STRIKES AND YOU ARE OUT.") is given for a bunch of unrelated trivial crap crimes. 1. Drunk driving (no victim of course) 2. Evading arrest 3. Apparently you had sex with your girlfriend when you both were 15. Welcome to Oz, citizen! Oh, you can no longer vote, so forget that "citizen" part.
dragonwriter 10y ago
That's not a real thing. Pardons and commutation still exist, parole exists and is regularly used (not in the federal system, but the vast majority of criminal prosecution is state-level prosecution); mandatory minimums exist, as do some zero-tolerance policies, but those policies are selectively enforced and mandatory minimums aren't mandatory equal sentences and don't stop selective choice of charges. There is no brute egalitarianism in the criminal justice and, in fact, enforcement is radically unequal on both racial and class bases. Also, the area where the policies linked to that alleged "brute egalitarianism" are most prominent are drug offenses and areas related to violence against police officers sold largely by the violence in the war on drugs, so even if they did produce a "brute egalitarianism" it wouldn't be "across the board", it would still stem directly from the war on drugs.
- jacobush 10y ago
  What is not a real thing? The article argues (correctly or incorrectly?!) that while parole etc still exists, the leeway which still exists in the system, is increasingly used to stop parole, judge the harshest sentence allowed by law, etc. That the leeway in the past was more often used the other way. Consider attenuating circumstances etc.