George Will is the king of common sense.  Why, he asks, are we hearing so little talk about the failings of the criminal justice system these days?  Why is the New York Times no longer lamenting the combination of rising incarceration rates and falling crime rates?  It’s simple common sense: the crime rate is falling because we are locking up so many people.

It’s hard to argue.  If we locked up every last American the crime rate would disappear altogether, right.  So why are we surprised that the incarceration of a mere 2 million people is taking a bite out of crime?

George Will is right about one thing: there isn’t much public debate about crime and incarceration these days. 

For reform advocates like Friends of Justice, this silence is ominous.  Our goal is to get people talking about these matters. 

Will suggests that the conservatives have crushed their liberal critics so convincingly that there is no longer anything to talk about.

It’s a lot more complicated than that. 

This is an election season.  Mr. Will uses Barack Obama as his whipping boy in his influential essay “More prisons, less crime” (published in the Washington Post and reprinted copiously).  Obama says more young black males are in prison than in college (Will says it ain’t so).  Obama complains that sentences for selling crack cocaine (the preferred drug of street addicts) are much higher than those for powdered cocaine (a rich man’s drug).  Will says (correctly) that this is only true in the federal system, so what’s the big deal?

But the quotes from Barack Obama are becoming dated.  These days, the Democratic presidential nominee isn’t talking much about our failed criminal justice system.  The closer we get to election day, the deeper the silence will grow. 

On the other hand, you won’t hear John McCain beating the tough-on-crime drum too loudly either.  America’s preference for prisons over schools is embarrassing to moderate conservatives like McCain and the recent spate of DNA exonerations have only deepened the embarrassment.  Like, Mr. Obama, the Republican nominee doesn’t want to hand his opponent a cudgel at this sensitive juncture.

With the politicians silent on the subject, you won’t be hearing much about crime and punishment from the talking heads.  Which leaves the debate (to the extent there is one) in the hands of the usual partisan combatants.   Folks on the right endorse George Will’s linkage between high incarceration rates and falling crime.  Liberals argue that the mass incarceration of Black males reflects white America’s irrational fear of “the Black other”. 

Conservatives counter that Black males comprise roughly half of prison inmates because they commit roughly half of crimes.  Quoting a study by Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute, Wills argues that “In 2005 the black homicide rate was over seven times higher than that of whites and Hispanics combined. . . . From 1976 to 2005, blacks committed over 52 percent of all murders.”  

Murder statistics are hard to manipulate.  Disproportionate numbers of young Black males may be nailed for drug crimes because law enforcement targets predominantly Black neighborhoods–but murder is murder.

So, which side is right?

Both . . . and neither.

Liberals point out that a simple survey of prison and jail populations shows that we are locking up the poor, the drug addicted, the mentally retarded and the mentally ill. 

Conservatives counter that poverty, per se, can’t explain high crime rates.  Lots of folks were poor during the great depression, but few went the way of Ma Barker and Al Capone.  The real issue isn’t poverty; it is the growth of welfare dependency, single-parent families and a general decline in moral values and personal responsibility.  The problem isn’t economic, it is spiritual.

George Will makes this argument with an assist from conservative scholar James Q. Wilson who believes that marriage has been undermined by the enlightenment focus on personal freedom and by slavery’s corrosive influence on the Black family.  Since slavery has been illegal for over 140 years, there is nothing to be done about that now.

This conservative argument has gained some traction among Black opinion leaders–Barack Obama among them.  White academicians may dismiss talk of personal morality and family values, but people who live close to the mean streets beg to differ.  To them, crime and poverty are spiritual issues.

The conservative emphasis on the erosion of individual and community values is legitimate, so far as it goes.  But the social collapse so apparent in our poorest neighborhoods can’t be reduced to a simple formula.  Ironically, the success of the civil rights movement has a role to play.  The desegregation of schools spawned the mass exodus we call white flight.  In a decade or two, neighborhoods once dominated by white folks and their prosperous businesses became overwhelmingly Black and Latino.  A similar retreat by the Black middle class (though it has received much less attention) also figures into the equation.

Money chases money.  With few exceptions, businesses locate as close to the affluent as possible.  Poor people with little money to spend are forced to pay jacked up prices at the convenience store because all the supermarkets have left the region along with financial institutions, government offices, big box outlets, and specialty shops.  As business flees to the suburbs, the economic life of once-thriving neighborhoods dies a slow death.  In the end, there are no jobs to be had within walking distance and folks looking for high rates of return on their labor are driven into the underground economy.

For decades, conservatives have insisted that intact working families should be barred from receiving public assistance–tax money should only be diverted to the truly needy.  The struggle to support large families on even two minimum wage jobs (the only kind available in many neighborhoods) was more than many marriages could handle.  Eventually, marriage becomes a rarity.  The common expectation is that girls will start having babies in their teens and that children will grow up hardly knowing their fathers.

The big problem in the poorest neighborhoods is alienation, not immorality.  young people grow up like outcasts, non-citizens.  Even those in search of Middle America don’t know where to begin. 

For the best guide to the streets don’t consult a book or an academic study; just check out the HBO series The Wire.  In one scene in the 5th (and last) season, a young “corner boy” goes to the local gym to learn how to defend himself.  The place is run by an ex-con who has made several unsuccessful runs at the American dream.  

“You only got to know how to fight if you’re gonna be on the streets,” the older man says, “but that isn’t all there is–at least that’s what they tell me. There’s supposed to be a whole other world out there.”

The corner boy stares straight ahead.  “How do you get from here to the rest of the world?” he asks.

The answer comes with a sigh of resignation: “Damned if I know.”

No government program can fix a system this broken.  Neither can a call to spiritual regeneration.  The only response with any chance of success will combine better schools (with lower teacher-pupil ratios); government sponsored economic stimulus programs (the kind the free market can’t provide); diversion programs for non-violent criminals (a truce in the drug war); and re-entry and work programs for ex-offenders.

But without a strong emphasis on marriage, personal responsibility and honest work these much-needed shifts in public policy will fall short.  Individual and community values must be rooted in what Alcoholics Anonymous calls “a higher power”.  This is why many Black community leaders are sounding the call to spiritual renewal. 

Unfortunately, the insertion of religious language into the debate drives a wedge between Black activists and white liberals.  Mention religion and most secular liberals think of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson–the only white preachers they have ever seen on television.  The elite campuses of America have produced many first-rate studies related to crime and poverty, but in this rarified world words like “religion” and “spiritual” serve as rough equivalents for “superstitious” and “irrational”. 

Now you begin to understand the silence that has descended upon this subject.  Liberals don’t want to talk about “social pathologies”; it sounds too much like blaming the victim.  Conservatives can’t admit that public policy shifts are possible or desirable.  Liberals can’t employ the language of the spirit.  Conservatives talk like sociological morons, insisting that crime is simply a function of bad people making bad decisions . . . plus nothing.  Hence, the only solution is for bad people to exercise better judgment and harsh prison terms are a great way to drive this point home.

How can we spark a no-nonsense conversation incorporating the legitimate contributions of liberals and conservatives? 

Friends of Justice thinks this conversation can only begin in the churches.  Starting in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex (where we have been located for the past year), we are starting to visit with faith communities about the need for spiritual renewal and criminal justice reform.   We call it “The Common Peace Initiative”. The Bible teaches that public safety is rooted in the principle of equal justice and we agree.

How’s it going?  We’ll keep you posted.