Daily Archives: May 13, 2017

Punishing low-level drug offenders is back in style. Thanks a lot, Jeff Sessions.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions. (AP Photo / Frank Franklin II)

On Friday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions pulled the plug on policy changes implemented by the Department of Justice under President Obama that had begun to change Americasdecades-long practice of keepinglow-level criminals, like nonviolent drug offenders, languishing in prison. Sessions has directed prosecutorsto return to strict sentencing and mandatory minimums, which could increase prison populations, andin the midst of a national opioid epidemicrevive the unproven belief that punitive measures, instead of treatment, will solve drug addiction. And todays memowill again have the criminal-justice system targeting poor black and Latino communities already devastated by the war on drugs.1

In his memo rolling back the Justice Departmentsefforts to shrink the number of people in prison, Sessions wrote, It is a core principle that prosecutors should charge and pursue the most serious readily provable offense. That means tellingprosecutors and judges everywhere to return to extreme measures like seeking 10 years minimum for street-level drug sales. The policy, he wrote is moral, and just, and produces consistency. But thats exactly the problem: It is not moral or just, or effective. Mandatory minimums, charging as much as you can, those tough sentences dont work, said Michael Collins, deputy director at the Drug Policy Alliance, an organization dedicated to promoting science-based drug policy. They just exacerbate the problem, and it doesnt stop drug use.2

Research from the last 20 years shows that imposing mandatory minimums, particularly on nonviolent drug offenders, hasnt had positive results: according to a report from the Vera Institute of Justice, incarceration has not been effective when it comes to reducing crime, and longer sentences havent reduced recidivism. [Sessions] has no evidence to show that being harsher is effective or necessary or what prosecutors or judges want, said Roy Austin, who served as deputy assistant to the president for the Office of Urban Affairs, Justice, and Opportunity at the White Houseunder Obama. Our prisons dont rehabilitate, or they do a very bad job at rehabilitating. Why are you locking someone up for 10 years with substandard programming thinking theyre going to be a better person?3

After Eric Holder issued the memo revising sentencing guidelines and curbing the use of mandatory minimums in 2013, the federal prison population decreased,butfederal prisons account for a only small fraction of the total prison population. States, meanwhile, have also been moving away from mandatory minimums; since2000, at least 29 states have done so,though there has not been enough research to determine what impact suchchanges have been on incarceration numbers nationwide.4

Austin says that changes resulting from Holders 2013 memo produced no negative impact. So why go back?5

In March, Jeff Sessions said in a speech to law-enforcement officials, Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs is bad. He added, It will destroy your life. He, like many otherpoliticians and public officials, believe that draconian drug policies will reduce crime and rehabilitate drug users. In reality, such policies have exploded prison populations, and they have targeted black and Latino communities.The Drug Policy Alliance found that nonviolent drug law offenders made up 50,000 of the prison population in 1980 to over 400,000 by 1997. Today there are more than 430,000 people sitting in state and federal prisons for all drug offenses.6

Harsh sentencing for drug offenses started with President Richard Nixon. Nixon objected to drugs on moral grounds, calling drug abuse public enemy No. 1 anddeclaring a war on drugs in 1971. It was a move that carried with it the convenient idea that drug users were criminal and that drug use was to blame for rampant urban crime. This idea appealed to the silent majority,white voters who latched onto the idea that drug addiction should be dealt with as a crime, rather than a public-health issue. A massive increase in public spending on incarceration and law enforcement followed.7

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which devoted $1.7 billion to the war on drugs and created mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses. Individuals convicted for crack possession weregiven longer sentences than those who were convicted for cocaine use, a policythat disproportionately impacted poorer communities of color. In his bookHigh Price, Columbia University professor Carl Hart argues that crack use followed, rather than precipitated, unemployment in the black community. High unemployment rates were indeed correlated with increases in crack cocaine use, he wrote, but whats not well known is that they preceded cocaine use, rather than followed it. In other words, crack wasnt the reason black people in America were losing their jobs, their jobs were already disappearing. Hart later wrote, Unfortunately, many peopleboth blacks and whitesfell for the idea that crack cocaine was the key cause of our problems and that more prisons and longer sentences would help solve them. In fact, Hart writes, while crack has been seen as a largely black problem, whites are actually more likely to use the drug, according to national statistics. 8

THE STAKES ARE HIGHER NOW THAN EVER. GET THE NATION IN YOUR INBOX.

So, the war on drugs gave us a larger prison prison population, made a moral argument for locking up low-level drug offenders, and specifically targeted black and brown people. And instead of continuing on with the approach that Obamas Justice Department put forth, one that sought to reduce prison populations and move away from racial targeting, Sessions is bringing it back.9

There is also an economic argument to be made against Sessionss recommendations. Returning to mandatory minimums, Austin says, means pouring more money into the Bureau of Prisons, a subdivision of the Department of Justice, to deal with overcrowded prisons. It means more private prisons. And, as more public funds are spent on incarceration, cuts to programs aimed at reducing recidivism are likely to follow.Says Jeff Robinson, director of the Trone Center for Justice Equality at the ACLU, Its the most transparently illogical and unintelligent approach to criminal justice.10

Editors Note: This piece initiallyreferred incorrectly to Roy Austins position. He was the deputy assistant to the president for the Office of Urban Affairs, Justice, and Opportunity at the White House, not at the Justice Department.

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Welcome to the 'War On Drugs,' Redux - The Nation.

How can we stop Attorney General Jeff Sessions from instigating another round of the War on Drugs, which has unwaveringly focused on black and Latino neighborhoods, filling for-profit prisons and disrupting and disenfranchising the communities of people of color?

A Justice Department spokesman said Sessions intent is to keep Americans safe, but there is no evidence that the Obama administrations less aggressive approach toward prosecuting drug cases led to a rise in crime. Sessions record in the area of civil rights is dubious at best, which leads me to suspect that his department will display no more even-handedness than those of previous Republican administrations. Perhaps we can get our legislators to deny funding for this latest law-and-order blitz.

Patricia Bryan

Eugene

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Don't start another War on Drugs - The Register-Guard

James Forman Jr. wanted to tell a story that put African-Americans at the center, and not just on the sidelines. He found that story in a Washington, D.C. courtroom where all the actors the judge, his client, and the prosecutor all looked like him.

It was the 1990s, and Forman was a public defender trying to keep a young man named Brandon, whod been caught with a gun and a small amount of marijuana, out of the then notoriously inhumane (and now defunct) Oak Hill Youth Correctional Facility.

Forman, who is now a Yale Law School professor and author of the celebrated new book Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America, told WNHH radio host Kica Matos during the latest episode of Kicas Corner that he saw his work in the public defenders office as the civil rights challenge of my generation.

That makes sense if you know the environment in which Forman was raised. He is a movement baby whose parents met through their work for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, as it was most commonly known. His father, James Forman Sr., served as SNCCs executive secretary.

By the late 1990s, the U.S. had surpassed Russia as the worlds largest jailer. Forman saw the disparities of who that impacted the most in courtrooms just like the one he was in that day with Brandon. He saw keeping Brandon, a poor kid growing up in a tough D.C. neighborhood, out of jail, particularly one that had no functioning school and no viable social services, as civil rights work.

The judge, whod lived through Jim Crow and segregation, saw things differently. He told Brandon that day that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had died for his freedom, not so that Brandon could be carrying an illegal gun. Actions have consequences, the judge said, and he sent Brandon off to Oak Hill.

The judge had used the same civil rights history that I had used for becoming a public defender, but he had flipped it, Forman said. He was using it as a form of argument for why [Brandon] had to be locked up. The judge wasnt alone.

Formans new book is about how a generation of people who had fought for freedom during the civil rights movement and become the first generation of black elected officials in largely black cities like Washington, D.C. found themselves contributing to the mass incarceration of their own people. He said he wanted to tell the story of how that happened, and hopefully offer some ideas on how to keep it from happening again.

When people think of a drugs impact on the black community, Forman said, they often think about the crack epidemic of the 1980s and early 1990s. But in the late 1960s, it was heroin that was having devastating impacts on cities with high concentrations of black people. Crime was through the roof. The murder rate had tripled in the District of Columbia and doubled in other places. Black constituents wanted their black elected officials to do something.

As part of his research for the book, Forman spent summers reading the constituent letters in the archived records of former D.C. City Council members and he said, what leaps off the pages is the pain and anguish that people were feeling. They wrote comments like, I feel like a prisoner in my own home, Forman said. I feel like a stranger on my own street.

I cant walk to the store. I cant take my kid to school without passing drug dealers. Theyre shooting up the place. What happened to us as a community? What happened to us as a people?

This first generation of black elected officials who had come into power after the fall of formal Jim Crow wanted to be responsive to black death and victimization in a way that government had not been for centuries prior to this moment in history.

Prior to this time, Forman said, black folks didnt call the police if they were robbed or assaulted in their own neighborhood because they knew from experience that the then mostly white police forces wouldnt respond, and if they did respond, they would make the situation much worse.

It wasnt a murder if it was a dead black person, he said of the police then, which was overwhelmingly white even in a predominately black city like Washington, D.C. It was just another dead black person.

He said the black officials who had come to power wanted to prove that they would do things differently. They wanted to protect black lives, he said.

They also wanted to address the root causes of crime and addiction with better jobs, housing, schools, and drug and mental health treatment, Forman said. What they got was law enforcement.

They wanted a Marshall Plan for urban America, he said. They wanted a massive investment in an infusion of jobs in our community for a lot of reasons, including fighting crime. Although this is a story of black characters front and central, any story thats about what people of color do in this country also has to be about the constraints and the racism and the things that surround them and limit their abilities. They wanted an all of the above strategy to fighting crime. But they only got one of the above.

Forman said thats because African-Americans have never controlled the U.S. Congress or statehouses.

We controlled cities, he said. So we could deploy more police. We could deploy more prosecutors. But we by ourselves did not have enough political power to create a Marshall Plan for urban America. People of color have always needed allies. Theyve always needed the white community to feel their pain, and that was never forthcoming.

Though the book examines what role African-Americans played in mass incarceration, including the dynamics of class and colorism, and the series of policy steps and possible missteps that contributed to the system, Forman said one cant view these factors as separate from racism.

Race is central, he said. White supremacy is central. You cant understand the history of this country, the history of the criminal justice system, the history of mass incarceration without understanding the role of racism. At the same time, its not the whole story.

Click on or download the above audio file to hear the full interview with James Forman Jr. on WNHH radios Kicas Corner.

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Prof Mines The Roots Of The War On Drugs - New Haven Independent

Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions is promising to renew the federal governments war on drugs, saying tough new sentencing policies are necessary to combat what he described as a surge of violent crime in cities.

The Justice Department on Friday released a memo from Sessions ordering federal prosecutors to pursue the highest charges possible, including those that carry mandatory minimum sentences, for drug offenders.

If you are a drug trafficker, we will not look the other way," Sessions said Friday at the Justice Department."We will not be willfully blind to your conduct.

Sessions is ending Obama administration policies that told federal prosecutors to avoid charging low-level offenders with crimes that carry heavy mandatory sentences.

The new Justice Department policy was met with fierce criticism from sentencing advocates, some former federal prosecutors and even some Republicans in Congress who have been pursuing sentencing-reform measures.

To be tough on crime we have to be smart on crime, tweeted Sen. Mike Lee(R-Utah).That is why criminal justice reform is a conservative issue.

Violent crime has increased over the last two years in many of the nation's cities, though it is still far below rates in the 1990s. Overall, according to the FBI, the nation's crime rate fell 50% between 1993 and 2015.

Sessions said the crackdown was a key part of President Trumps promise to keep America safe, linking drug trafficking to increased homiciderates in some cities.

Drug trafficking is an inherently violent business, he said. If you want to collect a drug debt, you cant file a lawsuit in court.You collect it by the barrel of a gun.

He said heroin is cheaper, more pure and more easily available than ever. Advocates of justice reform say that the nation's opioid crisis is evidence that tough policies of the past have failed.

But Sessions said that tougher enforcement could reverse that trend.

So we are returning to the enforcement of the law as passed by Congress plain and simple, he said.

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With tough sentencing policy, Atty. Gen. Sessions pledges ... - Los Angeles Times

MANILA, Philippines - China has called on the international community to respect the Philippines sovereign prerogative in combating the drug menace in the country.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang issued the statement after 45 of 47 members of theUnited Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) urged the Philippine government to end extrajudicial killings and withdraw its plan to revive the death penalty.

Drugs are the common enemy for all human beings, bringing pain to many developing countries, including China. China supports President Duterte and the Philippine government in combating drug-related crimes in accordance with the law, Geng said in a press conference on Thursday night.

We hope the international community can respect the judicial sovereignty of the Philippines and support its efforts in fighting drug-related crimes through cooperation, he added.

Geng also called on UNHRC member-states to be objective in reviewing human rights situations in other countries.

On May 8, the 27th session of Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the UNHRC assessed the human rights situation in the Philippines.

Headlines ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1

Several countries including China, Cuba, Russia and Venezuela made positive comments and lauded the efforts and achievements made by the Philippines in eliminating poverty, promoting socio-economic development as well as improving and protecting human rights.

Geng said the UPR was an important mechanism for UN member-states to conduct dialogue and cooperation on an equal footing in the area of human rights.

We hope various parties can be objective and fair in viewing the human rights conditions in different countries and promote the human rights cause through dialogue and cooperation, he said.

The Philippines received a total of 257 recommendations the highest from among the participating states. Recommendations after review averaged 220.

Extrajudicial killings, death penalty and human trafficking were the core issues on which the recommendations were based.

Around 8,000 suspected drug offenders have died since the Duterte administration launched a brutal campaign against illegal drugs last year.

Human rights advocates claimed that the drug war has encouraged summary executions and human rights violations, but officials have denied the allegation.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government is looking forward to working closely with incoming secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano to further strengthen relations betwee the two nations.

We welcome the appointment and congratulate Mr. Cayetano. China is ready to work with him to implement the high-level consensus and keep deepening practical cooperation to push forward China-Philippines relations for greater benefits to our peoples and regional peace and stability, Geng said.

Prior to his appointment as DFA secretary, Cayetano headed the Senate foreign relations committee. He was President Dutertes runningmate in last years election.

Last week, Cayetano led the Philippine delegation to the UNHRCs UPR of the Philippines in Geneva, Switzerland where he defended the Duterte administrations war on drugs.

Geng said that since last year, relations between the Philippines and China have achieved all-round improvementand bilateral cooperation has entered a new stage.

Cooperation across the board has recovered and yielded fruitful outcomes. Our relationship is making overall progress, he said.

Duterte is among 29 heads of state and government leaders who will attend the Belt and Road Forum on International Cooperation in Beijing from May 14 to 15.

During his first visit to Beijing in October last year, Duterte brought home $24 billion worth of investment pledges and infrastructure projects.

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China urges UN to support Philippines' war on drugs - Philippine Star

Common Dreams

Civil and Human Rights Coalition Blasts Sessions' Reboot of Failed 'War on Drugs' Common Dreams Attorney General Sessions seems to have missed the memo that the War on Drugs is over. It has destroyed low-income communities and communities of color and has failed to make our country safer. Abandoning the Smart on Crime initiative will only ... Why is Sessions doubling down on a failed drug war?The Hill (blog) all 3 news articles »

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Civil and Human Rights Coalition Blasts Sessions' Reboot of Failed 'War on Drugs' - Common Dreams

Thousands of lives have been taken summarily, and we are debating whether those killings were justified or not

Senator Alan Cayetano traveled last week to Geneva, in Switzerland, to appear at a United Nations inquiry and argue on behalf of the Duterte government that, if any summary executions were happening in its war on drugs, these were not "state-sponsored".

He made other points, but still they were mainly about extrajudicial killings or EJKs, as they have come to be commonly called. He took issue particularly with media and other unofficial accounts of them and pronounced them falsehoods, as if these things don't qualify as truth until they have been Duterte-sanctified.

An immediate concern for Cayetanos representation was a complaint against Duterte with the International Criminal Court (ICC), based also in Geneva. The complaint was filed by Jude Sabio, lawyer for Edgar Matobato, who came forward last year and, in a foreshadowing of the present-day EJKs, confessed at a Senate hearing that he had been an assassin on a death squad in Davao City when Duterte was its mayor.

With reports of multiple drug-war deaths almost daily in the first 7 or 8 months of Duterte's 6-year presidential term reports backed by eyewitness accounts, pictures, and television footage taken by the networks as well as public closed-circuit systems how did Cayetano expect to make anyone disbelieve them and believe his word instead? One apparent trick was to seize on the phrase "state-sponsored", as EJKs are widely alleged, and split hairs around it.

To be sure, the phrase lends itself to semantic twisting, a game that lawyers like Cayetano like to play. But Etta Rosales, the former chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights, would not let any of that sort of thing pass. "Hogwash!" she declared and, with simple, cutting logic, asked rhetorically what government will dare admit "sponsoring" such brutality.

But lets indulge Cayetano, for the moment anyway. I'm not sure how the two words that form the disputed phrase state-sponsored are defined exactly in Cayetano's legal profession. But I cant imagine the word "sponsor" taking any meaning that departs essentially from the ones in lay usage: back, support, promote, sanction, approve of.

Gravest moral issue

Doesn't President Duterte do any and all that when he warns drug dealers and addicts, "I will kill you"? Doesn't he betray an even more perverse streak when he says he will be "happy to slaughter" all 3 million of them? Doesn't he encourage excesses by promising presidential protection to the extent of pardon to policemen prosecuting his drug war?

Concededly, the word "state", used synonymously with "president", can provoke legitimate contention: When does a presidential act become an act of the state? Maybe we could all agree to settle for a phrase that replaces state with president and takes sponsored for its partner or any of its synonyms. Thus, the President, who, after all, likes to invite challenges, is tested for his tough talk. Let him assume all responsibility for all the deaths in his war and all the abuses of his war enforcers, so that the state whatever that is may be spared.

But what are we doing, really, if not simply quibbling and quibbling over the gravest moral issue of our time. Thousands of lives have been taken summarily, and we are debating whether those killings were justified or not.

I'm reminded of a line from a movie, a comedy as it happens and, as such, appropriately desperate, I think, for drawing attention to the sick tragedy of our lives:

"I am drowning here, and you are describing the water!"

The resonance in fact does not end there. The ultimate evocation of our tragicomic situation comes from the title of the movie: As good as it gets. Rappler.com

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[Newspoint] Quibbling over life and death in the war on drugs - Rappler