7 ms·

"Tough on crime" was always a dog whistle to signal to (most) voters that politicians were willing to lock up minorities for comparably minor crimes. It's good

"Tough on crime" was always a dog whistle to signal to (most) voters that politicians were willing to lock up minorities for comparably minor crimes. It's good to see that the winds have shifted towards a more just system although there is a long way to go. I think there are many factors that contribute to this trend and would love to see a paper which goes into the details. I would bet that prosecutors have a lot to do with this. Prosecutors have so much power in our criminal justice system due to what charges they choose to bring forward.

yardie 8y ago
Tough on crime has gone out of style. We had our primaries recently and only a few conservative dinosaurs even mentioned ToC in their voter biography. Most of the candidates running for AD, circuit judge, and other legal offices were drumming up their crime intervention bonafides.
- rectang 8y ago
  Voter suppression through felony disenfranchisement, however, remains en vogue. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/09/florida-felons-want-their-voting-rights-restored/570103/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/09/florida... "In Florida, more than 21 percent of black adults are disenfranchised because of this policy."
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    Certain states are likely to remain relatively worse places for minorities, particularly blacks, to live. But the system is bent in this manner everywhere, including California. The diffference, of course, is that in Florida the voting populace has collectively decided that they like the way things currently work. Whereas in places like California, the voting populace is deciding for a lot of reasons that they don't like the current situation.
    - beat 8y ago
      Even the most backwards parts of the Deep South are just trailing, but they're on the same path. They'll catch up eventually. There was a time when lynch mobs were normal in the South.
  - fipple 8y ago
    Maybe don’t commit felonies?
    - djajshgsjja 8y ago
      It’s harder than it sounds! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594035229/ref=as_li_tl_nodl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1594035229&linkCode=as2&tag=dailywealth-20&linkId=CA5CXIZ6CIUVXAOK https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594035229/ref=as_li_tl_no...
  - Fjolsvith 8y ago
    They can move to Kansas where they could vote Republican.
    - Fjolsvith 8y ago
      Just saying...
  - LocalH 8y ago
    I never understood the mindset of "oh, this person committed a crime, let's disallow them from voting in the future". My opinion is, if society has decided that an individual does not get to exercise their right to vote, then they also should have no tax liability. No taxation without representation, and all that jazz. I guarantee you if they were forced to make the choice between the two, they'd immediately reinstate every felon's voting rights.
- 40acres 8y ago
  For sure, we are also starting to see more minority district attorneys and attorney generals. I don't have stats to back this up to sense a trend but America recently had their first black AG (Holder, Lynch) and California and New York have had minority AGs recently (Kamala Harris & Becerra for CA, NY recently elected Letitia James for the democratic nomination and she is likely to win the general)
- ataturk 8y ago
  It's fine to not run on "tough on crime" because it was always bs anyhow. HOWEVER, I am watching what has been going on in the large midwest cities near my home and the lack of enforcement is causing crime to soar. There are definite and measurable consequences to not letting police do their jobs. In my city, which is really just a large suburb, we have a guy up the street who is shooting guns at street signs from his back porch. There is a park and a church right behind where he is shooting. I brought this to the attention of the police as did another neighbor, but nothing has been done about it. I even showed them how I could tell where the bullets were coming from, it's not rocket science to see how each sign was hit at a certain angle. But no, I don't even think the cop was intelligent enough to understand what I told her. It's also sad that we have a former army vet who is drunk or on drugs and goes out and shoots at signs at night--no respect for his community, his neighbors, himself, or anyone. If it takes bringing back caning or whatever, it's a small price to pay for civilization to continue. And whether drugs are legal or not, they're a terrible idea, they will destroy your life the same as alcohol and cigarettes.
gascan 8y ago
This seems like revisionist history. From the seventies thru the beginning of the nineties, the national homicide rate was double to triple what it is today. We had real crime problems in the "Tough On Crime" era, and we were hitting record crime rates. A lazy Wiki snip: Violent crime nearly quadrupled between 1960 and its peak in 1991. Property crime more than doubled over the same period. Since the 1990s, however, crime in the United States has declined steeply. I'm sure there was probably always some racial influences, e.g. perhaps people were more willing to hand out harsh sentences because the defendants were mostly black. But to say that "Tough On Crime" was really just a cover to marginalize african americans & nothing more... it just seems like a stretch when you suggest everyone was in on it.
- alphabettsy 8y ago
  There are a lot of things to consider, including what you consider a crime. I read one article that described how because of the increase in police presence in schools students were more often being handled by the criminal justice system like the common school fight, that would’ve otherwise not been included in assault statistics in the past. During the crack epidemic many small offenses, such as petty theft were being punished harshly and used as an excuse to put more resources towards the war on drugs rather than diversion and treatment.
- diob 8y ago
  I really encourage you to read The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Hand waving away racial influences is convenient to some, but definitely not to those affected by it. If you look into the statistics, you'll see that primarily minority communities were targeted by the "tough on crime" era. And these touted "tough on crime" policies only had the effect of enslaving and crippling generations of minority communities. The crime rates are nearly similar among all races, and it's actually been shown that whites use more drugs than minorities. The thing is though, police don't patrol white communities. They also let white people off the hook. If you're not white though, the tradition is "one strike" (see Bill Clinton's damning policy). Hence, you get in trouble for something any kid might do at 16, and you get locked into a system of control and degradation for the rest of your life. Please, please, please, do not defend the dark parts of American history. Especially when they're still going on.
zdragnar 8y ago
> "Tough on crime" was always a dog whistle to signal to (most) voters that politicians were willing to lock up minorities for comparably minor crimes. I think race in these discussions is a poor stand-in for the reality of the situation. It's convenient, because it's much more easily quantifiable than culture, and we in the US had laws calling out race until ~55 years ago. But, looking at today, cultural mores and attitudes are the more dominant factor. Even liberal Minnesota has the highest (or one of) achievement gaps in education. Part is the high influx of immigrants, which introduces a lot of second-language barriers, but not all. See https://www.twincities.com/2017/08/18/15-years-later-mn-schools-are-more-segregated-and-achievement-gap-has-barely-budged/ https://www.twincities.com/2017/08/18/15-years-later-mn-scho... Looking at very rural, very white areas, you see very similar bad outcomes WRT education and crime. Some companies are willing to pay very good wages for workers, and are very short on staff, but cannot hire because so many of the candidates fail a drug test or won't take one. A teacher I know in rural Iowa has white children in kindergarten who know (and use) more swear words than most adults, and their parents (if they know more than one of them) have little interest in encouraging achievement in school. They'd rather blame the teacher for the child's bad behavior and grades. Tough on crime was a misguided attempt to change the culture of drugs and violence. That culture is still glorified in popular music, and fueled by poverty. It destroys the potential for hope, and so leads to more hopelessness, which fuels the culture. Yes, race plays a factor in all of this, but it's not the only factor, and I suspect (though know not where or even if it is possible to gather) that culture plays a far more significant role. I know several people who believe (or believed) in "Tough on Crime" and not one of them did so because of race, or to lock up minorities for minor crimes. They see families in their community torn apart by drugs and violence, drunk driving, and so on, and want it to stop. Edit: I read / skimmed the article, and realized it mentioned growing segregation, but failed to mention an experiment run by Eden Prairie and Minneapolis, where students could voluntarily switch schools in an effort to de-segregate. The results were that those who took advantage of the switch were black students moving from suburban to urban schools, and minority white students in urban schools going out to the suburbs.
- taurath 8y ago
  > Tough on crime was a misguided attempt to change the culture of drugs and violence. - Why is violence a sibling of drugs? - Why do people feel the need to take drugs? I think you're right that poverty is the problem, and its not only the "culture" of poverty to blame for it. The criminal justice system upholds poverty as a way of life by mass incarcerations of working-age people rather than treatment and rehabilitation. The lack of any social real safety net also upholds poverty - an entire town can be devastated by an arbitrary boardroom decision.

yardie 8y ago

Tough on crime has gone out of style. We had our primaries recently and only a few conservative dinosaurs even mentioned ToC in their voter biography. Most of the candidates running for AD, circuit judge, and other legal offices were drumming up their crime intervention bonafides.

rectang 8y ago
Voter suppression through felony disenfranchisement, however, remains en vogue. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/09/florida-felons-want-their-voting-rights-restored/570103/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/09/florida... "In Florida, more than 21 percent of black adults are disenfranchised because of this policy."
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  Certain states are likely to remain relatively worse places for minorities, particularly blacks, to live. But the system is bent in this manner everywhere, including California. The diffference, of course, is that in Florida the voting populace has collectively decided that they like the way things currently work. Whereas in places like California, the voting populace is deciding for a lot of reasons that they don't like the current situation.
  - beat 8y ago
    Even the most backwards parts of the Deep South are just trailing, but they're on the same path. They'll catch up eventually. There was a time when lynch mobs were normal in the South.
- fipple 8y ago
  Maybe don’t commit felonies?
  - djajshgsjja 8y ago
    It’s harder than it sounds! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594035229/ref=as_li_tl_nodl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1594035229&linkCode=as2&tag=dailywealth-20&linkId=CA5CXIZ6CIUVXAOK https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594035229/ref=as_li_tl_no...
- Fjolsvith 8y ago
  They can move to Kansas where they could vote Republican.
  - Fjolsvith 8y ago
    Just saying...
- LocalH 8y ago
  I never understood the mindset of "oh, this person committed a crime, let's disallow them from voting in the future". My opinion is, if society has decided that an individual does not get to exercise their right to vote, then they also should have no tax liability. No taxation without representation, and all that jazz. I guarantee you if they were forced to make the choice between the two, they'd immediately reinstate every felon's voting rights.
40acres 8y ago
For sure, we are also starting to see more minority district attorneys and attorney generals. I don't have stats to back this up to sense a trend but America recently had their first black AG (Holder, Lynch) and California and New York have had minority AGs recently (Kamala Harris & Becerra for CA, NY recently elected Letitia James for the democratic nomination and she is likely to win the general)
ataturk 8y ago
It's fine to not run on "tough on crime" because it was always bs anyhow. HOWEVER, I am watching what has been going on in the large midwest cities near my home and the lack of enforcement is causing crime to soar. There are definite and measurable consequences to not letting police do their jobs. In my city, which is really just a large suburb, we have a guy up the street who is shooting guns at street signs from his back porch. There is a park and a church right behind where he is shooting. I brought this to the attention of the police as did another neighbor, but nothing has been done about it. I even showed them how I could tell where the bullets were coming from, it's not rocket science to see how each sign was hit at a certain angle. But no, I don't even think the cop was intelligent enough to understand what I told her. It's also sad that we have a former army vet who is drunk or on drugs and goes out and shoots at signs at night--no respect for his community, his neighbors, himself, or anyone. If it takes bringing back caning or whatever, it's a small price to pay for civilization to continue. And whether drugs are legal or not, they're a terrible idea, they will destroy your life the same as alcohol and cigarettes.

gascan 8y ago

This seems like revisionist history. From the seventies thru the beginning of the nineties, the national homicide rate was double to triple what it is today. We had real crime problems in the "Tough On Crime" era, and we were hitting record crime rates. A lazy Wiki snip: Violent crime nearly quadrupled between 1960 and its peak in 1991. Property crime more than doubled over the same period. Since the 1990s, however, crime in the United States has declined steeply. I'm sure there was probably always some racial influences, e.g. perhaps people were more willing to hand out harsh sentences because the defendants were mostly black. But to say that "Tough On Crime" was really just a cover to marginalize african americans & nothing more... it just seems like a stretch when you suggest everyone was in on it.

alphabettsy 8y ago
There are a lot of things to consider, including what you consider a crime. I read one article that described how because of the increase in police presence in schools students were more often being handled by the criminal justice system like the common school fight, that would’ve otherwise not been included in assault statistics in the past. During the crack epidemic many small offenses, such as petty theft were being punished harshly and used as an excuse to put more resources towards the war on drugs rather than diversion and treatment.
diob 8y ago
I really encourage you to read The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Hand waving away racial influences is convenient to some, but definitely not to those affected by it. If you look into the statistics, you'll see that primarily minority communities were targeted by the "tough on crime" era. And these touted "tough on crime" policies only had the effect of enslaving and crippling generations of minority communities. The crime rates are nearly similar among all races, and it's actually been shown that whites use more drugs than minorities. The thing is though, police don't patrol white communities. They also let white people off the hook. If you're not white though, the tradition is "one strike" (see Bill Clinton's damning policy). Hence, you get in trouble for something any kid might do at 16, and you get locked into a system of control and degradation for the rest of your life. Please, please, please, do not defend the dark parts of American history. Especially when they're still going on.

zdragnar 8y ago

> "Tough on crime" was always a dog whistle to signal to (most) voters that politicians were willing to lock up minorities for comparably minor crimes. I think race in these discussions is a poor stand-in for the reality of the situation. It's convenient, because it's much more easily quantifiable than culture, and we in the US had laws calling out race until ~55 years ago. But, looking at today, cultural mores and attitudes are the more dominant factor. Even liberal Minnesota has the highest (or one of) achievement gaps in education. Part is the high influx of immigrants, which introduces a lot of second-language barriers, but not all. See https://www.twincities.com/2017/08/18/15-years-later-mn-schools-are-more-segregated-and-achievement-gap-has-barely-budged/ https://www.twincities.com/2017/08/18/15-years-later-mn-scho... Looking at very rural, very white areas, you see very similar bad outcomes WRT education and crime. Some companies are willing to pay very good wages for workers, and are very short on staff, but cannot hire because so many of the candidates fail a drug test or won't take one. A teacher I know in rural Iowa has white children in kindergarten who know (and use) more swear words than most adults, and their parents (if they know more than one of them) have little interest in encouraging achievement in school. They'd rather blame the teacher for the child's bad behavior and grades. Tough on crime was a misguided attempt to change the culture of drugs and violence. That culture is still glorified in popular music, and fueled by poverty. It destroys the potential for hope, and so leads to more hopelessness, which fuels the culture. Yes, race plays a factor in all of this, but it's not the only factor, and I suspect (though know not where or even if it is possible to gather) that culture plays a far more significant role. I know several people who believe (or believed) in "Tough on Crime" and not one of them did so because of race, or to lock up minorities for minor crimes. They see families in their community torn apart by drugs and violence, drunk driving, and so on, and want it to stop. Edit: I read / skimmed the article, and realized it mentioned growing segregation, but failed to mention an experiment run by Eden Prairie and Minneapolis, where students could voluntarily switch schools in an effort to de-segregate. The results were that those who took advantage of the switch were black students moving from suburban to urban schools, and minority white students in urban schools going out to the suburbs.

taurath 8y ago
> Tough on crime was a misguided attempt to change the culture of drugs and violence. - Why is violence a sibling of drugs? - Why do people feel the need to take drugs? I think you're right that poverty is the problem, and its not only the "culture" of poverty to blame for it. The criminal justice system upholds poverty as a way of life by mass incarcerations of working-age people rather than treatment and rehabilitation. The lack of any social real safety net also upholds poverty - an entire town can be devastated by an arbitrary boardroom decision.