Archive for June 12th, 2009
America’s criminal justice system is broken.
How broken? The numbers are stark:
• The United States has 5% of the world’s population, yet possesses 25% of the world’s prison population;
• More than 2.38 million Americans are now in prison, and another 5 million remain on probation or parole. That amounts to 1 in every 31 adults in the United States is in prison, in jail, or on supervised release;
• Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980, up from 41,000 to 500,000 in 2008; and
• 60% of offenders are arrested for non-violent offensives–many driven by mental illness or drug addiction.
Numbers only tell part of the story.
While heavily focused on non-violent offenders, law enforcement has been distracted from pursuing the approximately one million gang members and drug cartels besieging our cities, often engaging in unprecedented levels of violence. Gangs in some areas commit 80% of the crimes and are heavily involved in drug distribution and other violent activities. This disturbing trend affects every community in the United States.
Ex-offenders are also confronted with a lack of meaningful re-entry programs. With the high volume of people who are coming out of prisons, it is in the self-interest of every American that national leadership design programs that provide former offenders a true pathway towards a productive future.
An examination is required as to what happens inside our prisons. Our correctional officers deserve better support in dealing with violent criminals under their supervision. It is also imperative that we facilitate a safe environment for all inmates, and examine ways to better prepare them for their release back into civil society. The de-humanizing environment of jails and prisons compounds these challenges.
Without question, it is in the national interest that we bring violent offenders and career criminals to justice. The purpose of this legislation is not to let dangerous or incorrigible people go free. Rather, it is to determine how best to structure our criminal justice system so that it is fair, appropriate and–above all–effective.
No American neighborhood is completely safe from the intersection of all of these problems.
Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009. This legislation, which I originally introduced in March, creates a Presidential level blue-ribbon commission charged with conducting an 18-month, top-to-bottom review of our nation’s entire criminal justice system, ultimately providing the Congress with specific, concrete recommendations for reform.
The committee hearing can be seen via webcast live today at 3:00pm.
The goal of this legislation is nothing less than a complete restructuring of the criminal justice system in the United States. Only an outside commission, properly structured and charged, can bring us complete findings necessary to do so.
Fixing our system will require us to reexamine who goes to prison, for how long and how we address the long-term consequences of their incarceration. Our failure to address these problems cuts against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness.
Today’s hearing “Exploring the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009,” chaired by cosponsor and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs, Senator Arlen Specter and ranking Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, also a sponsor, provides a platform for Judiciary Committee members to hear witness testimony from a wide spectrum of political ideologies and backgrounds including my own statement, about the need to make this commission a reality.
The National Criminal Justice Commission Act has already garnered wide support from across the political and philosophical spectrum, including 29 sponsors in the Senate, among them many senior members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. My staff and I have engaged with more than 100 organizations and associations, representing the entire gamut of prosecutors, judges, defense lawyers, former offenders, advocacy groups, think tanks, victims rights organizations, academics, prisoners, and law enforcement on the street. This engagement is ongoing, and support continues to grow.
My goal, shared by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, is to pass this legislation soon and to enact it into law this year. Obviously we appreciate any measure of support and assistance in this difficult undertaking. For more information, please visit my website, www.webb.senate.gov.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
From Norm Stamper’s Huffington Post blog:Thus spake, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, a city cop who joined other police officers and DEA agents in a packed federal courtroom last week. All those badges flashed in support of Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Lee Lucas who is facing an 18-count indictment. The 19-year veteran stands accused of perjury, making false statements in internal reports, obstruction of justice, and civil rights violations. (The day after the federal agent was fired veteran Richland County Sheriff’s Deputy Charles Metcalf copped in U.S. District Court to a civil rights violation stemming from his work with Lucas.)
The alleged facts (Lucas has pleaded not guilty) are all too familiar: a narcotics agent recruits an informant but fails to monitor the man’s activities or verify his statements. When the narc learns of his snitch’s make-believe cases, he conceals evidence, makes false statements to his superiors, lies on the stand, and sends guiltless people to prison. Can you say “Tulia, Texas”?
Of all the shameful deeds alleged, let’s focus on one pivotal in this and so many other police scandals, namely lying. Not the “Why, yes those cargo pants are flattering” kind of lie but the kind that results in innocent people living life behind bars.
Early in my career I worked for a police chief who was fond of saying, “The thing I love about cops? They know the difference between right and wrong. They tell the truth.” I worked with such police officers; those who mixed competence with their honesty were justly treasured by their communities. But I also fired or had a hand in firing many cops whose loyalty was to something other than truth.
At bottom, there are two explanations for cops who lie. The first is that the institution hires liars. We could waste a lot of time on this one. Or we could, as I’m happy to do, concede the point: Despite advances in the hiring process–smarter psychological testing, more rigorous background investigations–a certain percentage of characterologically untruthful candidates do winnow their way through the screening protocols. This happens most often when law enforcement agencies are on a hiring binge. In a push to get cops out on the street, they sacrifice quality for speed, compromise standards, and hire people who should never don a police uniform. The lesson here is constant diligence, and a willingness to let a position to go vacant rather than fill it with a prevaricator (or worse).
But the second and far more useful explanation is systemic. Cops lie for reasons embedded in the history, structure, and culture of the institution itself. A critical part of that system is the laws police officers are called upon to enforce, none more relevant to this discussion than the nation’s drug statutes.
Since the 1930s but with ever-growing vigor from 1971 to this moment, America’s police officers have been conditioned to believe that anyone who’s ever taken illicit drugs, contemplated same, or trafficked in them is The Enemy. The constitution aside, why would cops fret over legal niceties or democratic rules of engagement when working behind enemy lines? The very nature of an undercover narcotics assignment dictates duplicity.
But too many drug cops wind up lying to their bosses. They fudge or manufacture facts in their official reports. They perjure themselves on the stand. (Too many, for that matter, wind up planting, stealing, using, and/or selling drugs.)
The facile response is to scold/fire/prosecute these wayward individuals and (rarely) their too-trusting–or complicit–bosses, and let it go at that. Nothing wrong with holding people accountable, nothing right about not doing so. It’s a must. But it begs the tougher question. When will we learn that drug prohibition is a huge part of the problem of police corruption?
There is a long list of justifications for ending not merely the rhetoric but the reality of America’s holy war on its drug consumers. But one of those reasons is that it would eliminate the all-too-common cheating, stealing, and lying that goes on in the name of drug enforcement.
Ending drug prohibition will not halt the spectacle of cops lining up to defend the indefensible. But it will make for a healthier, safer society, and it will reduce the temptation for a law enforcer to lie his or her way to drug warrior fame.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
