Crown Prince of Crime Control? A Ray of Hope in a New Cabinet

As American government was transformed around the problem of crime in the 1960s, one of the most significant and fateful development was the morphing of the attorney general into the nation's "top law enforcement officer." Once a quasi-judicial officer with a special brief to defend the rule of law within the administration, the attorney general became a veritable crown prince of crime control, astride an ever growing law enforcement and punishment behemoth (at least until the formation of Homeland Security cleaved off some chunks, but that's another story).

Actual attorneys general have varied in how much they took up that potentiality. Some from both parties emphasized crime fighter aspect, including Robert Kennedy (who served under JFK and LBJ) and Edwin Meese (who served under Reagan). Others were more concerned to restore the rule of law job (like Ford's AG, Edward Levi), or were simply too involved in political machinations to bother (like the recent Alberto Gonzalez).

There are some encouraging signs that new appointee Eric Holder may be more in the Ed Levi camp than the Ed Meese (and G-d knows the rule of law could use some bolstering).

In introducing Holder at Monday's press conference (December 1, 2008, read the NYT transcript here), President Elect Obama mentioned crime, but not the "usual suspects."

Eric Holder has the talent and commitment to succeed as attorney everyone from his first day on the job, which is even more important in a transition that demands vigilance. He has distinguished himself as a prosecutor, a judge, and a senior official. And he is deeply familiar with the law enforcement challenges we face from terrorism to counterintelligence, from white-collar crime to public corruption.

During his own remarks, AG nominee Holder seemed to suggest a wider range of interests then crime.

I also look forward to working with the men and women of the Department of Justice to revitalize the department's efforts in those areas where the department that's unique capabilities and responsibilities in keeping our people safe and ensuring fairness and in protecting our environment.

When Holder did mention crime in his statement, he emphasized the lead role of state and local government, a good sign, since leaders at the state and especially the local level have a much more nuanced view of crime problems and can craft less harmful solutions.

We will need to interact with our state and local partners in new innovative ways to help them solve the other issues that they confront on a daily basis. National security concerns are not defined only by the challenges created by terrorists abroad but also by criminals in our midst, whether they be criminals located on the street or in a board room.

Photo Credit: Scott Olson, Getty Images, USA Today

V is for Victory

"Remember, remember, the Fourth of November"

There is a lot to be sorry about what happened Tuesday, especially Prop 8 and 9 here in California (on Prop 8 see my other blog, on Prop 9 see future postings here). But let that regret not dampen the spirit of renewed citizenship expressed in the massive lines of voters and early voters. There is little doubt that this will be remembered as a pivotal election like '32, like '80 in which a fundamental governing change of course began.

At first, this will not look like a repudiation of governing through crime. The political neuro-network of knowledge and power links that tie Americans to their fears of crime remain potent and Obama was careful never to trigger them (McCain tried to use it against Obama but failed).

What we can hope for is the emergence of a new governing platform, one I suspect will be based on the need to rebuild and green America's infrastructure. Once this gets going it will begin to grow a knowledge power network of its own that will compete with an overtime outgrow governing through crime.

Vote

I'm reminded this morning of a poster that resided on my bedroom wall sometime in the mid-1970s. My father had brought it back from a trip to London. Two police officers were violently arresting a young man dressed in the standard "punk" style of that era. Underneath the text read: "Whoever you voted for, the government got in." It was signed by an anarchist party whose name eludes me. Whoever (and in CA, whatever) you vote for tomorrow, governing through crime will continue.

There are several measures on the California ballot, however, that can in some degree begin to process of retracting public affirmation from the crime war, as well as gauging the underlying strength of its hold on the way people imagine themselves as citizens.

Proposition 5:NONVIOLENT DRUG OFFENSES. SENTENCING, PAROLE AND REHABILITATION. INITIATIVE STATUTE

If you produced one of those cool GPS social maps that geographers work in these days, that showed the geographic locations where California's 170,000 state prisoners lived before they went to prison, you would see that it is highly concentrated in several very precise neighborhood locations in the large cities (and in many small ones). If you then added data on the location of drug treatment placements (not to mention mental health treatment),you would see that these same neighborhoods that send people to prison, have comparatively few of these assets.

This initiative should pay for itself while possibly saving us billions in collateral court imposed mandates on prisons (see other postings on this blog) by breaking up this dynamic. By allowing drug addicted state prisoners to receive treatment in the community, proposition 5 would help stop the revolving door of parole in California through which thousands of non-violent offenders go back and forth to prison. Even the Governor has called this revolving door a problem.

Why isn't the Governor supporting this. Why is every living ex-governor opposing it. The long answer is in chapter 2 of Governing through Crime. Suffice it to say that being the chief champion of a public recast as crime victims, in their demands for vengeance and security has become the lifeblood of political executives. As prosecutors-in-chief, governors oppose anything that would reduce the punitive discretion of prosecutors.

PROPOSITION 6: POLICE AND LAW ENFORCEMENT FUNDING. CRIMINAL PENALTIES AND LAWS. INITIATIVE STATUTE

This is vintage governing through crime. It locks up money for law enforcement, demonizes youth crime and raises prison sentences. Its major proponent, George Runner, is a crime warrior legislator whose last major initiative success was the noxious and ludicrous (but successful) sex offender blockbuster called Jessica's Law. The major ideological function of this law is to further invest gang crime with political meaning. Its hard to have a war on crime unless crime looks and feels like a threatening army. The real value of gangs to politicians is that as a stereotype gang members fit the need for an enemy army. The reality is that most "gang crime" is simply youth conflict whose origins have little directly to do with gangs but for which gang signs are a convenient explanation.

PROPOSITION 9: CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM. VICTIMS'S RIGHTS. PAROLE. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AND STATUTE

This measure would help constitutionalize the citizen as crime victim identity (subject of chapter 3 of Governing through Crime). The only good news here is that the very existence of this initiative may be evidence that the end is near for governing through crime. Efforts to constitutionalize usually mark awareness that the political vitality of a movement is slipping. Like its sister, Proposition 6, 9 would provide an opportunity for those who have benefited from the war on crime to lock in their gains. The single most atrocious feature of this initiative, is the senselessly cruel provision that would set rehearings in parole consideration for lifers in California prisons from its current 1 year, to a new presumption of 14 years. For many lifers in prison this is a death sentence and its adoption may well be followed by a wave of despair inside our prisons where lifers often play a key role in socializing younger inmates.

Both 6 and 9 are being supported financially by the Henry Nicholas, an internet millionaire whose sister was murdered by her boy friend 25 years ago, and who is now facing serious criminal charges involving fraud, sex, and drugs (read the story by Bethany Mclean in the November issue of Vanity Fair, Dr. Nicholas and Mr. Hyde)

Detroit Journal: Does America Need another Black Man in Jail?

Yesterday Detroit's former mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, began serving a four month sentence in the Wayne County jail. There is plenty of drama to the specter of the former leader of the city whose extroverted celebrity like life style was often a source of talk in the city (Read the NYT story by Nick Bunkley) now occupying Cell 143-4 of his home town's jail. Kilpatrick's romantic extramarital affair (detailed in a huge number of text messages), his efforts to cover it up by trying to get some police officers fired (sounds like Sarah Palin), and his brief shove with a police officer during one of his court proceedings (upgraded to "assaulting an officer" in his criminal case) were all tawdry and perhaps a bad example to the boys and girls of the once Motor City.

Still, does Detroit, does America need another Black man in jail? One who was a middle-school teacher, was twice elected mayor and helped lead a nightlife boom in the city's depressed downtown? Is he a danger to anyone living in Detroit? Is it so essential to send a harsh deterrent message to adulterers or those who would manipulate their work place power to cover up their mistakes?

I for one cannot understand what purpose of policy or justice is served by locking the man up at tax payers expense for four months. Nor can I imagine that Bill Clinton or any other white politician drawing time for the same conduct.

(By the way I don't favor sending an old White man like Ted Stevens to prison either, just take all his money and leave it at that!)

(photo credit: Paul Sancya/Associated Press)

From Stranger Danger to Infra-Danger: the Green Collar Path

For a while now I've been pumping the theme that American society will only overcome mass incarceration and its attendant pathologies by shifting the attention and concern of Americans from "stranger danger" (the risk that someone out there is waiting with a gun to hurt you or your family) to "infra-danger" (the risk that technical systems on which you and your family depend for survival, might fail when tested by a natural disaster, like a major hurricane or earthquake striking a major city).

When you are worried about an armed stranger out there, it tends to concentrate the imagination quite strikingly. When law, media, and political chatter overlap in varying degrees and varying times to keep fear of that stranger high, it changes the expectations people develop about government. Thats what I call governing through crime in my book. Thats why George Bush still seems so surprised that the American people expected him to govern competently. Based on his experience as the Governor of Texas, getting tough on juvenile crime was pretty much enough. He still thinks seeking the death penalty against Khalid Sheik Muhammed is just about all any American should want of him.

When you start worrying about infra-danger, the expectations you have of government change. You want government to help make sure these inherently exceptional, but catastrophic risks, which can be expected to happen in ones lifetime, just not frequently, are dealt with seriously. That means mobilizing science to understand sustainable ways to cope with the threats, capitalizing giant building projects where necessary, regulating and maintaining those systems, and incentivizing the consumer behaviors that will help create prevention and resilience. This leads to a very different kind of government than we've seen in Washington for a long time (including the Clinton era).

Once we begin to make infra-danger the major focus of government, many of the problems that loomed large and seemed unsolvable in the era of governing through crime will largely solve themselves. That is one of the insights of a remarkable environmental and justice activist and public intellectual, Van Jones, who in his new book "the Green Collar Economy" makes a case for a major investment in greening America's urban infra-structure to dramatically reduce greenhouse gases and create a stable and resilient base for our population centers. The benefits of such a move will go far beyond saving the polar bear. The creation of new jobs and a lower cost middle class lifestyle in cities(less dependent on commuting) will resolve many of the intractable problems of the late 20th century including an underclass of presumptively unemployable people, huge and expensive prison systems that seem to produce more crime, periodic spikes of violence on our city streets, and growing racial segregation despite less official racism, will reverse. The key element is the employment (and training) of tens of thousands of urban youth who will be needed to actually construct the greener systems sustaining our metropolitan areas. These young people, many of them coded as a threat by businesses afraid to invest in cities, will become a huge asset to society once we make the decision to do green collar rebuilding of our infrastructure. The collateral effects on crime reduction, building safer stronger communities, and shrinking our dysfunctional correctional systems (at another huge cost savings) are beyond what any criminological crime prevention strategy could hope to produce.

Calling Willie Horton: John McCain Needs You, Please Call Rudy Guiliani

As the Presidential campaign comes down to its last days with Senator Obama enjoying a comfortable lead, the McCain campaign is making one last effort to mobilize the soft on crime tag that has worked against Democrats before (most famously Mike Dukakis). According to Talking Points Memo, this is the text of a Robo-call that has been received by voters in several swing states, with the voice of Rudolph Guiliani (the candidate who could have done the most to make the crime war appeal had he been the nominee):

Hi, this is Rudy Giuliani, and I'm calling for John McCain and the Republican National Committee because you need to know that Barack Obama opposes mandatory prison sentences for sex offenders, drug dealers, and murderers.

It's true, I read Obama's words myself. And recently, Congressional liberals introduced a bill to eliminate mandatory prison sentences for violent criminals -- trying to give liberal judges the power to decide whether criminals are sent to jail or set free. With priorities like these, we just can't trust the inexperience and judgment of Barack Obama and his liberal allies. This call was paid for by the Republican National Committee and McCain-Palin 2008 at 866 558 5591.

The Change Moment: Part I, Change in Mass Incarceration?

We are at extraordinary change moment in American history, far more so than when the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon eight years ago. A catastrophic failure of the highly leveraged US financial system has put into question a dominant view of political economy that has highly favored unregulated markets and minimizing efforts to socialize some of the individual risks. It has also favored a financial economy generally, over retaining a significant engineering and product development sector (let alone a major manufacturing sector), an economy which has seen massive income inequality and a redistribution of wealth (relative to the post-World War II norm) from the stratified middle classes to the very top of the pyramid. If Barack Obama is elected President, this economic crisis will coincide with the passing of political leadership to one who grew up after Vietnam and Watergate, and to the first African-American and mixed race American to win the Presidency.

Do these momentous changes suggest the possibility for a course change away from the politics, policies, and laws that have fed the rise of mass incarceration?

Mass incarceration is the practice of imprisoning residents in a manner that relative to both historical and comparative dimensions is in many respects shockingly indiscriminate as to the individuals confined, and of such a scale that it has become a major life-course gateway for a substantial portion of men in our communities. This institution is only about 30 years old (in contrast to incarceration which dates to the post-Revolutionary period of American history) but which has come to constitute a challenge to the character of American democracy. Does the crisis of neo-liberalism and the victory of a genuinely post-racial (or at least post-racist) American political coalition (the first successful one in its history) provide reason to believe we are at a turn away from mass incarceration?

Those following the political scene might question whether any change here is at hand. Neither Obama or his opponent John McCain have made incarceration or criminal justice issues generally a big theme in their campaigns. To the extent that it comes up, as when the Supreme Court issued a decision last spring banning the extension of capital punishment to the cases of child rape without homicide, both candidates cleaved to a pro-punishment position. It is true that minority communities have been especially hard hit by mass incarceration (with a third of African American men experiencing prison in their lifetimes), but Obama has generally stayed away from emphasizing a politics of racial justice.

On the other hand, for those following the scholarship on the American mass incarceration, both of these changes, the crisis of neo-liberalism and evidence that America is becoming less racist, might seem like very promising signals indeed. Among sociologists of punishment the most popular theories of mass incarceration emphasize that prisons and a "penal state" have replaced welfare (for the poor) and insurance (for the middle class) as primary mechanisms for governing (e.g.s, Katherine Beckett, Bruce Western, Ruth Gilmore, Loic Wacquant,James Dignan and Michael Cavedino). Almost equally popular is the notion that mass incarceration reflects at best a backlash against the civil rights gains of minorities in the 1960s and 1970s, and at worst a comprehensive regime of race domination (e.g., Katherine Beckett, Loic Wacquant, Bruce Western).

In Governing through Crime I offer an account of mass incarceration that de-emphasizes both of these factors as major causes in favor of focusing on the legitimation problems of the post-New Deal state and its major political and civil institutions (chapter 5). From this perspective, neo-liberalism, if by that we mean the abandonment of the major 20th century tools of social welfare governance (public welfare for the poor, but also the structuring of an insurance anchored middle class life with pensions, insurance policies, and generous civil justice), is a co-variant, along with mass incarceration, of the crisis of the New Deal state and its political and civil institutions. Likewise, White supremacy (and its political and civil institutions) should be seen as one of the anchors of the post New Deal, and its undermining by the civil rights movement one of the causes of the delegitimation of the post New Deal state.

From this perspective the change moment is a potentially hopeful one, but not as directly as the sociology of punishment might suggest. Over the next few posts (delivered erratically until November 4th) I hope to sketch the path that change from mass incarceration might take and the opportunities created by both the financial crisis and by a dramatic manifestation that White supremacy (like General Franco) is still really dead in America.