Oh geez, who’s briefing Obama on criminal justice issues?
This strong post by Jeralyn at TalkLeft points to this notable Boston Globe commentary by Derrick Jackson entitled “Obama’s caution on drug sentencing.” As Jackson suggests, Barak Obama’s latest comments about crack sentencing suggest both an ignorance and an apathy that I find quite surprising and disappointing. Here are the parts of the Jackson column I find so troubling:
[Obama’s] vacillation [on criminal justice issues] became evident as he kept talking about crack-vs.-powder sentencing, which has come to symbolize racial injustice in criminal justice. He said that if he were to become president, he would support a commission to issue a report “that allows me to say that based on the expert evidence, this is not working and it’s unfair and unjust. Then I would move legislation forward.”
That was a puzzling statement because the US Sentencing Commission, created by Congress in 1984, has long said the system is not working and reaffirmed in April that the 100-to-1 ratio “significantly undermines” sentencing reform.
Obama asked if he could make a “broader” point. “Even if we fix this, if it was a 1-to-1 ratio, it’s still a problem that folks are selling crack. It’s still a problem that our young men are in a situation where they believe the only recourse for them is the drug trade. So there is a balancing act that has to be done in terms of, do we want to spend all our political capital on a very difficult issue that doesn’t get at some of the underlying issues; whether we want to spend more of that political capital getting early childhood education in place, getting after-school programs in place, getting summer school programs in place.” Obama claimed, “I’m not suggesting it’s an either/or but I’m suggesting that an even higher priority for me is getting young men and increasingly young women to stop getting involved in the drug trade in the first place. And that’s going to require pretty heavy lifting. That’s going to require some billions of dollars of expenditure that aren’t there right now.”
By asking an open question about spending “all our political capital” on eliminating the 100-to-1 ratio, that raises the possibility he will spend little or none on it. By talking about a “broader” prescription of early childhood school programs — which means nothing to a 17-year-old in jail — Obama risks flashing a losing card of being nonconfrontational. President Clinton tried that a decade ago and lost. Obama said he voted in Illinois to stop the perpetration of unjust laws. Without a stronger voice on 100-to-1, he becomes part of the problem of continually passing criminal laws based on anecdote.
I find this so disappointing because I think effective reform of the federal criminal justice system (including its deep racial issues) needs an effective and forceful moral leader, not another unprincipled political strategist — like Bill Clinton, who turned the federal criminal justice system to the right more than any of his Republican predecessors. I was hopeful that Obama might be that leader, but now I fear I may have to look to some of the Republican candidates. Sigh…
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