Outgoing Attorney General Eric
Holder is making the rounds, promising that the Department of
Justice will soon reveal new “guidance” to end racial profiling. He
went so far in a speech in Atlanta to suggest that the feds will
end it “once and for all.” Here’s a quote from the Atlanta CBS
affiliate and Associated Press from his
speech yesterday at Ebeneezer Baptist Church:
“In the coming days, I will announce updated Justice Department
guidance regarding profiling by federal law enforcement. This will
institute rigorous new standards — and robust safeguards — to help
end racial profiling, once and for all,” Holder said. “This new
guidance will codify our commitment to the very highest standards
of fair and effective policing.” …“We are dealing with concerns that are truly national in scope
and that threaten the entire nation. Broadly speaking, without
mutual understanding between citizens – whose rights must be
respected – and law enforcement officers – who make tremendous and
often-unheralded personal sacrifices every day to preserve public
safety – there can be no meaningful progress,” Holder said. “Our
police officers cannot be seen as an occupying force disconnected
from the communities they serve. Bonds that have been broken must
be restored. Bonds that never existed must now be created.”
Why are the police seen as an “occupying force”? Because the
police, hand in hand with the Department of Justice, have been
perpetuating the drug war for decades. They’re now doing it with
actual military equipment! The administration will not announce an
end to the drug war, and therefore the “occupation” will
continue.
To be fair, the Department of Justice under Holder has made
changes to reduce the use of mandatory minimum sentencing in
non-violent drug cases and increase accessibility to federal
clemency for non-violent crimes. But as long as there is a drug
war, there will be a black market for drugs and money shunted to
police departments (including money from Holder’s own agency).
There will be a drive to get results in a war that cannot possibly
ever be won, and therefore a pursuit for low-hanging fruit. That
would be poor people without the ability to secure skilled lawyers
to protect their interests. And in urban settings that will often
end up hitting minorities hardest. That’s where
communities like Ferguson extract their fines to get the
revenue to keep their governments running.
I also suspect the Department of Justice will not announce
changes to its asset forfeiture program, where the DOJ shares money
and property taken from people suspected of crimes with local law
enforcement agencies. The system has proven to be an incubator for
police abuse and outright theft from citizens from law enforcement
agencies looking to pad their budgets. Yesterday’s
somewhat lackluster report from the White House about police
militarization explored the Equitable Sharing Program and seemed to
determine the program had adequate oversight, pointing out that
five whole law enforcement agencies have been booted from the
program for violations (three of which were civil rights
violations). There isn’t any sort of indication in the report that
the Department of Justice sees any sort of twisted incentives
resulting from the very existence of the program.
So nobody should be holding his or her breath at the possibility
of large changes. The administration and the Department of Justice
still do not acknowledge that the police abuse of communities is a
direct result of the power the government has given them or the
power of police unions to protect officers from being held
responsible for misconduct. Doing so would require believing that
government is the cause of—not the solution to—the abuse of
minorities.
Reason’s annual Webathon is underway! Your
(tax-deductible!) gift will help Reason magazine,
Reason.com, and Reason TV bring the case for “Free Minds and Free
Markets” to bigger and bigger audiences. For giving levels and
associated swag, go here
now.
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/1tAsyfP
via IFTTT