Pubdate: Fri, 12 Apr 2013
Source: Minneapolis Star-Tribune (MN)
Copyright: 2013 Star Tribune
Contact: http://www.startribunecompany.com/143
Website: http://www.startribune.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/266
Authors: Mark Hasse, Ebony Ruhland, Emily Baxter
Note: Mark Haase is vice president, Ebony Ruhland is director of
research and Emily Baxter is director of advocacy at the Council on
Crime and Justice.
Page: A11
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v13/n156/a02.html

RACE AND CRIME: IT'S JUST NOT SO SIMPLE

Kersten criticizes lawyers for considering the complexities. But why
shouldn't they?

Katherine Kersten did her own dance around the truth in "Of race,
crime statistics and victimhood" (April 7). In her rush to expose a
liberal-lawyer conspiracy, she did exactly what she accuses others of
doing. She approached a highly complex issue with simplistic jargon
such as "the new victim class," failed to recognize the irrefutability
of some of the facts and glossed over an issue that has profound
implications for all of us and how we live together.

Kersten minimizes the impact of the war on drugs, but this "war" has
given the United States a rate of incarceration eight times the world
average. It has included policies like crack cocaine (used mostly by
the poor) having 100 times the sentence lengths for powder cocaine
(used mostly by the rich). This has resulted in two-thirds of all
persons in prison on drug offenses being people of color, despite the
fact that illegal drug use is relatively equal among races.

Unlike responses to most other types of crime, drug law enforcement is
proactive, so where we choose to put resources has a major impact.
Kersten should consider why her fellow conservatives have come
together to form

the national "Right on Crime" movement in order to dismantle many of
these policies.

Kersten is right that we need to look deeper for the causes of some
communities committing some crimes at higher rates. But we may need to
go deeper than she would be comfortable with - beyond current social
conditions to the systemic and historical racism that has led to some
of these conditions. She is also right that some members of
communities of color were part of the drive to increase drug
penalties. But she fails to acknowledge the ease with which these
penalties were imposed and maintained out of all proportion with
penalties for other crimes. It's hard to imagine calls for such a
crackdown on the types of crimes committed by mostly whites meeting
with the same "success."

Perhaps more important, Kersten - and to some extent those focusing on
the disproportionate burden borne by people of color - centers
attention on only one aspect of a much larger problem that affects us
all. We have created a system of perpetual punishment for a large
segment of our society - a population including more white people than
black. You probably know at least one of them. While we have been
adding new criminal laws and increasing sentences, criminal records
for both juveniles and adults now often remain available indefinitely,
and thousands of laws and policies prohibit people with records from
getting licensed in a profession, gaining access to employment and
housing, seeking an education, or being a foster or adoptive parent.
One might think this is reasonable, but a deeper look will expose the
many clearly unreasonable cases that we hear about at the Council on
Crime and Justice every day.

Whether you know them or not, these people are or will be our
neighbors, friends and relatives. If they are unreasonably held back,
we all lose.

Yes Ms. Kersten, we can (and must) find better ways to help people
reintegrate into society.
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MAP posted-by: Matt