'There is a crisis of unprecedented magnitude in the black community, one that goes to the very heart of its survival. The black family is failing." Quibble if you will about the "unprecedented magnitude" -- slavery wasn't exactly a high point of African-American well-being. But there's no quarreling with the essence of the alarm sounded last week by a gathering of Pentecostal clergy and the Seymour Institute for Advanced Christian Studies. What is happening to the black family in America is the sociological equivalent of global warming: easier to document than to reverse, inconsistent in its near-term effect -- and disastrous in the long run. [continues 580 words]
The combination of miscommunication, ignored warnings and general hubris -- all in a culture that discouraged internal criticism -- virtually guaranteed disaster. No, this is not a follow-up on NASA and the Columbia space shuttle tragedy. It is a commentary on criminal justice in America. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board, after months of painstaking investigation of the Feb. 1 space calamity, has issued a scathing report of those in charge. A similarly independent body ought to take a look at our criminal justice system. [continues 520 words]
The combination of miscommunication, ignored warnings and general hubris - all in a culture that discouraged internal criticism - virtually guaranteed disaster. No, this is not a follow-up on NASA and the Columbia space shuttle tragedy. It is a commentary on criminal justice in America. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board, after months of painstaking investigation of the Feb. 1 space calamity, has issued a scathing report of those in charge. A similarly independent body ought to take a look at our criminal justice system. [continues 637 words]
THE COMBINATION of miscommunication, ignored warnings, and general hubris - -- all in a culture that discouraged internal criticism -- virtually guaranteed disaster. No, this is not a follow-up on NASA and the Columbia space shuttle tragedy. It is a commentary on criminal justice in America. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board, after months of painstaking investigation of the Feb. 1 space calamity, has issued a scathing report of those in charge. A similarly independent body ought to take a look at our criminal justice system. [continues 646 words]
WASHINGTON - The combination of miscommunication, ignored warnings and general hubris - all in a culture that discouraged internal criticism - - virtually guaranteed disaster. No, this is not a follow-up on NASA and the Columbia space shuttle tragedy. It is a commentary on criminal justice in America. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board, after months of painstaking investigation of the Feb. 1 space calamity, has issued a scathing report of those in charge. A similarly independent body ought to take a look at our criminal justice system. [continues 653 words]
It is, of course, the size of his alleged gambling losses that has us clucking our tongues over William J. Bennett's recent public embarrassment. The fact that he writes and speaks on virtue -- that he has become a highly remunerated public scold on the subject -- is just added seasoning. I mean, $8 million in losses in a decade! Surely that's immoral -- and just as surely it must make Bennett a hypocrite (although he has never specifically listed gambling among the vices he has called on us to abandon). [continues 644 words]
Prisons were supposed to be the means by which we separate criminals from their communities, leaving those communities safer, stronger and more capable of enforcing their own social codes. And the prisoner himself, pained by the separation, was supposed to change his behavior and work to make himself fit for readmittance. But in some communities - notably in the poor inner cities - the treatment has backfired. Like an overused antibiotic, it has left the prisoner untreated and unchastened, the community unprotected and the whole society demonstrably worse off. [continues 595 words]
WASHINGTON--Noelle Bush, 25-year-old daughter of the governor of Florida and niece of the president of the United States, was already in a drug rehab program when she was found with a one-gram rock of crack cocaine in her shoe. The judge who sent her to rehab in the first place found her in contempt of court for the latest offense. Contempt of court? At a time when America's prisons are bursting with drug offenders who are less well-connected? When crack abusers in particular are languishing under mandatory sentences? [continues 648 words]
WASHINGTON -- Noelle Bush, 25-year-old daughter of the governor of Florida and niece of the president of the United States, was already in a drug rehab program when she was found with a one-gram rock of crack cocaine in her shoe. The judge who sent her to rehab in the first place found her in contempt of court for the latest offense. Contempt of court? At a time when America's prisons are bursting with drug offenders who are less well-connected? When crack abusers in particular are languishing under mandatory sentences? I say we ought to make an example of this young woman. [continues 637 words]
WASHINGTON - Noelle Bush, 25-year-old daughter of the governor of Florida and niece of the president of the United States, was already in a drug rehab program when she was found with a one-gram rock of crack cocaine in her shoe. The judge who sent her to rehab in the first place found her in contempt of court for the latest offense. Contempt of court? At a time when America's prisons are bursting with drug offenders who are less well-connected? When crack abusers in particular are languishing under mandatory sentences? I say we ought to make an example of this young woman. [continues 637 words]
Noelle Bush, the 25-year-old daughter of the governor of Florida and niece of the president of the United States, was already in a drug rehabilitation program when she was found with a one-gram rock of crack cocaine in her shoe. The judge who sent her to rehab in the first place found her in contempt of court for the latest offense. Contempt of court? At a time when America's prisons are bursting with drug offenders who are less well-connected? When crack abusers in particular are languishing under mandatory sentences? I say we ought to make an example of this young woman. [continues 636 words]
Noelle Bush, 25-year-old daughter of the governor of Florida and niece of the president of the United States, was already in a drug rehab program when she was found with a one-gram rock of crack cocaine in her shoe. The judge who sent her to rehab in the first place found her in contempt of court for the latest offense. Contempt of court? At a time when America's prisons are bursting with drug offenders who are less well-connected? When crack abusers in particular are languishing under mandatory sentences? I say we ought to make an example of this young woman. [continues 657 words]
President's niece, like other drug offenders, needs more treatment Noelle Bush, 25-year-old daughter of the governor of Florida and niece of the president, already was in a drug rehab program when she was found with a one-gram rock of crack cocaine in her shoe. The judge who sent her to rehab in the first place found her in contempt of court for the latest offense. Contempt of court? At a time when America's prisons are bursting with drug offenders who are less well connected? When crack abusers in particular are languishing under mandatory sentences? I say we ought to make an example of the young woman. [continues 642 words]
WASHINGTON - Noelle Bush, 25-year-old daughter of the governor of Florida and niece of the president of the United States, was already in a drug rehab program when she was found with a one-gram rock of crack cocaine in her shoe. The judge who sent her to rehab in the first place found her in contempt of court for the latest offense. Contempt of court? At a time when America's prisons are bursting with drug offenders who are less well-connected? When crack abusers in particular are languishing under mandatory sentences? I say we ought to make an example of this young woman. [continues 632 words]
WASHINGTON -- Noelle Bush, 25-year-old daughter of the governor of Florida and niece of the president of the United States, was already in a drug rehab program when she was found with a one-gram rock of crack cocaine in her shoe. The judge who sent her to rehab in the first place found her in contempt of court for the latest offense. Contempt of court? At a time when America's prisons are bursting with drug offenders who are less well-connected? When crack abusers in particular are languishing under mandatory sentences? I say we ought to make an example of this young woman. [continues 635 words]
NOELLE Bush, 25-year-old daughter of the governor of Florida and niece of the president of the United States, was already in a drug rehab program when she was found with a one-gram rock of crack cocaine in her shoe. The judge who sent her to rehab in the first place found her in contempt of court for the latest offense. Contempt of court? At a time when America's prisons are bursting with drug offenders who are less well-connected? When crack abusers in particular are languishing under mandatory sentences? I say we ought to make an example of this young woman. [continues 637 words]
Two things were on my mind when I started my recently completed five-week grand jury stint. First was the not-so-old adage that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to "indict a ham sandwich" if he wanted it to. The other was the dismaying number of young black men who are winding up in our prisons. Now, I have a third thing to worry over: Donovan Jackson, the 16-year-old videotaped being slammed and punched by an Inglewood, Calif., police officer. [continues 658 words]
WASHINGTON - Two things were on my mind when I started my recently completed five-week grand jury stint. First was the not-so-old adage, perhaps first uttered by New York Judge Sol Wachtler, that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to "indict a ham sandwich" if he or she wanted it to. The other was the dismaying number of young black men who are winding up in our prisons. Now I've got a third thing to worry over: Donovan Jackson, the 16-year-old videotaped being slammed and punched by an Inglewood, Calif., police officer. [continues 734 words]
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court has upheld a controversial federal policy that allows public housing officials to evict entire families when a family member - even a teen-age child - is caught with illegal drugs in or near the housing complex. And you know what? I'm glad. No, I'm not glad that Pearlie Rucker, a 63-year-old great grandmother, was threatened with eviction by the Oakland Housing Authority because her adult son and her mentally disabled daughter were caught with cocaine in separate incidents several blocks from their home. [continues 671 words]
