Ron Strider
Well-Known Member
With all the mayhem and malfeasance emanating from the Trump administration, it's hard to keep up with the myriad policies and practices that are doing harm to the nation. That's especially true at the Department of Justice, where Attorney General Jeff Sessions seems determined to turn back the clock to a meaner, harsher era – a time when justice was reserved for a privileged few.
Sessions recently announced his intention to return to the discredited practice of locking people up for long stretches for drug crimes. Reversing a key policy of the Obama administration, Sessions told federal prosecutors to seek the toughest possible charges in drug cases.
By contrast, Attorney General Eric Holder had advised prosecutors to use their judgment in deciding how tough to be. "We must ensure that our most severe mandatory minimum penalties are reserved for serious, high-level or violent drug traffickers,'' Holder wrote in 2013. "Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long and for truly no good law enforcement reason.''
He was right. After decades of a grim, costly war on drugs, many Americans have finally come to realize that meting out long prison sentences for drug offenders, especially low-level users and dealers, was a mistake. That policy didn't curb drug use. It only ensured that poor black neighborhoods were deprived of young men in the prime of their lives, leaving families without fathers and providers.
Even some conservatives had come to understand that the United States locks up far too many of its citizens. Their epiphany may have been prompted by the opioid epidemic, which has struck far more white families than black ones. With this new scourge of illegal narcotics use, conservative lawmakers have been much more likely to push for treatment than for prison time.
The timing is right to step back from mass incarceration.
Falling crime rate
Crime, after all, has been falling for decades. Violent crime rates reached their peak in the early 1990s and have been dropping ever since.
But the funny thing about Trumpworld is that its propaganda preaches the exact opposite. If you paid any attention to the president's campaign speeches, you heard him describe urban areas as bleak, crime-ridden dystopias. And his followers believe him, applauding his disparaging portrayals of urban areas with black populations.
The creation of an alternative universe where right-wing propaganda is the biblical truth was the triumph of the late Roger Ailes, who started Fox News.
Their illogical belief system remains intact even when it collides with the reality at their fingertips. They may have family members who are heroin addicts. Trump voters demand mercy and treatment for them. But their insistence on a harsh justice for black lawbreakers is unimpeded.
Sessions brings a set of outdated views about the use of marijuana, which he sees as a serious crime. He is likely to crack down on the states that have allowed legal marijuana sales.
It will be difficult for those prosecutors to lock up black drug dealers while ignoring white ones. If they mete out their harsh drug laws, Trump's supporters may be forced to come to terms with a reality they have suppressed.
News Moderator: Ron Strider 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Trump voters may resist harsh drug sentences for whites | Commentaries | timesdaily.com
Author: Cynthia Tucker
Contact: Contact Us | Site | timesdaily.com
Photo Credit: Cynthia Tucker
Website: timesdaily.com
Sessions recently announced his intention to return to the discredited practice of locking people up for long stretches for drug crimes. Reversing a key policy of the Obama administration, Sessions told federal prosecutors to seek the toughest possible charges in drug cases.
By contrast, Attorney General Eric Holder had advised prosecutors to use their judgment in deciding how tough to be. "We must ensure that our most severe mandatory minimum penalties are reserved for serious, high-level or violent drug traffickers,'' Holder wrote in 2013. "Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long and for truly no good law enforcement reason.''
He was right. After decades of a grim, costly war on drugs, many Americans have finally come to realize that meting out long prison sentences for drug offenders, especially low-level users and dealers, was a mistake. That policy didn't curb drug use. It only ensured that poor black neighborhoods were deprived of young men in the prime of their lives, leaving families without fathers and providers.
Even some conservatives had come to understand that the United States locks up far too many of its citizens. Their epiphany may have been prompted by the opioid epidemic, which has struck far more white families than black ones. With this new scourge of illegal narcotics use, conservative lawmakers have been much more likely to push for treatment than for prison time.
The timing is right to step back from mass incarceration.
Falling crime rate
Crime, after all, has been falling for decades. Violent crime rates reached their peak in the early 1990s and have been dropping ever since.
But the funny thing about Trumpworld is that its propaganda preaches the exact opposite. If you paid any attention to the president's campaign speeches, you heard him describe urban areas as bleak, crime-ridden dystopias. And his followers believe him, applauding his disparaging portrayals of urban areas with black populations.
The creation of an alternative universe where right-wing propaganda is the biblical truth was the triumph of the late Roger Ailes, who started Fox News.
Their illogical belief system remains intact even when it collides with the reality at their fingertips. They may have family members who are heroin addicts. Trump voters demand mercy and treatment for them. But their insistence on a harsh justice for black lawbreakers is unimpeded.
Sessions brings a set of outdated views about the use of marijuana, which he sees as a serious crime. He is likely to crack down on the states that have allowed legal marijuana sales.
It will be difficult for those prosecutors to lock up black drug dealers while ignoring white ones. If they mete out their harsh drug laws, Trump's supporters may be forced to come to terms with a reality they have suppressed.
News Moderator: Ron Strider 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Trump voters may resist harsh drug sentences for whites | Commentaries | timesdaily.com
Author: Cynthia Tucker
Contact: Contact Us | Site | timesdaily.com
Photo Credit: Cynthia Tucker
Website: timesdaily.com
