Hillary goes to Mexico
Am I missing something? If I told you that I have been eating artichokes regularly for forty years and everytime I eat one I get terribly sick, breakout in a rash and throw up and, by the way, I’m feeling hungry so excuse me while I eat some artichokes, you would think I was crazy, right? Well our Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just issued a very curious statement on the current situation in Mexico.
Drug cartels are feuding down there and there have been over 6000 deaths last year alone. In an attempt to restore order Mexican President Calderon has sent 45,000 troops to fight the cartels and still the death toll climbs. The cartels are fighting over their share of the US drug market which Secretary Clinton estimates as between 15 and 25 Billion dollars a year.
According to the Washington Post “Clinton went out of her way to accept U.S. responsibility for the problem” citing American’s “insatiable” demand for illegal drugs. She told reporters on the plane with her that “Clearly what we’ve been doing has not worked… It is unfair for our incapacity to have effective policies” on curbing drug use, narcotics shipments and the flow of guns “to be creating a situation where people are holding the Mexican government and people responsible. That’s not right.” She said, and this is an truly extraordinary admission for a high-ranking US government official, “Neither interdiction [of drugs] nor reducing demand have been successful… we have been pursuing these strategies for 30 years.” Wow! She’s hit the nail on the head. Our failed drug policy is the root cause of the situation in Mexico. That policy, by the way, is of course, the policy of drug prohibition.
Now comes the curious part… What does the Secretary recommend to end this violence and restore peace and stability to Mexico? Ending prohibition and legalizing drugs? Perhaps the smaller step of ending the prohibition just of marijuana? Here is her plan…
She is going to send more US agents to the border area to ensure that the violence doesn’t spread north. OK, a reasonable short-term plan to protect US citizens. She is also going to do what she can to stop the smuggling of American guns into Mexico. Now that’s a silly idea if I ever heard one. Does she really think that a gang of criminals that makes $20 billion a year in drug profits, owns submarines, RPG’s and beheads soldiers and police officers is going have trouble getting pistols? And, (here it comes)… she is going to speed up the implementation of former President Bush’s Merida Plan. That plan calls for $1.4 billion package of anti-drug assistance to Mexico and Central America… helicopters and other gear to stop the flow of drugs into the US by catching the bad guys. Now isn’t that the same thing she just said hasn’t worked for 30 years? This is a solution to the problems of Mexico… do the same things you just said haven’t worked for 30 years?
What’s that you say? I should stop eating artichokes if they make so sick. Sorry but what good would that do? I don’t see the connection… pass me that artichoke please.
Will Obama Continue the Policies that Fill Our Prisons?
While President Obama has taken some apparently positive steps toward reforming some of the terrible problems that have plagued our criminal justice system there are some that he seems intent on perpetuating. Certainly stopping the raids on state approved medical marijuana patients is a positive step, as is his choice of a drug czar who, based on his record as police chief of Seattle, is willing to accept harm reduction policies. Obama also has indicated his administration may review the idea of mandatory sentences, a major reason the US is number one in prisoners per capita in the world.
On the other hand, probably attributable to his vice-president’s advice, he has promised to bring back the Byrne Grant program cancelled by the Bush administration (Yes, Bush did do at least one thing right ) and the COPS program, similarly cancelled. Both these federal programs came out of the Clinton administration and were stronly supported by now Vice-president Biden.
Programs like COPS and the Byrne grants are at the heart of much that is wrong with the criminal justice system in America. The COPS program (Community Oriented Policing Services) provides funding for police departments to hire additional officers with the idea of enhancing community policing… the neighborhood cop walking the beat, knowing the community. etc. What it quickly became twisted into was funding that enabled every other village in the country to have its own SWAT team. Great.
The Byrne grant program provided funding for anti-drug multi-jurisdictional task forces to operate. The big problem with this program is that funds were allocated based on numbers of arrests prompting massive increases in drug arrests, many based on false testimony of informants. There is, what looks to be an excellent feature film on this coming out soon… take a look at this preview.
Of course you can guess what ethnic group is usually the recipient of these SWAT raids… If you don’t want to guess scroll down a couple of posts and take a look at the charts at How Come “the Land of the Free” Imprisons More People Than Anywhere Else On The Planet?
Radney Balko takes a thorough look at all this on the Agitator but so far the mainstream media has, naturally, missed this story. Of course DA’s and police like these programs and local politicians like to bring home the resulting pork but these programs are fuel for the fires that are burning both the Constitution and America’s financial solidity. These programs are more than a waste of money, they are very harmful and need to go. I hope Obama can find some less harmful role for his sidekick Biden than being his chief criminal justice advisor.
Baby Steps toward Rockefeller Drug Law Reform
Here in New York State everyone is happy that the Rockefeller Drug Laws are to be reformed. The papers tout the changes. Reform organizations are urging the Governor to sign the Assembly bill, should it pass the state senate. Republicans, no longer in the majority in that body have promised to accuse the Democrats of being soft on crime if the bill goes through without the changes they suggest. Sounds like a critically important reform bill is being fought over doesn’t it? Let’s take a look.
The bill under discussion, (A-6085), has it’s pros and cons. On the positive side it provides for restoring judicial discretion for broad categories of offenders, including all second felony drug offenders below the A-1 or A-2 levels∗ who do not have a violent offense in their history and who did not sell to a minor. This is, however, a strong point of contention to the Republicans who would prefer to allow a strange form of judicial discretion that would require the consent of the District Attorney. The judge would be able to exercise discretion as long as the prosecutor approves… that doesn’t sound like much of a change from the way things are currently. It also provides for several thousand inmates currently serving time to appeal their sentences retroactively.
The bill would also allow for diversion, at the judge’s discretion (see above) of certain drug offenders to treatment or shock incarceration (boot camp) in lieu of prison and provides additional funding for forced treatment - basically a choice between a harsher or a gentler sentence. Many categories of offenders are excluded from judicial diversion, for whom there can be no alternative penalties, and for whom mandatory sentencing provisions still apply:
- all A-1’s and A-2’s
- people with a violent felony conviction within the last 10 years
- those who sold to minors
As recommendations these exclusions might be OK however without real judicial discretion they mean that someone with a single violent offense when, for example, they were a teenager, and no subsequent offenses except a current non-violent drug offense nine years later, cannot get a break. People do mature out of certain types of behavior and a judge should have discretion on a case-by-case basis and not be restricted by some arbitrary time limits.
Another important shortcoming of the reform bill is that the main criterion for guilt is still the weight of drugs in people’s possession at time of arrest, not their role in the transaction. A low-level courier caught with significant weight could be sentenced to 20 years while the dealer who sent him on his mission, if caught, might get a considerably shorter sentence.
A stunning change is that the Assembly bill actually has a stiffer sentence than the original Rockefeller Laws had. Where the original law had a 25 to life sentence for “kingpins” the Assembly bill provides for a 30 to life sentence. Problem: The criterion for “kingpin” status is way too low. Someone who heads a criminal organization of as few as three people, has committed three felony sales, and realized $50,000 from those sales is considered a “kingpin” Get real folks. Such a person is, at best, a mid-level dealer in today’s drug market.
So what we have is step in the right direction, albeit a baby step. The public needs to be vocal about dumping these draconian drug statutes not because this alternative is anything like the solution to the problem but because our politicians need to know that the public cares. They need to hear that they will lose votes if they don’t act intelligently on drug reform. They need to know that they will be supported for moving in the right direction… even if, at first, they only take baby steps.
How Come “the Land of the Free” Imprisons More People Than Anywhere Else On The Planet?
How did this happen? The United States of America has a bigger percentage of its citizens behind bars than anywhere else… it must be a mistake. What about China? or Russia? Yup. More than China or Russia. No mistake.
So how did this happen? What’s driving this horrible situation? Are Americans just less law-abiding than Ukrainians or Cubans? Are we more violent? Do we steal more? It turns out that the high incarceration rate is largely the result of America’s tossing people into prison for long periods of time for, guess what?… Drug offenses. Look at the chart below:
The negative consequences of this incarceration rate are many. Aside from the obvious embarrassment in claiming both the nickname “the land of the free” and, simultaneously being number one in imprisoning its citizens this policy does incredible harm to the lives of those in prison and their families. And who are these people who are being locked up?
“Blacks eh…Well”, you say…” that’s because Blacks use more drugs than Whites.” Except that study after study show that Blacks and Whites use illegal drugs at almost identical rates. The astonishingly high percentage of Blacks in prison is due to two things - the aggressive policing of drug law violations in Black neighborhoods, and the higher number of Blacks who get prison sentences versus Whites who get parole.
The harm doesn’t stop there either. In the process of sending these people to prison families are broken up… the breadwinner is in prison so the Mom has to work more and that means less time for the kids. The kids grow up with very little parental guidance and are prime candidates to wind up in prison themselves when they get older.
Virginia Senator Jim Webb has promised to hold hearings on the record incarceration rate and you know what they will reveal as the driving force behind this problem… the war on drugs. Then we’ll see if our leaders will finally have the courage to end this brutal and ineffective policy or just continue to flex their muscles so they can look tough.
