I saw a recap of the second presidential debate and something stuck out at me.
Biden claimed that the Obama administration let 38,000 people out of prison like that was a good thing.
Trump bragged about the people he pardoned.
Biden then apologized for the Clinton crime bill.
What the fuck is wrong with the current political zeitgeist?
Do we not remember the 80s and 90s crime wave and crack epidemic? Homicides peaked in the early 90s at 9.8 per 100,000. Violent crime in the same era was 758.2 per 100,000. By 2010 that had dropped to 4.8 and 404.5 respectively, and by last year violent crime was down to 366.7 per 100,000.
Why are politicians apologizing for halving the crime and murder rates?
We have seen in the last year was bail reform, Prop 47, and letting people out of jail for COVID has done to the crime rate. Homicides in NYC and California have doubled. Property crime even more so. It’s the bad old days of the 80s and 90s again in America’s Blue zones.
Is that what America really wants, the 90s crime wave again?
I keep hearing about how the disparity in sentencing between crack and powder cocaine is racist, with the idea of reducing sentences for crack cocaine.
Crack was cheap. Black politicians wanted harsh punishments for crack dealing to keep it out of the hands of black kids and combat gang crime. The rise of gang crime in black neighborhoods, the gang War between the Bloods and the Crips was over gang territory for dealing crack in the black community.
On a side note: Now maybe the sentencing disparity was racist but maybe we should have increased penalties for powdered cocaine. Had we thrown those Wall Street investment bros doing coke parties in the 80s and 90s into hard prison, perhaps we could have avoided the sub-prime bullshit and banking scandals of the 2000s when all those coke-head junior associates became senior managing partners.
But I digress…
Crime will expand according to our willingness to put up with it.
Why are politicians jumping over themselves to show how willing they are to put up with crime.
How about promising to protect the middle class? Protect middle class equity by preventing crime from tanking property values. Protect middle class business by punishing theft.
It feels like this is a very racist pandering to minorities.
I’m sure black home owners and black businesses owners would be far happier being safe in their neighborhoods with their business not losing money due to shoplifting or loss of business traffic, than they would be at the idea of some crack dealer having his sentence commuted.
They’re pandering to the black vote, what there is of it. A few % points either way can make the difference.
And no matter what people think about either party or candidate.
Once someone gets a seat on the .gov gravy train, they seem to really want to keep seated as long as possible.
More precisely, they are pandering to what they *think* is the black vote. I suspect the assumption that the majority of black voters support criminals over police is a leftist delusion. There is some good data that “defund the police” is not at all popular in minority neighborhoods.
It’s a bit like trying to pander to hispanics by supporting illegal immigration.
Our drop in crime rates has a lot more to do with demographics than prison terms. Prisons have again and again proven to be poor deterrents.
What has happened is that the Boom generation has gotten older. The kids of the Boomer generation have gotten older. And crime, particularly violent crime, is far more likely for the young than the old.