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MARCH 27, 1997 AUGUSTA FOCUS
National Commentary
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Failed criminal-justice policy
victimizes racial minorities
ccording to a report issued by
the United States Department
of Justice early thisyear, one in
every 163 residents of this coun
try isin jail. No other country
in the world incarcerates such a large
proportion of its people. Much of the
stupendous growth in the prison popula
tion has occurred over the past decade or
s 0; since 1985, the prison population has
increased by 119 percent. A Department
of Justice report released this month
predicts that if 1991 incarceration rates
were to remain constant, approximately
one out of every 20 United States resi
dents -- or 5.1 percent -- would spend
some time in a state or federal prison
during his or her lifetime.
Areasonable person viewing these sta
tistics might draw the conclusion that
the United States is in the grip of a
violent crime wave. Such an assumption
would be wrong, however. The reality is
that the crime rate has been fairly stable,
and some categories of violent crime, like
homicide, are decreasing. No, the vast
majority of new offenders entering the
prison system since 1980 — 84 percent,
in fact — were serving time for non
violent crimes, mostly drug and property
offenses. These are the people who have
been swept up by the “get tough on
crime” political hysteria that has fueled
the most rapid prison expansion pro
gram in the history of the Western world
and has been used to create one of the
most monumental political manipula
tions of social policy.
Accordingto Stephen R. Donziger, who
directed the National Criminal Justice
Commission from 1994 to 1996, this
prison-building mania is a scam, a classic
example of the old “bait and switch” sales
technique. Legislators playing to citi
zens’ fear of crime pass laws to make
prison terms more likely, longer and
harsher, allin the name of getting violent
offenders off the streets. But the over
whelming percentage of people put away
under these laws — at enormous cost to
the taxpayer — are non-violent offend
ers. This is not what taxpayers bar
gained for.
Last week, I interviewed Mr. Donziger
on my weekly television show. 1 asked
him to speak about his book, The Real
War on Crime, which summarizes the
findings of the national Criminal Justice
Commission. The National Criminal
Justice Commission was a private, non
governmental organization of 34 citizen
leaders, not only police chiefs, lawyers
and academics but also doctors, educa
tors, businesspeople and athletes, who
volunteered their time for two years to
discover what was wrong with our crimi
nal justice system and what could be
done to fix it.
The Commission’s lead recommenda
tion is for states to adopt a three-year
moratorium on new prison construction
until an accurate assessment of prison
needs can be completed. In connection
with this, the Commission recommends
that some prison sanctions be replaced
with alternative programs that are less
expensive and more effective at reducing
crime,
Mr. Donziger points out that the “war
on crime” is a big business, and the in
dustry it has spawned is “eerily similar to
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Half of all new prison
admissions are Blacks
and Latinos. The so
called “War on Drugs”
has been catastrophic for
the black community.
While blacks and whites
use illegal drugs equally,
arrest rates for blacks
were five times higher
than for whites.
theold military-industrial complex.” This
new “prison-industrial complex” derives
enormous profit by capitalizing on public
fear of a new, post-Cold War enemy: the
“so-called criminal element.” The ex
pansion of the prison system, while un
necessary to preserve public safety, is
crucial to the continued profitability of
the prison industry, which involves some
of the largest investment houses on Wall
Street. Put in the starkest possible terms,
this industry needs a basic raw material
— prisoners — and the industry’s lobby
ists will do what needs to be done to make
sure the criminal justice system produces
an adequate and continuing supply.
Mr. Donziger points out that it is people
of color who are bearing the brunt of our
failed criminal justice policies and the
prison build-up. Half of all new prison
admissions are Blacks and Latinos. The
so-called “War on Drugs” has been cata
strophic for the Black community. While
Blacks and whites use illegal drugs
equally, at the height of the “War” in
1989, arrest rates for Blacks were five
times higher than for whites. Mr.
Donziger speculated that if the police
had concentrated on raiding elite fragter;,
nity parties‘nstead of poor communities,
the ferocity of this particular form of
crime-fighting would have been swiftly
curtailed.
lasked Mr. Donziger whether the Com
mission report will be perceived ideologi
cally, as “just another liberal take” on
the issue of crime. His answer did not
surprise me: “We don’t think it breaks
down along liberal and conservative
terms. It’s not liberal versus conserva
tive. It’s the taxpayer versus the govern
ment.”
Almost as much money is spent on
crime control as is spent on national
defense. But, as the National Justice
Commission’s report points out, the war
on crime is a war against our own people.
We're going to have to challenge that
bipartisan policy. And with it, we're
going to have to challenge the policy
making process that allows — indeed,
encourages —the adoption of approaches
that are deceptive, politically-motivated
and hurtful to the American people.
Lenora B. Fulani twice ran for Presi
dent of the U.S. as an independent, mak
ing history in 1988 when she became the
first woman and African American to get
on the ballot in all fifty states. Dr. Fulani
is currently a leading activist in the Re
form Party and chairs the Committee for
a Unified Independent Party. She can be
reached at 1-800-288-3201 or at
www.Fulani.org.
Charles W. Walker
Publisher
Frederick Benjamin
Managing Editor
Dot T. Ealy
Marketing Director
Gloria Nelor
News Correspondent
Tawana Lee.
News Correspondent
Miranda Gastiaburo
Sheila Jones
Office Manager
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Lillian Wan
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Opinion
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BY ANDERSON FOR THE COURIER-JOURNAL, LOUISVILLE
TO BE EQUAL By Hugh B. Price
Where are the jobs?
here are the jobs? ;
This is the issue which
has always been at the cen
ter of the debate over the
welfare reform law enacted
by Congress and signed by President
Clinton last summer.
There will only be one measuring stick
of the new law’s success: jobs which
make it possible for former welfare re
cipients to leave the welfare rolls and live
decently; and thus, justify society’s de
mand that all able-bodied individuals
work to support themselves and their
families. : :
Sorfié Who' support the new law boast **
that nationally, the number of people 61t~
welfare has fallen from just over 14 mil
lion in January 1993, to 11 and a half
million now.
The astonishingand frightening fact is
that, because most states don’t system
atically keep track of them, neither the
federal government nor state govern
ments know how many of those 2.6 mil
lion former welfare recipients actually
got jobs and how many have just sunk
deeper into a now-visible poverty.
It does no good to assert that the wel
fare reform law is going to work simply
because the number of new jobs our cur
rently strong economy has created.
Welfare recipients are still going to be
without work if all but a relative few of
those jobs are ones requiring white-col
lar skills. The overwhelming majority of
welfare recipients do not have those skills
and won't get them without intensive
and expensive training.
Or, if the entry-level jobs which are
The race war is on!
B The case of Robert Burks,
a black California Highway
patrolman, signals the
official beginning of the
“race war.”
By Dennis Schatzman
SPECIAL to the NNPA
LOS ANGELES
This is California, the land where Carl
Rowan’s Coming Race War in America is
escalating to near-full scale. Among the
first shots heard around the nation, as it
were, came in the spring of 1994, right
here in southern California.
This one involved a Black man whose
civil rights were violated by the “sys
tem.” No, I'm not talking about O.J.
Simpson whose rights to a fair trial were
severely curtailed. What I’'mtalking here
are the rights of a man less prominent
than Simpson, but no less a Black man
who is supposed to be protected by the
Bill of Rights and the American Consti
tution.
Robert Burksisaßlack California High
way Patrol (CHP) officer who is married
to a prominent Moreno Valley school
board member. Since the Burks moved
to this inland Empire enclave 60 miles
east of Los Angeles, and have both be
come prominent in political and civil
rights activities, they have amassed a
large number of white enemies.
In 1994, Burks felt the wrath of his
(more aptly, his wife’s) enemies when he
open are really just temporary or sea
sonal work, or pay subsistence wages,
former welfare recipients will likely en
dure a poverty completely devoid of the
assurance of the “safety-net” features of
housing, food and medical care that the
now-discarded government assistance
program provided.
President Clinton sought to address
these concerns in his radio address last
Saturday by announcing that he has or
dered all federal agencies to immediately
begin preparing detailed plans for hiring
people off welfare.
“Government can help to move people
from welfare to work, Mr. Clinton said,
“by acting the way we want all employers
to act — demanding high performance
from workers, but going the extramile to
offer opportunity to those who have been
on welfare and want to do something
more with their lives.”
Mr. Clinton said that the kind of fed
eral jobs he is thinking of are as clerical
aides, security guards, messengers, li
brary technicians, supply clerks, mail
clerks and forestry workers. They typi
cally pay about $12,500 a year.
The idea of the federal effort is both
proper and praiseworthy. The federal
government must act. It cannot simply
leave it to charitable organizations, com
munity groups, churches and businesses
to hire welfare recipients.
For society’s sake, we at the National
Urban League want the forthcoming
plans to show the innovative thinking
and commitment that is required to add
welfare recipients to the working class,
not the underclass.
allegedly got into a mild argument with a
white woman politically associated with
a Moreno Valley school board member
named Tracey Vacker. Vacker had ob
jected to Burks being at a school board
meeting and wanted him thrown out
even though the meetings are open, not
only to spouses of school board members,
but to the general public as well.
The woman, Rocklyn “Rockie” Kane,
who argued with Burks, first called the
Moreno Valley police department, then
called Burks’ CHP employers and claimed
that he threatened her. The CHP quickly
launched an investigation into Burks’
“behavior,” suspended him for a month,
and then -- emphasis on the then, held a
hearingon theallegations several months
later where the suspension was reduced
by five days — after the fact.
Under both the California and the U.S.
Constitutions, it is not supposed to hap
pen that way. In America, a person is
entitled to due process before he or she is
punished, whether it is by jail time or by
suspension in the workplace. Unfortu
nately for Burks, the right to due process
was not in the cards.
Worse, to add insult to injury, the CHP
released a copy of Burks’ personnel file to
the Moreno Valley Times, a mainstream
weekly newspaper politically associated
with school board member Vacker, a
month before Mr. Burks’ run for Moreno
Valley City Council. The negative pub
licity cost him the election. This was too
much for even Burks to handle. In No
vember 1996, Burks filed a blockbuster
lawsuit against the CHP, theValley Times
Nonetheless, that central question —
where are the jobs? — still looms.
Where are the jobs for welfare recipi
ents when the federal government isn’t
hiring many people at all? Since Presi
dent Clinton took office, the government'’s
civilian workforce has shrunk by 13 per
cent, to 1.9 million people, its lowest level
in three decades, and that reduction will
continue.
Moreover, most of the hiring that the
government is doing is for temporary
jobs; 71 percent of the 200,000 people
hired in the last fiscal year were in that
category. Most of those were undoubt
edly consultants, hired to do skilled,
white-collar tasks. Both the number of
people hired for and the number of adver
tised job-openings for blue-collar posi
tions is very small, according to data
gathered by The New York Times. Of the
hundreds of job openings listed at the
federal government’s Internet site, there
are few for entry-level positions — 11
openings for nursing assistants, six for
clerk-typists and nine for mail and file
clerks.
This is not a profile that encourages
confidence in the federal effort that the
President outlined.
Of course, the President’s plan, which
has yet to be fully fleshed out, deserves
the chance to work.
But we must point out that the prob
lems with the new welfare law which
some called to attention to last summer
have not disappeared.
Those problems can be most succinctly
put by the question which will not go
away: where are the jobs?
and its parent company, Donrey Publish
ing Company of Fort Smith, Ark. alleging .
libel, invasion of privacy, racial discrimi- -,
nation and harassment. A hearing is _
scheduled for spring.
Charges of disparate treatment against
its minority officers is nothing new to the
California Highway Patrol, according to . _
the San Bernardino Sun, the inland
Empire’s largest daily newspaper. r
“The California Highway Patrol dis
criminates against its minority officers
by failing time and again to promote
them, a federal judge declared,” wrote
theSun’s April 1, 1995 front page article.
U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall .
issued that ruling after hearing a dis
crimination case filed by Jeff Paige, an
African-American officer, after other less
qualified white officers passed him by.
Judge Marshall’s ruling was supposed
to set the stage for “fundamental changes -
in the CHP’s hiring and promotional
practices.” Instead, the ruling added fuel -
to what minorities have become accus- ]
tomed to here in California — retribu- '
tion and pay back. Robert Burks is just
thelatest victimand the CHP isintenton
making an example of him. i
O.J. Simpson, move over. You are
about to have company. The “race war”
has officially begun. Man your stations.
Mr. Schatzman is a former district g
Judge in Pittsburgh, Penn., an NNPA I
syndicated columnist and a journalism
professor at the California State Univer- ,
sity at Fullerton. He is the co-author of
The Simpson Trial in Black and White.