[B]eginning in the mid-80s, when we had violent crimes spiralling upwards, congress gave us, that is federal law enforcement community and the prosecutors some very important tools to dismantle and disrupt large drug – large and often violent drug trafficking organisations and gangs. And we used those tools. We took the most – the worst of the worst off the streets. We put them in federal prisons. And they got some very substantial sentences. That was important, so important that beginning in 1991, the trend of upward, upward trend of violent crime reversed. And by 2014, we had cut violent crime in half. Violent crime rates as well as non-violent crime rates had been cut in half....He also mentions immigration as a driver of higher crime rates, which is a forbidden thought that will probably get him fired from his position as an AUSA.
...one thing that most people may not know and that is, over the last five years, the United States Department of Justice has – and remember, we’ve focused on the worst of the worst in the violent and drug trafficking arenas, as well as other crime areas, we’ve had a twenty-five percent reduction in federal prosecutions.
The thing is, the Federal laws haven't changed. The President has the power in his hands to turn this around whenever he wants to do so. He's been pushing things the other way instead. Either he is in denial about the effects this is having on America's cities, or he desires those effects for some reason -- perhaps because he thinks it will improve his chances of getting a gun control bill through Congress, or of electing a new Congress that will be easier to get gun control past. That would be a rather cynical move.
My suspicion is that the answer is simply that the President and his hand-picked DOJ team just don't believe that the Federal government's crime policies are good for the black community. They've cut prosecutions because they think that the prosecutions are harmful. Then the spiking murder rate is an unintended effect, but one from which they are not learning. Or rather, they are trying to learn the lesson they'd prefer to learn instead of the obvious one. They're choosing to "learn" that they need to do more to enact their preferred agenda about disarming those tens of millions of Americans who have nothing to do with the crime rates because those people aren't criminals.
4 comments:
I thought you were still going on about Hussein the misguided person that keeps making mistakes, Grim. When did you switch to the "it's intentional evil" faction?
You didn't read very closely.
Either he is in denial about the effects this is having on America's cities, or he desires those effects for some reason -- perhaps because he thinks it will improve his chances of getting a gun control bill through Congress, or of electing a new Congress that will be easier to get gun control past.
It's right there in your post, Grim. What about it, do you think I missed?
You would have refused to talk about that other possibility even a few years ago. It was always that Hussein was ignorant or misguided from your pov. "Desires those effects for some reason" brings you much closer than you would have been able to tolerate, to the "it's intentional" camp.
What I think you missed is the part after the dash. To him, those are goods, not examples of malice. They are part of something he takes to be the greatest of goods, the transformation of America into another sort of country.
Likewise, I don't think he believes (whatever evidence there is) that police and courts help the black community. I think he reads them as part of the oppressive character of America's relationship with African-Americans. Thus, he neither thinks of what he is doing as harmful (insofar as it reduces court interactions for black Americans), nor does he think the long-term effect is harmful. He thinks the criminals just are, somehow; but they'll be better people when we take their guns. As will all Americans.
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