Category: war on drugs

To the surprise of no one . . .

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By Alec Goodwin

The Global Commission on Drug Policy is calling the war on drugs a complete and utter failure.

Finally, someone has the spine to admit what everyone has known for years; that the war on drugs has been a costly, deadly fiasco.

The report, which was prepared by former world leaders and UN members such as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the former leaders of Mexico, Colombia and
Brazil, and the entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, soundly condemns the war on drugs as ineffective, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars and leading to rampant drug crime and death.  The report is intensely critical of the United States, where we’re less concerned than other nations about treating drug addicts and users and more concerned about punishing them.  According to the report, America lacks the courage to admit in public that our methods have been ineffective and counterproductive. (more…)

The Drug War’s Latest Victim

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By Alec Goodwin

The War on Drugs has claimed yet another victim: the California prison system.

The United States Supreme Court has ruled in a narrow 5-4 decision that the prisons in California are so overcrowded that it violates the constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment, and that at least 33,000 prisoners must be put somewhere else.

Medical conditions were so bad that an inmate died every week. Mental health services were so poor that suicide was frequent. Quarantines due to virus outbreaks, moldy walls, broken pipes, and human waste smeared over the walls have also been frequent problems. Nowhere else in the entire country are conditions this poor. (more…)

Alexander v. McWhorter: who’s got the winning formula?

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By Alan Bean

John McWhorter and Michelle Alexander agree that the war on drugs should be abandoned.  They also agree that far too many young black males are languishing in American prisons.  But McWhorter thinks Alexander’s call for a consensus-shifting movement is wrong-headed.  It’s wrong-headed because it’s impractical.  It’s impractical because white people are sick and tired of being demonized.  As McWhorter sees it, we simply will not listen to a social analysis that identifies white racism at the heart of the problem.

McWhorter isn’t saying that Alexander is wrong when she associates the war on drugs with a “Southern strategy” rooted in white resentment; he just feels that, as a practical matter, that argument can’t be sold in the white-dominated American marketplace.

This is an important issue.  For criminal justice reformers, it is THE issue.  Should we embrace the “only a movement” philosophy of Michelle Alexander, or the “end the drug war and white guilt is gone” idea John McWhorter has been championing?  Alexander is asking for the second phase of the civil rights movement; McWhorter is looking for an argument that works in an incurably cynical world.

One thing is certain: at some point we must connect with white moderates; if we don’t, the political fight cannot be won.  But how do we win over white moderates?  Do we conform our arguments to their fears, anxieties and preferences, or do we challenge them to embrace a revolutionary vision grounded in love, mercy and justice?

Whether Michelle Alexander knows it or not (and I suspect she does) she is calling for nothing less than a full-blown religious revival.  The values she espouses are biblical values; they won’t work in the political arena, and they aren’t that welcome in most white churches either (if the preacher gets concrete and specific).  Martin Luther King knew that mainstream white America wasn’t ready for integration, so he launched a movement fired by a religious revival.  Mainstream white America isn’t ready to end the drug war; it could even be argued that white folks need the drug war because it reinforces our most cherished prejudices.  Can anything short of a spiritual revival alter this social landscape? (more…)

“Only a movement built on love”: Michelle Alexander at Riverside Church

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“Now I want to be clear that when I’m talking about love, I’m not just talking about love for people who have committed crimes like we may have committed, crimes that we think are not so bad; I’m talking about the kind of care and love that keeps on loving no matter who you are or what you have done. It’s that kind of love that is needed to build this movement.”  (Michelle Alexander)

In the 1920s, with the fundamentalist-modernist controversy raging within his own Northern Baptist Convention, John D. Rockefeller built an architecturally imposing church in the heart of one of New York’s most prestigious neighborhoods, opened it to people of all Christian denominations and called an American Baptist preacher named Harry Emerson Fosdick to be his pastor.  Through the years, Riverside Church has become associated with prophetic preaching, dramatic worship and ecumenical mission.

In 1992, Riverside Church adopted a statement of faith proclaiming:  “the worship of God, known in Jesus, the Christ, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit … to serve God through word and witness, to treat all human beings as sisters and brothers; and to foster responsible stewardship of God’s creation … The church pledges itself to education, reflection, and action for peace and justice and the realization of the vision of the heavenly banquet where all are loved and blessed.”

This statement of faith nicely captures the conclusion of Michelle Alexander’s address at Riverside this past weekend.  Calling for “A great awakening” Alexander re-stated her firm belief that only a new social movement can end mass incarceration in America.  As her closing remarks make clear, this movement must be built on a solid moral foundation and, for those of us who follow Jesus, that means taking our Savior at his word.  (more…)

Supreme Court ruling shreds fourth amendment

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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

By Alan Bean

The Supreme Court of the United States just gave police officers permission to evade the fourth amendment at will.  Eight justices signed off on this deal; Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented forcefully.

At issue is the meaning of the Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The Supreme Court has traditionally concluded that “searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable.”  The only exception to this rule is when police are dealing with “exigent circumstances”.

What is an exigent circumstance?  Risk of death of serious bodily injury qualifies as exigent.  The likely escape of a criminal suspect makes the grade.  Finally, police officers can smash open your door if they have reason to believe that evidence is being destroyed.

But there used to be a catch.  Police officers were not allowed to create an exigent circumstance by banging on the door or shouting.  If signs that evidence was being destroyed inside a private dwelling existed when the police arrived at the scene, they could enter the home without a warrant; but they could not stimulate the destruction of evidence by announcing their presence.  (more…)

Michelle Alexander: ‘Interest convergence’ won’t end mass incarceration

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“Public relations consultants like the FrameWorks Institute — which dedicates itself to ‘changing the public conversation about social problems’ — advise advocates to speak in a ‘practical tone’ and avoid discussions of ‘fairness between groups and the historical legacy of racism.’  Surely the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have rejected that advice.”

-Michelle Alexander

– “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.  Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was ‘well timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation .  For years now I have heard the ‘Wait!’  It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity.  This ‘Wait!’ has almost always meant ‘Never!”

-Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail (more…)

Narcotics: Attack Capital, Not People

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Mark Osler, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas, believes we should stop arresting scores of low-level drug dealers and start interdicting drug money in high places.  This concise form of his unique take on drug policy appeared in the Huffington Post.  If you are intrigued by Professor Osler’s thesis but aren’t sure about the details, an in-depth statement of his argument can be found here.  Highly recommended. 

Narcotics: Attack Capital, Not People

By Mark Osler

The war on drugs is over. Drugs won.

There seem to be two common answers as to what to do next. The political establishment (including the Obama administration) largely supports doing the same things we always have — locking up lots of people who are selling, making or carrying drugs. Meanwhile, increasingly vocal groups of reformers on both the right and left support the legalization of narcotics.

They are all wrong. Supporters of the same tactics we have pursued for decades need to recognize the failure of that enterprise. Many drugs are cheaper, purer, and more widely available now than they were twenty years ago. Legalization proponents, meanwhile, ignore the dire social consequences of narcotics like crack cocaine and methamphetamine (they have a stronger argument in relation to marijuana). There simply is no ignoring the way hard drugs can rip apart the social fabric of a family or community — especially in areas that are already economically vulnerable. (more…)

Michael Gerson displays his ignorance of drugs and the drug war

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By Alan Bean

Michael Gerson doesn’t like Ron Paul for all the wrong reasons.  George W. Bush’s ex-speech writer is appalled that a presidential candidate who advocates the legalization of heroin expects to be taken seriously.  Me?  I am appalled that a man who doesn’t grasp the futility of the war on drugs can be taken seriously as an authority on the subject.  Has he not been following the debate?  Apparently not. (more…)

Michelle Alexander: The human rights nightmare nobody wants to talk about

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Michelle Alexander

By Michelle Alexander

How a Human Rights Nightmare Can Happen in Our Country on Our Watch — and Go Virtually Undiscussed

If we fail to commit ourselves to ending mass incarceration, future generations will judge us harshly.

April 28, 2011

So much about our racial reality today is little more than a mirage. The promised land of racial equality wavers, quivers just out of our reach in the barren desert of our new, “colorblind” political landscape. It looks so good from a distance: Barack Obama, our nation’s first black president, standing in the Rose Garden behind a podium looking handsome, dignified, and in charge. Flip the channel and there’s Michelle Obama, a brown-skinned woman, digging a garden in the backyard of the White House — not as a servant or a maid — but as the first lady, schooling the nation on better health and the need to be good stewards of our planet. Flip the channel again and there’s the whole Obama family exiting Air Force One, waving to the crowd, descending the flight of stairs — a gorgeous black family living in the White House, ruling America, cheered by the world.

Drive a few blocks from the White House and you find the Other America. You find you’re still in the desert, dying of thirst, wondering what wrong turn was made, and how you managed to miss the promised land, though you reached for it with all your might. (more…)

Call in to support the National Criminal Justice Commission Act

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Friends of Justice is pleased to pass along this announcement from Laura Markle, Criminal Justice Reform Grassroots Coordinator with the General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church

Wednesday, April 27th

TEXAS call-in day to support passage of the NATIONAL CRIMINAL JUSTICE COMMISSION ACT . . . please spread the word!

BACKGROUND on the NCJCA:

In early 2011, Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) and bipartisan cosponsors re-introduced the National Criminal Justice Commission Act (S. 306), legislation that would create a bipartisan Commission to review and identify effective criminal justice policies and make recommendations for reform. Currently, the Senate bill is awaiting House introduction and passage. Please help to urge House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-21st/TX) to prioritize and pass this important legislation as soon as possible!

ACTION NEEDED: (more…)