More black men went to prison under Big Dog's term than even Reagans term

[bigdarryl]

with the drug offense laws. Why hasn't anyone mentioned this. so thats one thing the Clinton's did for blacks.

[jasmine621]

1. Unless I am off base, wasn't it the states that voted in those laws?

And the people of those states who voted in favor of those laws?

[RaleighNCDUer]

51. But the nation controls the purse strings.

Washington pushes for 3-strikes laws, mandatory minimums, and threatens to withhold federal grants unless the states adopt those laws. The natural result is that the states need the money so they agree. Of course, the vast increase in incarceration requires MORE money and MORE federal grants to meet the increased expenses.

That's how we wind up with both the highest rate of incarceration and the highest real numbers incarcerated in the entire fucking world.

[TwilightZone]

2. Well, if you can show us where Clinton signed that law...

perhaps we can take the assertion seriously.

In the meantime, here's a little light reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_strikes_law

[RaleighNCDUer]

53. The OP didn't mention 3-strikes.

However, the mandatory minimums required by the DOJ on behalf of the DEA, which would withhold money to the states unless mandatory minimums were provided, were a product of the Clinton years' War on Drugs.

Add that to the numerous 3-strikes laws across the country, and we have Prison Planet.

[Occam Bandage]

56. It was three-strikes at first. He changed it after being proven wrong repeatedly. Coward.

[TwilightZone]

60. After several responses, it was edited.

[jasmine621]

3. Spend some time learning a few things.

http://www.silicon-valley.com/3strikes.html

[tandot]

4. Nice try. How is that Clinton's fault?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_strikes_law


Three strikes laws are statutes enacted by state governments in the United States which require the state courts to hand down a mandatory and extended period of incarceration to persons who have been convicted of a serious criminal offense on three or more separate occasions. These statutes became very popular in the 1990s. They are formally known among lawyers and law professors as habitual offender laws.<1> The name comes from baseball, where a batter has two strikes before striking out on the third.

The stated rationale for these laws is that the automatic and lengthy imprisonment of individuals who commit three or more felonies is justified on the basis that recidivists are incorrigible and chronically criminal, and must be imprisoned as a matter of public safety.

--------------

I guess for some people, anything goes when smearing a Democratic candidate :thumbsdown:

[bigdarryl]

5. srop trying to rewrite history Clinton signed that law along with the

welfare law.

[TwilightZone]

7. It is you, sir, who is rewriting history. Three strikes laws are state laws.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_strikes_law

Perhaps you can explain how Bill Clinton signed a state law as president.

[William769]

9. Speaking of rewriting history, show us what law exactly Clinton signed

ABout the three strikes. Inquiring minds want to know!

[Occam Bandage]

6. Big Dog now exerts shadow control over state governments?

:eyes:

[calico1]

11. Before this is all over, Bush, Reagan, McCain,

etc. will all be far left Liberals compared to the Clintons.

Sad, really.

[robbedvoter]

47. Yup. I noticed.

[krispos42]

44. It's the Clenis

It's all-powerful, able to cow states lawmakers with a single swing! Teddy Roosevelt said it best, after all...

[robbedvoter]

48. Do not mess with the mighty Clenis!

[killbotfactory]

67. He passed the omnibus crime bill

He also refused to address the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, while expanding the drug war. The result is that hundreds of thousands of people were locked up in jail, predominantly black people.

On the plus side, when people are in jail they don't count as unemployed or poor. Throwing hundreds of thousands of people in jail helped to improve the economic statistics during Clinton's term.

[Occam Bandage]

76. While all of that's true, my post was in response to an OP that was very different.

Back when I wrote that, he was blaming Clinton for three-strikes laws.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. You Do Know That African Americans Are Victims Of Crime Too

~

[Occam Bandage]

14. Which is never mentioned, really. If a violent offender is removed from

a Black neighborhood, then that neighborhood is safer for innocent people to live in.

(Note: This does not apply to drug laws, which are ridiculous. This also does not apply to the death penalty, which is unevenly applied and as such should be indefinitely suspended.)

[killbotfactory]

68. Most of the increase in prison population is NOT from violent crime

It was from expanding the drug war.

The single greatest force behind the growth of the U.S. prison system since the mid-1980s has been the national "war on drugs."45 Spearheaded by major federal drug policy initiatives that significantly increased penalties for drug offenses and markedly increased federal funds for state anti-drug efforts, federal and state measures to combat drugs have concentrated on criminal law enforcement rather than prevention and treatment.46 An estimated 400,000 people -- almost one-quarter of the total incarcerated population in the U.S. -- are confined in local jails and state and federal prisons on drug charges.47 Citing the extraordinary number of drug offenders in U.S. prisons, General Barry McCaffrey, has decried the creation of what he termed a "drug gulag."48

Policies adopted to battle the use and sale of drugs have led to marked increases in arrest rates, in the likelihood of going to prison, and in the length of sentences for drug offenders. Between 1980 and 1997, the number of annual drug arrests tripled to a high of 1,584,000.49 The rate of drug arrests per 100,000 residents rose from 288 to 661.50 The rate of commitment to state prison per drug arrest quintupled between 1980 and 1990, rising from 19 prison commitments per 1,000 arrests to 103 per 1,000.51 The estimated time served by drug offenders in state prisons increased a full year between 1987 and 1996; federal drug sentences doubled.52

As of 1997, there were an estimated 285,009 men and women in state and federal prisons on drug charges, a twelvefold increase since 1980. 53 Relative to the adult population, the rate of incarceration of drug offenders hasincreased almost tenfold, rising from less than 15 inmates per 100,000 adults to 148 per 100,000.54 In 1980, drug offenders comprised only six percent of state prison populations. By 1998, they constituted 21 percent. In federal prisons, drug offenders now comprise 59 percent of all inmates, whereas they represented only a quarter of federal inmates in 1980.55

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa/

Our incarceration rates are absolutely shameful, and there is no excuse for them. None. At the end of Clinton's term we had incarceration rates higher than China and Libya, under Bush they are now the highest in the world. That's disgusting!

[bigdarryl]

10. I have a link on the Clinton policies on Federal and State Prison's

http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views01/0327-01.htm
Clinton's Tough Prison Watch

[TwilightZone]

12. "Three strikes" appears nowhere in that article.

Would you like to try again?

[bigdarryl]

13. my mistake than doesn't matter there still were more blacks locked up under his watch

see I can admit a mistake like some can't.

[William769]

16. We will just add it to your collection.

[Occam Bandage]

17. "Under his watch?" As you already pointed out, that's largely the fault of three-strikes laws,

which were created, passed, and enforced by state governments.

[RaleighNCDUer]

59. It was more the mandatory minimums for drug offenses,

which his administration WAS responsible for, as they were tied to federal law enforcement grants.

[Occam Bandage]

61. Wasn't the original point of the OP.

[RaleighNCDUer]

71. True, but does not change the fact of what I said. nt

[TwilightZone]

18. .

Never mind, not worth the time....

[calico1]

20. I gained a few lbs, got some gray hairs and

turned 40 under Clinton's watch. Maybe I should blame him for that?

:eyes:

[LanternWaste]

27. So yes, I believe it does indeed matter...

Was their incarceration due to federal or state laws?

If due to state laws (as has been evidenced by others in this thread), then there is simply no relevance between Pres. Clinton and the amount of incarcerated African American.

It's a logical fallacy called, 'post hoc ergo prompter hoc', Latin for 'after this therefore because of this'.

"doesn't matter there still were more blacks locked up under his watch"

So yes, I believe it does indeed matter...

[rinsd]

34. "doesn't matter my point still stands" is admitting a mistake?

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

45. Admit a mistake after you actually make one...

"When William Jefferson Clinton took office in 1993, he was embraced by some as a moderate change from the previous twelve years of tough on crime Republican administrations. Now, eight years later, the latest criminal justice statistics show that it was actually Democratic President Bill Clinton who implemented arguably the most punitive platform on crime in the last two decades. In fact, "tough on crime" policies passed during the Clinton Administration's tenure resulted in the largest increases in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history"


http://www.cjcj.org/pubs/clinton/clinton.html

[robbedvoter]

he locked people under a watch??? Nobody told me that!

[gratuitous]

15. And since . . .

And since the number of black men was constant between 1981 and 1989 and between 1993 and 2001, this ungrounded, unsourced assertion is just totally valid. :eyes:

[Occam Bandage]

21. "And while the number of black men going to jail increased,

so did the number of white men who were not in jail!"

[gratuitous]

28. Devastating point!

Can't argue with that kind of logic, boy!

[killbotfactory]

66. You are totally wrong

Blacks are incarcerated nationally at a rate of 1,547 per 100,000 black residents. In some states, the black rate of incarceration reaches extraordinary levels (Table 3). In Alaska, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia, blacks are incarcerated at rates that exceed 2,000 per 100,000. The lowest incarceration rate for blacks, 570 in North Dakota, exceeds the highest rate for whites, 440 in Arizona.

These rates of incarceration reflect a marked increase since the late 1980s. Although rates increased for both whites and blacks in most states between 1988 and 1996, the black rate in most states increased more than the white rate. The national black rate of incarceration increased 67 percent, from 922 per 100,000 black residents to 1547, while the white rate increased 28 percent, from 134 to 188 per 100,000 white residents (Table 4). In nine states --Iowa, Kentucky, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin -- the black rate of incarceration doubled. In another twenty-six states, the rate increased by fifty percent or more. In contrast, the white rate increased by fifty percent in fifteen states; in only two states (South Dakota and Washington) did the white rate double. As a result, the ratio of the rates of black to white incarceration increased from 6.8 to 8.2.

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa/Rcedrg00-01.htm

Racially Disproportionate Incarceration Rates

The strikingly disproportionate rate of disenfranchisement among African American men reflects their disproportionate rate of incarceration. The rate of imprisonment for black men in 1996 was 8.5 times that of white men: black men were confined in prison at a rate of 3,098 per 100,000 compared to a white rate of 370.34 Even more strikingly, in the past ten years the black men’s rate increased ten times the white men’s increase.35

http://www.hrw.org/reports98/vote/usvot98o-02.htm

[Freddie Stubbs]

19. And fewer law abiding blacks were vitims of crime

[madrchsod]

22. bush/reagan`s fault not clintons -Mandatory Minimum Sentences

http://www.drugpolicy.org/drugwar/mandatorymin/
Drug Policy Alliance: Mandatory Minimum Sentences

"Racial Injustice In 1986, the year Congress enacted federal mandatory drug sentences, the average federal drug sentence for African Americans was 11 percent higher than for whites. Four years later, the average federal drug sentence for African Americans was 49 percent higher."

"Women Between 1986 and 1996, the number of women in prison for drug law violations increased by 421 percent. This led U.S. Bureau of Prisons Director Kathleen Hawk-Sawyer to testify before Congress, "The reality is, some 70-some percent of our female population are low-level, nonviolent offenders. The fact that they have to come into prison is a question mark for me. I think it has been an unintended consequence of the sentencing guidelines and the mandatory minimums."

[MrCoffee]

46. THANK YOU!!! mandatory minimums are NOT criminal JUSTICE

when judges have no discretion, no room for mitigation, no room to do anything but apply a rote formula, there's no justice.

[Mass]

23. Not his doing. The crack law was passed before his time and the three strike laws are state laws.

No need to become like their supporters, who cannot acknowledge facts.

[Occam Bandage]

24. "No need to become like their supporters, who cannot acknowledge facts."

This is what polarization does. It turns half a candidate's supporters into gibbering loons, and half that candidate's detractors into gibbering loons.

[goldcanyonaz]

25. Okay, I get it, we now hate President Clinton around here.

[TwilightZone]

32. Actually, I think most of these threads are an attempt at guilt-by-association.

Bill Clinton was bad, therefore Hillary must be as well. That kind of thing.

Because, as we all know, they're the same person, right?

[LostinVA]

40. I ahven't been very pleased with the Bill Clinton hit jobs around here

Including mentioning of MONICA LEWINSKY, cigars, etc. Including posting of a very Hitchens-like talking points list of why to hate Bill Clinton.

Disgraceful.

[killbotfactory]

72. He refused to address the crack/powder cocaine disparity

While expanding the drug war, which drove up incarceration rates higher than China and other oppressive nations like them, and disproportionately effected minorities.

On April 10, 1995, the United States Sentencing Commission proposed amendments to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines reducing the penalty levels for offenses involving crack cocaine to the same levels applicable to powder cocaine offenses.

The amendments would have deleted the definition of "cocaine base" and in its place inserted a new definition stating, "'Cocaine,' for the purposes of this guideline, includes cocaine hydrochloride, cocaine base, and crack cocaine."

The Sentencing Commission also voted to recommend that Congress equalize its mandatory sentencing statutes on cocaine.

(snip)

Attorney General Janet Reno, speaking on behalf of the Department of Justice, opposed the reductions, and the Clinton Administration was able to get a bill introduced and passed in Congress rejecting the proposed changes.

On October 30, 1995, President Clinton signed into law the legislation disapproving the Sentencing Commission's proposed guideline amendment that would have equalized the penalties for crack and powder cocaine offenses. The legislation called for further study and a report by the Sentencing Commission on the appropriate penalty ratio between the two forms of cocaine.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/12/12/215349/87

Great job!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

26. Oh- Let's Acknowledge More Black Folks Had Jobs Thant At Any Time In History And

The Number Of Black Folks Living Below The Poverty Line Was Decreasing....

My black brothers and sisters are smart... They know , on the whole, the nineties were a good time for them (and) every American...

[iconocrastic]

29. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time

n/t

[goldcanyonaz]

30. More like don't be accused of a crime, if you can't afford a laywer to defend you.

[iconocrastic]

36. Lawyers are the real moneymakers for sure

And they're disproportionately white.

[killbotfactory]

65. Yeah, that's the problem

The USA, "Land of the Free" has the highest incarceration rate in the goddamn world, you think it might be a problem with the system? Nah... what was I thinking.

[iconocrastic]

78. Ok, let the criminals out of jail

Then there will be no more crime.

Yup.

[laureloak]

31. Do they commit more crimes?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

33. If You Control For Economic Status No They Do Not

In other words a middle class African American man is no more likely to run afoul of the law than a middle class white or Hispanic man...

[iconocrastic]

35. Source of the statistic, please ... n/t

[killbotfactory]

69. No, they are just prosecuted more often

The absolute level of black incarceration should be cause for national concern. But so should the striking disparity with white incarceration. Nationwide, black men of all ages are incarcerated at more than seven times the rate of white men, according to the Justice Department.7 Again, shocking as such a national average is, it masks even worse racial disparities in individual states. In thirteen states, black men are incarcerated at more than ten times the rate of white men.8 No state is free of significant disparities.

The national war on drugs has perhaps been the primary factor behind the extraordinary rates at which blacks are incarcerated. Drug offenses account for nearly two out of five of the blacks sent to state prison. More blacks are sent to state prison for drug offenses (38 percent) than for crimes of violence (27 percent). In contrast, drug offenders constitute 24 percent of whites admitted to prison and violent offenders constitute 27 percent (Figure 3).

African-Americans are arrested, prosecuted, and imprisoned for drug offenses at far higher rates than whites. This racial disparity bears little relationship to racial differences in drug offending. For example, although the proportion of all drug users who are black is generally in the range of 13 to 15 percent, blacks constitute 36 percent of arrests for drug possession. Blacks constitute 63 percent of all drug offenders admitted to state prisons. In at least fifteen states, black men were sent to prison on drug charges at rates ranging from twenty to fifty-seven times those of white men. (Figure 4 and Figure 5).

http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/incarceration/

[David Zephyr]

75. You really ask that question. Of course they don't "committ more crimes"."

Jeez.

[laureloak]

77. The right problem must be addressed, else there is no solution.

[ellacott]

37. Three strikes law WAS part of the Federal crime bill

The State 3 strikes law would not have been applicable to Federal cases in that jurisdiction.

[killbotfactory]

38. I have mentioned this

I even started a thread about it
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4041288

[Rageneau]

39. A Typical Anti-Clinton Assault -- baseless.

It sometimes seems to me that the only thing Clinton detractors have in common is how badly informed they are. But I suppose that's necessary when one's impulse is to attack, but one doesn't quite know why.

[Zynx]

41. So the President is also all state governors, legislatures, and DAs?

[ellacott]

43. You have state and federal sentences within a state

Both have different sentencing guidelines. If you rob a bank you will be tried in federal court and be subject to federal guidelines. If you rob your neighbor you will go before the state.

[Zynx]

52. All I know is what I saw here in Wisconsin.

The Republican governor and a skiddish Democratic legsilature passed laws that made our prison population balloon.

[ellacott]

54. Yes, they have both Federal and State 3 strikes laws

I think it's a terrible law.

[Name removed]

42. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[IndianaJones]

49. sense when does bigdarryl care about race issues?

sense today.

[juajen]

73. The following might help.

cents=monetary "I have only 30 cents to my name."
since=when "Since when do you have curly hair?"
sense=common "Please just use your common sense!"

[IndianaJones]

74. sense when do you control the dictionary? nt.

[Perry Logan]

50. Try to focus on beating up Republicans. You can do it.

[HughMoran]

55. wow

"hide thread" city...

[Catherine Vincent]

57. Typical pigdarryl thread. nt

[killbotfactory]

58. Clinton Unveils New Crime Bill as COPS Program Hits 100,000 Mark

http://www.usmayors.org/uscm/us_mayor_newspaper/documents/05_17_99/clinton2_washington.htm

Yeah, sure, Clinton had nothing to do with it.

I'm sure he had nothing to do with the cocaine/crack sentencing disparity, either.

Ironically, two days after that speech, the justice and equality that a million black men had marched to the steps of the Capitol to demand, was deferred. Congress voted against equalizing the quantities for the sentencing of crack and powder cocaine offenses.

This vote was suspect because lawmakers rejected the wisdom of their own bipartisan Sentencing Commission, which had meticulously researched and analyzed cocaine and federal sentencing policy over a two-year period. The Commission had come to the unanimous conclusion that the sentences for crack cocaine were too great and must be changed. Shamefully, out of over 500 recommendations submitted by the expert Commission since its inception, this was the first one Congress chose to ignore.

The ball was then in Mr. Clinton’s court. Congressional Black Caucus members pointedly appealed to the president to eradicate the disparity in cocaine sentencing. This was the first “test,” they declared, in the wake of the Million Man March, to prove he would “root out” unjust policies and practices. A coalition of civil rights groups at that time declared that eliminating this unjust law would have been “as easy as the stroke of a pen.” Unfortunately, Mr. Clinton failed to turn his eloquently delivered words on race relations into deeds, instead siding with the congressional majority and disregarding rationally based reform. And prisons continued to be built – and filled – throughout the 1990s.

http://www.blackcommentator.com/155/155_think_crack_congress_mmm.html

Thanks for the police state, Bill! I understand, you didn't want to look soft on crime, so it's okay.

[killbotfactory]

62. Bump for the prison industrial complex

Like the endless quagmire of Vietnam left for Richard Nixon, President Clinton's drug war leaves a legacy of victims but no victory.

Clinton got a splash of publicity for his token release of four women and a man from prison -- a grand total of five out of America's 400,000 nonviolent drug convicts.

In June, the international group Human Rights Watch issued a major study finding that America's war on drugs has been waged overwhelmingly against black people.

The group said that five times as many white people as black people use drugs but black men are sent to state prisons at 13 times the rate of white men. Hispanics are also jailed in hugely disproportionate numbers.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/071800-105.htm

Awesome!

[killbotfactory]

63. Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs (HRW)

The single greatest force behind the growth of the U.S. prison system since the mid-1980s has been the national "war on drugs."45 Spearheaded by major federal drug policy initiatives that significantly increased penalties for drug offenses and markedly increased federal funds for state anti-drug efforts, federal and state measures to combat drugs have concentrated on criminal law enforcement rather than prevention and treatment.46 An estimated 400,000 people -- almost one-quarter of the total incarcerated population in the U.S. -- are confined in local jails and state and federal prisons on drug charges.47 Citing the extraordinary number of drug offenders in U.S. prisons, General Barry McCaffrey, has decried the creation of what he termed a "drug gulag."48

Policies adopted to battle the use and sale of drugs have led to marked increases in arrest rates, in the likelihood of going to prison, and in the length of sentences for drug offenders. Between 1980 and 1997, the number of annual drug arrests tripled to a high of 1,584,000.49 The rate of drug arrests per 100,000 residents rose from 288 to 661.50 The rate of commitment to state prison per drug arrest quintupled between 1980 and 1990, rising from 19 prison commitments per 1,000 arrests to 103 per 1,000.51 The estimated time served by drug offenders in state prisons increased a full year between 1987 and 1996; federal drug sentences doubled.52

As of 1997, there were an estimated 285,009 men and women in state and federal prisons on drug charges, a twelvefold increase since 1980. 53 Relative to the adult population, the rate of incarceration of drug offenders has increased almost tenfold, rising from less than 15 inmates per 100,000 adults to 148 per 100,000.54 In 1980, drug offenders comprised only six percent of state prison populations. By 1998, they constituted 21 percent. In federal prisons, drug offenders now comprise 59 percent of all inmates, whereas they represented only a quarter of federal inmates in 1980.55

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa/

Thanks Bill!

[killbotfactory]

64. Too Little Too Late: President Clinton's Prison Legacy

When President Clinton Stole the "Get Tough on Crime" Show
When President Bill Clinton included "the war on crime" as a major tenet in both his 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns, the past ten years had already witnessed the largest incarceration increase in the nation's history.4 During his 1992 campaign, to illustrate his resolve, President Clinton actually interrupted his campaigning to return to his home state of Arkansas to oversee the execution of mentally retarded death row inmate Ricky Ray Rector.5

Throughout its tenure, the Clinton administration consistently supported increased penalties and additional prison construction. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 provided state and municipal governments with $30 billion to add 100,000 new police officers, to build more prisons, and to employ more prison guards, as well as funding for crime prevention programs.

Crime Control Impact: A shift in resources from communities to corrections

The money and resources spent by governments and private interests on the criminal justice system is so large that it is having a profound impact on our economy, and as a result, our society. In 1994, just two years after President Bill Clinton took office, there were 1.4 million prison and jail inmates in the U.S. and by 1997, the criminal justice system employed more than two million people,6 and cost taxpayers more than $70 billion a year. One estimate suggests that by 2002, the criminal justice system will cost taxpayers more than $200 billion annually.7 Today, there are more people working in the criminal justice system than are working in community and social service occupations (like employment, vocational, mental health and substance abuse counseling).8 Ironically, these are the occupations that are most likely to be geared towards preventing crime, and helping to rehabilitate ex-offenders, as opposed to occupations that are designed to arrest, prosecute, detain and imprison. With two million people behind bars in the U.S., and 4.5 million people on probation and parole, America ends the Clinton-era with at least 8.5 million people who are either under the control of the correctional system or working for the criminal justice system.

While everyone is affected by the nation's quadrupling of the prison population, the African American community has borne the brunt of the nation's incarceration boom. From 1980 to 1992, the African American incarceration rate increased by an average of 138.4 per 100,000 per year. Still, despite a more than doubling of the African American incarceration rate in the 12 years prior to President Clinton's term in office, the African American incarceration rate continued to increase by an average rate of 100.4 per 100,000 per year. In total, between 1980 and 1999, the incarceration rate for African Americans more than tripled from 1156 per 100,000, to 3,620 per 100,000. (See Chart III)

http://www.cjcj.org/pubs/clinton/clinton.html

[David Zephyr]

70. And more gay and lesbians were tossed out of the service many of Clinton's years, too.

The "fairy tale" (to use Bill Clinton's term) is that Bill Clinton is a liberal. He never was and his wife is not one either.