SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Democrats Targeted for Creating, and Now Ignoring, Mass Incarceration Disaster
'Democratic Party platforms haven't merely been silent; they have actually called for policies creating more imprisonment'
May 31, 2016
A new petition released Tuesday calls on Democratic Party leadership to make ending mass incarceration a core part of the party platform.
"So far, both [parties] have fallen short," reads the petition created by non-partisan public policy institute the Brennan Center for Justice. "Even Democratic Party platforms haven't merely been silent; they have actually called for policies creating more imprisonment.""
"The statistics are stark: while the United States has 5 percent of the world's people, we are responsible for a quarter of its prisoners," the petition notes.
Until recently, Democratic leadership applauded so-called "tough-on-crime" legislation that produced the mass incarceration crisis the U.S. faces today, said Inimai Chettiar, director of the Brennan Center's Justice Program, and Ames Grawert, a counsel in the same program.
The petition is addressed to leaders of both major parties, but particularly calls out the Democratic Party for betraying its legacy of civil rights advocacy by promoting such "tough-on-crime" policies.
And ironically, as the Brennan Center notes, "the Republican Party is set to vote on a policy to reduce imprisonment at their convention," while the DNC has no such plans. "So where are the Democrats?" Chettiar and Grawert ask.
Critics have long pointed out Democrats' role in today's mass incarceration crisis: "Two terms of tough-on-crime Reagan and Bush Republicans added 72 new mandatory minimum statutes; Clinton's two terms added 116," as author and broadcaster Laura Flanders noted last year.
Chettiar and Grawert summarize the history of Democratic Party's failed platforms on crime and incarceration:
In 1992, Democrats supported alternatives to incarceration, such as "community service and boot camps for first-time offenders." But four years later the platform went in the opposite direction. It praised mandatory "three-strikes-you're-out" laws, truth-in-sentencing provisions that limited earned early release, and "$8 billion in new funding to help states build new prison cells."
At the turn of the century, the party still championed "tougher punishments" as a way to fix "an overburdened justice system that lets thugs off easy," and applauded federal funding for "new prison cells" as a major success story (a clear nod to the 1994 Crime Bill, which paid states to increase imprisonment).
More recently, in 2008 and 2012, the DNC approved language supporting "local prison-to-work programs" aimed at "making citizens safer and saving the taxpayers money," and noting the importance of "fight[ing] inequalities in our criminal justice system." But neither platform made any mention of sentencing reform, or reducing the number of criminal laws, even as the U.S. incarceration rate topped the world and some states reversed course on their "tough-on-crime" policies.
Times may have changed, the petition notes: this primary season, both Democratic presidential candidates have called for an end to mass incarceration--although many see legislation passed by Hillary Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, as largely responsible for the crisis, while Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has in fact been calling for a stop to mass incarceration since those policies were introduced in the 1990s:
"The consensus to reduce unnecessary imprisonment has arrived," Chettiar and Grawert say. "But we will never see true reform until Democrats provide a solid left flank, so that compromise lands at the center, instead of to the right."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
A new petition released Tuesday calls on Democratic Party leadership to make ending mass incarceration a core part of the party platform.
"So far, both [parties] have fallen short," reads the petition created by non-partisan public policy institute the Brennan Center for Justice. "Even Democratic Party platforms haven't merely been silent; they have actually called for policies creating more imprisonment.""
"The statistics are stark: while the United States has 5 percent of the world's people, we are responsible for a quarter of its prisoners," the petition notes.
Until recently, Democratic leadership applauded so-called "tough-on-crime" legislation that produced the mass incarceration crisis the U.S. faces today, said Inimai Chettiar, director of the Brennan Center's Justice Program, and Ames Grawert, a counsel in the same program.
The petition is addressed to leaders of both major parties, but particularly calls out the Democratic Party for betraying its legacy of civil rights advocacy by promoting such "tough-on-crime" policies.
And ironically, as the Brennan Center notes, "the Republican Party is set to vote on a policy to reduce imprisonment at their convention," while the DNC has no such plans. "So where are the Democrats?" Chettiar and Grawert ask.
Critics have long pointed out Democrats' role in today's mass incarceration crisis: "Two terms of tough-on-crime Reagan and Bush Republicans added 72 new mandatory minimum statutes; Clinton's two terms added 116," as author and broadcaster Laura Flanders noted last year.
Chettiar and Grawert summarize the history of Democratic Party's failed platforms on crime and incarceration:
In 1992, Democrats supported alternatives to incarceration, such as "community service and boot camps for first-time offenders." But four years later the platform went in the opposite direction. It praised mandatory "three-strikes-you're-out" laws, truth-in-sentencing provisions that limited earned early release, and "$8 billion in new funding to help states build new prison cells."
At the turn of the century, the party still championed "tougher punishments" as a way to fix "an overburdened justice system that lets thugs off easy," and applauded federal funding for "new prison cells" as a major success story (a clear nod to the 1994 Crime Bill, which paid states to increase imprisonment).
More recently, in 2008 and 2012, the DNC approved language supporting "local prison-to-work programs" aimed at "making citizens safer and saving the taxpayers money," and noting the importance of "fight[ing] inequalities in our criminal justice system." But neither platform made any mention of sentencing reform, or reducing the number of criminal laws, even as the U.S. incarceration rate topped the world and some states reversed course on their "tough-on-crime" policies.
Times may have changed, the petition notes: this primary season, both Democratic presidential candidates have called for an end to mass incarceration--although many see legislation passed by Hillary Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, as largely responsible for the crisis, while Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has in fact been calling for a stop to mass incarceration since those policies were introduced in the 1990s:
"The consensus to reduce unnecessary imprisonment has arrived," Chettiar and Grawert say. "But we will never see true reform until Democrats provide a solid left flank, so that compromise lands at the center, instead of to the right."
A new petition released Tuesday calls on Democratic Party leadership to make ending mass incarceration a core part of the party platform.
"So far, both [parties] have fallen short," reads the petition created by non-partisan public policy institute the Brennan Center for Justice. "Even Democratic Party platforms haven't merely been silent; they have actually called for policies creating more imprisonment.""
"The statistics are stark: while the United States has 5 percent of the world's people, we are responsible for a quarter of its prisoners," the petition notes.
Until recently, Democratic leadership applauded so-called "tough-on-crime" legislation that produced the mass incarceration crisis the U.S. faces today, said Inimai Chettiar, director of the Brennan Center's Justice Program, and Ames Grawert, a counsel in the same program.
The petition is addressed to leaders of both major parties, but particularly calls out the Democratic Party for betraying its legacy of civil rights advocacy by promoting such "tough-on-crime" policies.
And ironically, as the Brennan Center notes, "the Republican Party is set to vote on a policy to reduce imprisonment at their convention," while the DNC has no such plans. "So where are the Democrats?" Chettiar and Grawert ask.
Critics have long pointed out Democrats' role in today's mass incarceration crisis: "Two terms of tough-on-crime Reagan and Bush Republicans added 72 new mandatory minimum statutes; Clinton's two terms added 116," as author and broadcaster Laura Flanders noted last year.
Chettiar and Grawert summarize the history of Democratic Party's failed platforms on crime and incarceration:
In 1992, Democrats supported alternatives to incarceration, such as "community service and boot camps for first-time offenders." But four years later the platform went in the opposite direction. It praised mandatory "three-strikes-you're-out" laws, truth-in-sentencing provisions that limited earned early release, and "$8 billion in new funding to help states build new prison cells."
At the turn of the century, the party still championed "tougher punishments" as a way to fix "an overburdened justice system that lets thugs off easy," and applauded federal funding for "new prison cells" as a major success story (a clear nod to the 1994 Crime Bill, which paid states to increase imprisonment).
More recently, in 2008 and 2012, the DNC approved language supporting "local prison-to-work programs" aimed at "making citizens safer and saving the taxpayers money," and noting the importance of "fight[ing] inequalities in our criminal justice system." But neither platform made any mention of sentencing reform, or reducing the number of criminal laws, even as the U.S. incarceration rate topped the world and some states reversed course on their "tough-on-crime" policies.
Times may have changed, the petition notes: this primary season, both Democratic presidential candidates have called for an end to mass incarceration--although many see legislation passed by Hillary Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, as largely responsible for the crisis, while Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has in fact been calling for a stop to mass incarceration since those policies were introduced in the 1990s:
"The consensus to reduce unnecessary imprisonment has arrived," Chettiar and Grawert say. "But we will never see true reform until Democrats provide a solid left flank, so that compromise lands at the center, instead of to the right."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.