If crime rates have fallen dramatically in recent decades, why do most Americans think crime is on the rise? Because, as Scott Henson makes clear in this blog post, the American media sees crime as entertainment and, like they say, the show must go on!
Libal: Operation streamline must end
By Bob Libal
Immigration Reform Must End, Not Expand, Operation Streamline
The debate over the proposed “comprehensive immigration reform” bill is intensifying, with a “gang of six” senators attempting to hash out a bill that would regularize the status of some undocumented immigrants but may also include increased funding for harsh border enforcement policies.
This debate overlooks the astounding fact that federal spending on immigration enforcement now surpasses all other federal law enforcement activities combined. One of the most costly of these programs is Operation Streamline, a little-known enforcement program that is part of broader trend funneling immigrants into the criminal justice system. These policies channel billions of dollars to private prison corporations and are fueling the explosive growth in numbers of Latinos in prison. The “gang of six” are reportedly considering expanding funding of Operation Streamline. (more…)
Immigration debate forces Republicans to choose
By Alan Bean
The gun debate has revealed some troubling tensions within the American conservative movement. It is a misnomer, of course, to speak of the American conservative movement, we are really dealing with dozens of overlapping movements locked in a troubled marriage of convenience. The same sort of uneasy alliance exists on the left. Major shifts in political fortune often reveal deep fissures within the constellation of groups and individuals Hillary Clinton once called the “great right-wing conspiracy”.
Conservatives have a deep distrust of centralized government, but they are often willing to support the unmitigated flowering of government authority if it promises to get drugs off the streets, reduce crime or enhance America’s reputation in the world or secure the nation’s borders. When three-quarters of a steadily-growing Latino electorate pulls the lever for the opposition, the need for change is obvious. Suddenly the conservative desire to maintain white hegemony (“taking back our country”) is in tension with the conservative fear of “jackbooted thugs”.
In an opinion piece for The Hill, Mike Lillis directs us to recent remarks from South Carolina Republican Trey Gowdy, by all accounts the staunchest of staunch conservatives:
While Gowdy has not made immigration a focus of his two years on Capitol Hill — most often toeing the party line without fanfare — he recently rejected the notion that the government should round up and deport the millions of illegal immigrants living in the country.
“You want them knocking on your front door?” Gowdy told Gannett this month. “You want them going to elementary schools and rounding up the kids?” (more…)
Johnny Cash, prison reformer
By Alan Bean
This fascinating essay touches on Johnny Cash’s lifelong prison ministry. (It was produced for the BBC, which explains the funny spelling). It may sound odd to hear songs about “kickin’ and a-gougin’ in the mud, and the blood and the beer” characterized as a ministry, but that’s exactly what they were. I purchased Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison a few years ago thinking this was the only prison album he recorded and likely the only prison concert he performed. Not so. He recorded two prison albums and performed at prisons across the United State throughout his 30-year career. (more…)
Two fresh takes on the abortion debate
By Alan Bean
The abortion debate has polarized America. We are in the midst of a seismic shift on the gay rights front, but the battle lines on Roe v. Wade have hardly shifted. Most Americans are uncomfortable with the moral implications of abortion; most Americans feel that abortion should remain legal, and politicians on both sides of the ideological chasm have learned to exploit the issue for political gain. On the Red Letter Christians website, Kristin Day paints this unhappy picture: (more…)
Obama’s second inaugural: an unsatisfactory sort of greatness
By Alan Bean
Presidential inaugurations are designed to draw the nation back together after a season of partisan bloodletting. As Barack Obama delivered his second inaugural address, conservative jurists like Antonin Scalia and Texas Senator John Cornyn looked on grim-faced. Democracy is a team sport in which the other side often wins. When you lose you suck it up, adjust your game plan, and get ready for the next game.
Obama has often been compared to Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr., the two Americans most closely associated with the principle of racial equality. Like Lincoln and King, Obama wields the familiar cadences of our American civil religion in an effort to summon the better angels of our national nature, or at least the best angels on offer at the moment. Heralds of a new tomorrow, if they are wise, remind us of the journey we have been on and, in so doing, redefine the significance of that journey. Remember who you are. Remember who we are. We may have wandered into strange and dangerous valleys, but we were created for higher ground! (more…)
American slavery persisted until the Second World War
By Alan Bean
You need to read Douglas A. Blackmon’s article on 20th Century slavery in the American South. The evidence, contained in thousands of letters preserved by the National Archive and the NAACP, is irrefutable. But Blackmon says that’s just the beginning.
Dwarfing everything at those repositories are the still largely unexamined collections of local records in courthouses across the South. In dank basements, abandoned buildings, and local archives, seemingly endless numbers of files contain hundreds of thousands of handwritten entries documenting in monotonous granularity the details of an immense, metastasizing horror that stretched well into the twentieth century.
We will never know how many African Americans were forced into lifetimes of unpaid servitude under appalling conditions, but Blackmon, who has researched and written a book on the subject, says the numbers are staggering. (more…)
Tarantino calls America’s drug war the new slavery
By Alan Bean
Quentin Tarantino has definitely been reading Michelle Alexander. Last month, while talking up his new movie, Django Unchained on a Canadian talk show, the controversial film director launched into a discourse on the American war on drugs:
Like most celebrities with a limited grasp of the issues, Tarantino garbles his facts a bit. Most drug war prisoners aren’t held in private prisons and aren’t working for corporations who exploit prison labor. This happens, to be sure, but it isn’t the typical scenario. (more…)
Are Waco residents prepared to pay for tough on crime policies?
By Alan Bean
Over at Grits for Breakfast, Scott Henson has a great post on the high cost of Waco’s tough on crime policies for McLennan County tax payers. According to the Waco Tribune Herald, “One of every four dollars is now being spent to house and care for inmates — up from $900,000 in fiscal year 2009 and destined to hit as much as $5.5 million this fiscal year.”
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