The Decriminalization Delusion

City Journal ^ | Fall 2015 | By Heather MacDonald

[Brad from Tennessee]

In July 2015, President Obama paid a press-saturated visit to a federal penitentiary in Oklahoma. The cell blocks that Obama toured had been evacuated in anticipation of his arrival, but after talking to six carefully prescreened inmates, he drew some conclusions about the path to prison. “These are young people who made mistakes that aren’t that different than the mistakes I made and the mistakes that a lot of you guys made,” the president told the waiting reporters.

The New York Times seconded this observation in its front-page coverage of Obama’s prison excursion. There is but a “fine line between president and prisoner,” the paper noted. Anyone who “smoked marijuana and tried cocaine,” as the president had as a young man, could end up in the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution, according to the Times.

This conceit was preposterous. It takes a lot more than marijuana or cocaine use to end up in federal prison. But the truth didn’t matter. Obama’s prison tour came in the midst of the biggest delegitimation of law enforcement in recent memory. Activists, politicians, and the media have spent the last year broadcasting a daily message that the criminal-justice system is biased against blacks and insanely draconian. The immediate trigger for that movement, known as Black Lives Matter, has been a series of highly publicized deaths of black males at the hands of the police. But the movement also builds on a long-standing discourse from the academic Left about “mass incarceration,” policing, and race. . .

[Oratam]

She has what was referred to in a more honest age as a "hatchet face."

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

they didn’t “make a mistake” they committed a crime!

“make a mistake” = "they got caught"

Regards,
GtG

[Mears]

Who’s Laz ??

.

[Carry_Okie]

We need to focus on building strong intact families that will instill strong values into our young people. So they never commit a crime. The old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure applies here.

Being victims of a crime worthy of Federal prison can shred a family.

[Carry_Okie]

Still true. But in those cases where they do commit a crime, punishment must be quick and exceedingly painful so that they (or their survivors) do not commit any more crimes.

In a word, "Singapore."

[from occupied ga]

A fellow freeper who’s noted for saying “I’d hit it” no matter how ugly or unappealing the female

[Brad from Tennessee]

[. . .ever notice how the average attractivness of hard core liberal women is so much lower than the norm?]

A lot of these people were ridiculed, bullied, and made to feel powerless as adolescents. As adults they join institutions that allow them to feel they are exercising power over others. Journalism is full of these people. Look at MSNBC, or the Editorial Board of the New York Times. It’s like revenge of the nerds.