Rand Paul Reacts to Ferguson: Reform Criminal Justice System, Petty Fines

Sen. Rand
Paul
told Politico that he didn’t have specific
thoughts on the grand jury’s decision not to indict Darren Wilson
for the killing of Michael Brown, but renewed his calls to
demilitarize the police and reform the criminal justice system:

The Kentucky Republican did say the situation reflects an
“undercurrent of unease out there related to poverty, related to
drugs.” He added, “I think part of the answer is trying to reform
our criminal justice system.”

Paul specifically mentioned the issue of so-called “petty” fines
for traffic violations. Petty fines are a $2 million revenue source
for the city of Ferguson. But, as Paul notes, paying them is hardly
inconsequential for the city’s poor residents.

Reason’s Brian Doherty and the Cato Institute’s Walter Olson
have examined
how petty fines feed into the resentment of law enforcement felt by
Ferguson’s poor and minority citizens:

If indeed more people’s usual interactions with police had
anything to do with “protecting and serving” and less with
violently messing up your life for reasons that can seem petty and
pointless, from people whose version of respect is “do
everything I say the way I’m comfortable with or you might
die,” the atmosphere surrounding what happened in Ferguson
would likely be less toxic.

On the police militarization front, Paul plans to introduce
legislation tackling that issue next year. He told Time
that he will spend the coming weeks going over the details with
other lawmakers:

Some libertarian-minded Republicans have also joined the call to
demilitarize the police, including Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand
Paul, who wrote in a TIME op-ed less than a week after the Brown
shooting that “there should be a difference between a police
response and a military response.” On Tuesday, Paul’s office
confirmed that he will introduce his own bill addressing police
militarization next year. He’s working with retiring Oklahoma
Republican Sen. Tom Coburn on the legislation and will talk to
other senators “over the coming months” to garner support,
according to an aide.

More from Reason on the mayhem in Ferguson here.

Update: Paul has just published his own op-ed
in Time titled, “The Politicians Are to Blame in
Ferguson”. He
writes:

In the search for culpability for the tragedy in Ferguson, I
mostly blame politicians. Michael Brown’s death and the suffocation
of Eric Garner in New York for selling untaxed cigarettes indicate
something is wrong with criminal justice in America. The War on
Drugs has created a culture of violence and put police in a nearly
impossible situation.

In Ferguson, the precipitating crime was not drugs, but theft.
But the War on Drugs has created a tension in some communities that
too often results in tragedy. One need only witness the baby in
Georgia, who had a concussive grenade explode in her face during a
late-night, no-knock drug raid (in which no drugs were found) to
understand the feelings of many minorities — the feeling that they
are being unfairly targeted.

Three out of four people in jail for drugs are people of color.
In the African American community, folks rightly ask why are our
sons disproportionately incarcerated, killed, and maimed?