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71 lines
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71 lines
4.2 KiB
Plaintext
Police and Prisons
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by A.M. Rosenthal, _New York Times_ Op-Ed, 1/28/94
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More and more billions for prisons to lock up more and more Americans who
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never had a decent chance at life. Are we mad? Why not use those billions to
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build more schools to give more young people living in poverty the education
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to climb out of it? It costs as much to keep a convict in prison as to send
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him to Yale, for Heaven's sake.
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And despite all the other billions the U.S. spends on the drug war,
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narcotics still flood the country, users are still being put into prison,
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crowding out violent criminals. Why not legalize drugs and use the anti-drug
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money on therapy for addicts and to improve the neighborhoods that create
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them?
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And why those long sentences for convicts? Every year behind bars makes
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them more bitter. They return to the same hard streets. Save money by cutting
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sentences. Spend the savings to give released convicts training for decent
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jobs.
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Those three paragraphs sum up an important belief in American liberal
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intellectual life -- the belief that war against crime and drugs is largely
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aimed at and hurts the poor and wastes huge amounts of money that could be
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used to fight the poverty, discrimination and educational deprivation that are
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the root causes of crime.
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The argument is false factually. Worse, it is damaging to people it is
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supposed to benefit -- Americans, all skin shades, who live in the streets of
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poverty and killing.
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Economically, the struggle against crime is the biggest bargain the
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taxpayer gets. A criminal on the loose costs society twice as much as a
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criminal in jail -- in stolen good, smashed property and of course the medical
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care for the victims.
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The drug war has not yet been won. But it has saved hundreds or thousands
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of Americans from lives of addiction that would have cost the country scores
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of billions. Nobody knows exactly how much because drug abuse is the cause of
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so many other crimes like family violence, robberies and muggings.
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Most of the crime takes place in poor neighborhoods. Drug addicts gobble up
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hospital space and time that would have gone to the people of those
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neighborhoods. Fighting crime and drugs is one tax expenditure that benefits
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the poor most of all.
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All those crowded jails are not filled with pot smokers caught by cops on
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patrol. Prof. John J. DiIulio Jr. of Princeton and Brookins reports that 93
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percent of convicts in state prisons are violent criminals, many of them
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repeat offenders.
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Yes, a lot of Americans are in jail. A lot more should be. If your house
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is burgled, there is a 1 in 80 chance the criminal will serve time.
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The trouble with long sentences is that they turn out not to be all that
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long. Convicts serve about one-third of their sentences. A rapist can expect
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to be out in 5 years, a convicted murderer in 10.
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President Clinton now recognizes the dreadful importance of crime in
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American life. But if he is to lead, as he should, he ought to make sure his
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top officers are following on close.
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About mandatory sentences, his Attorney General is known to law officers as
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Waffle General. His Surgeon General boosts another study of the much-studied
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legalization of drugs. Then after he properly says "nothing doing," she boosts
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it again. Either she does not believe what the President says or just does not
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care very much.
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Most of all, he should tell us the hardest truth of all -- how deeply
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criminals have hurt the already wounded of America, the poor.
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The President should tell us that criminals who have stayed out of jail and
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criminals who got out too early have turned large parts of the inner city into
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war zones. "Build schools, not prisons" -- that's not a choice now, it is a
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hoax.
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In war zones the money and energy of government and the people go to
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surviving, fighting and winning. Sometimes a little extra money and energy are
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spent to keep up spirits. But was there ever a case where in a war zone under
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attack there was enough money to make life decent and build for the future?
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The criminals have deprived other citizens of the greatest civil liberty --
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the right to live in peace. They have also deprived citizens of the treasure
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to build for the future.
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That is what the President should tell the country, for it is the plain
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truth and will be so until the winning starts.
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