Cory Booker Shoots Down Joe Biden's Claims On Crime Bill And Mass Incarceration

[marble falls]

Cory Booker Shoots Down Joe Biden’s Claims On Crime Bill And Mass Incarceration
In an interview with HuffPost, Booker called the 1994 law “awful” and “shameful.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cory-booker-shoots-down-joe-bidens-claims-on-crime-bill-and-mass-incarceration_n_5ceecafbe4b07dbfe638dc5e?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuaHVmZnBvc3QuY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAC82CMQI3xG7nJta1dhFj1YX7YUjHjOsvnhMH2Ftj7NEfu09432SH78xL1IEIkXLiLCOa4kt4uIXozhuoDdFbjOi_z-p_2sEtQiIMYOkWjSmcMbukBLJoBPapqHpLYD7oycSYIRvn5I7YXL5aQQFC-U8v1AJmxG6h6N3-zVVH8xV

By Kevin Robillard

<snip>

In an interview with HuffPost while traveling on a campaign-rented RV between two stops in southeastern Iowa during Memorial Day weekend, Booker ― who has made criminal justice reform central to his White House bid ― said he disagreed with Biden’s assertion that the 1994 law didn’t significantly increase the U.S. jail population.

“I use this word sincerely. I love Joe Biden,” Booker began, before launching into a series of criticisms of the law: “The incentives they put in that bill for people to raise mandatory minimums, for building prisons and jails ― from the time I was in law school to the time I was mayor of the city of Newark, we were building a new prison or jail every 10 days in America while the rest of our infrastructure crumbled ― overwhelmingly putting people in prison for nonviolent drug offenses that members of Congress and the Senate admit to breaking now. That bill was awful.”

“We should all agree with the force of conviction: That bill was a mistake,” he concluded, hitting his hand against the table for emphasis. “Good people signed on to that bill. People make mistakes. But let’s hold them to that. That crime bill was shameful, what it did to black and brown communities like mine [and] low-income communities from Appalachia to rural Iowa. It was a bad bill.”

Biden, then the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was the lead Senate sponsor of the legislation, which President Bill Clinton signed into law. The sprawling legislation contained multitudes of provisions, but experts today agree it was a factor in skyrocketing incarceration rates, especially for African-Americans and Latinos, primarily by incentivizing states to lock criminals up for longer periods of time and giving them billions of dollars to build new prisons. (It did not directly incentivize states to adopt stronger mandatory minimums.) Experts now believe the massive increase in incarceration had little to do with the decrease in crime rates since the 1990s.

The law also contained a ban on assault weapons and the initial version of the Violence Against Women Act.

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Why Freakonimics says crime dropped

http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/

Abortion and crime: who should you believe?
May 15, 2005 @ 11:44am
by Steven D. Levitt
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Two very vocal critics, Steve Sailer and John Lott, have been exerting a lot of energy lately trying to convince the world that the abortion reduces crime hypothesis is not correct. A number of readers have asked me to respond to these criticisms. First, let’s start by reviewing the basic facts that support the Donohue-Levitt hypothesis that legalized abortion in the 1970s explains a substantial part of the crime decline in the 1990s:

1) Five states legalized abortion three years before Roe v. Wade. Crime started falling three years earlier in these states, with property crime (done by younger people) falling before violent crime.

2) After abortion was legalized, the availability of abortions differed dramatically across states. In some states like North Dakota and in parts of the deep South, it was virtually impossible to get an abortion even after Roe v. Wade. If one compares states that had high abortion rates in the mid 1970s to states that had low abortion rates in the mid 1970s, you see the following patterns with crime. For the period from 1973-1988, the two sets of states (high abortion states and low abortion states) have nearly identical crime patterns. Note, that this is a period before the generations exposed to legalized abortion are old enough to do much crime. So this is exactly what the Donohue-Levitt theory predicts. But from the period 1985-1997, when the post Roe cohort is reaching peak crime ages, the high abortion states see a decline in crime of 30% relative to the low abortion states. Our original data ended in 1997. If one updated the study, the results would be similar.)

3) All of the decline in crime from 1985-1997 experienced by high abortion states relative to low abortion states is concentrated among the age groups born after Roe v. Wade. For people born before abortion legalization, there is no difference in the crime patterns for high abortion and low abortion states, just as the Donohue-Levitt theory predicts.

4) When we compare arrest rates of people born in the same state, just before and just after abortion legalization, we once again see the identical pattern of lower arrest rates for those born after legalization than before.

5) The evidence from Canada, Australia, and Romania also support the hypothesis that abortion reduces crime.

6) Studies have shown a reduction in infanticide, teen age drug use, and teen age childbearing consistent with the theory that abortion will reduce other social ills similar to crime.


<snip>

[Kahuna7]

1. Really Corey? Your city, and my former city is the 15th deadliest city in the country...

I personally left Newark because I feared for my safety. Violent crime is on the rise in Newark. What do you want to do with the gang bangers who prey on decent, hard working citizens? I know Corey's neighborhood. He wouldn't make it out of that neighborhood without a security detail.

https://patch.com/new-jersey/newarknj/murder-capitals-america-2-new-jersey-cities-list

[cannabis_flower]

2. First off

It might be good to give them reasons not to be gang-bangers.

[Kahuna7]

3. Go somewhere with that news. There is no excuse for

gangbangers to engage in senseless acts of violence. None. I have lived most of my life in the hood. So don't try to school me with that pie in the sky BS. Seems to me prison is a good place for them to consider alternatives to a life of crime. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

[cannabis_flower]

5. You are right..

there is no excuse for gang bangers to engage in senseless acts of violence. But how about if we start by doing things that make these kids not want to get involved with gangs in the first place. Give them things to do after school. Jobs when they are old enough would be good too. After school programs would get kids involved in positive activities. Gang banging only looks like a good option if there aren't other good options. If you know you will never be able to afford college and there isn't any on the job vocational training, it's easy for young people to see gang banging as a good choice.

[Kahuna7]

9. You do know that was part of the crime bill, right??? How did that

work out? The streets are even more dangerous now than they were before. I could leave my house without fearing for my life in 1994. Twenty years later, not so much. Likely because of the growth of dangerous street gangs. Let me tell you something about those gangs, they're not all kids.

Not for nothing, you really don't have a clue about what motivates criminals. Neither do I. I don't want to figure them out. I want them off the streets where they can do no harm.

Five years ago, a trio went to a high end mall to do some not so friendly carjacking. In the parking garage they encountered a well to do couple. They weren't content to just take the vehicle. No! They shot and killed the husband in front of his wife. These weren't kids who did that. The felon in the link below is 36 years old. I can't imagine what would possess them to take an innocent life in a senseless killing. All I know is, lock them up and throw away the key. I don't care.


https://www.nj.com/essex/2018/01/short_hills_mall_carjacking_gunman_gets_30_years_i.html

[Skya Rhen]

12. I completely agree - coddling criminals is absurd!

[JI7]

16. MOST kids don't become gang bangers and are able to do things with their life

that doesn't involve violence.

these kids are often the victims and are the ones who have to be afraid of these idiots .

bigoted asshole cops are another problem since they make it difficult for people to report crimes since they can't trust cops .

[sarabelle]

15. I know folks in Camden, NJ who were happy about the Crime Bill. They didn't know at the time

about the discriminatory way it was going to be enforced. In other areas they were happy for many of the other provisions and the increase in neighborhood safety measures and the attempted protections for women.

[Kahuna7]

17. Of course. I bet you people in Newark are STILL happy about it...

It was the community leaders from our communities who beseeched congress and President Clinton to help with the crime epidemic.

There was a young man on DU a week or so ago, attempting to make a case against "mass incarceration." I asked him to please define "mass incarceration." Honestly, I don't know what that means. I haven't heard from him since. I would like to know what the definition is because where I'm from, you're only locked up if you commit crimes. Honest citizens shouldn't have to be subject to their arbitrary acts of violence. It's really easy for those who don't live in high crime areas to make it a cause célèbre.

I'm familiar with how the criminal justice system works. Rarely are perps locked away on minor offences.

[SouthernProgressive]

4. I see this as positive primary campaigning.

The crime bill isn’t what some are making it out to be on either side of the argument. Booker did well here.

[NoMoreRepugs]

6. The crime bill, incarceration rates among minorities and the privatization of prisons are all issues

that need to be addressed by our Presidential hopefuls. The Crime Bill when it was signed to the best of my recollection had popular support amongst the populace. I'm guessing no one at the time envisioned what was going to unfold over time after its passage.

[George II]

8. You're exactly right. It was well received at the time and no one envisioned how it would turn out.

[George II]

7. Almost everyone has admitted that parts of the law went too far, INCLUDING Biden a number of times..

The law as a whole expired ten years later in 2004. Certain parts of it were extended (not sure of the details) but it obviously wasn't intended to be permanent.

The climate in America back then was pleading for action to get crime under control. Many provisions in the bill were positively received.

Here's are major provisions of the law:

Federal Assault Weapons Ban
Federal Death Penalty Act
Elimination of higher education for inmates
Violence Against Women Act
Driver's Privacy Protection Act
Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act
Community Oriented Policing Services

People also need to keep in mind that it's a FEDERAL law, and some aspects of it, like the Federal Death Penalty Act and added Federal crimes, apply only at the Federal level. I'm against the Death Penalty, but in the 25 years since it was passed, only three Federal prisoners have been executed.

[StevieM]

10. I remember people saying at the time that it was hard to see too many additional people actually

receiving the death penalty as a result of the bill. I seem to remember that killing a federal egg inspector was made a capital crime.

I think Timothy McVeigh was one the three people who was executed under the 1994 law.

The centerpiece of the bill, which nobody talks about anymore, was 100,000 new police officers. I definitely think that made a difference in lowering crime, along with the prosperous economy.

[George II]

11. Yes, the first one executed since 1963 was Timothy McVeigh in 2001. Juan Garza....

....(drug smuggling murderer) was a week later (!), and Louis Jones in 2003 for murdering a solder. Prior to those three the last was 1963, 38 years earlier, and in the last 16 there have been none.

Thankfully only three over 54 years.

[left-of-center2012]

13. Circular firing squad?

Rather than Dems taking shots at other Dems,
I want Dems to tell us why we should vote for each of them.

"So-and-so is a nasty skunk!"

OK, but tell me why I should vote for you.

"Because so-and-so is a nasty skunk!"

[marble falls]

14. What happens when the election starts more than a year ahead of time ...

this is the worst one so far.

I am probably closer to supporting Biden than anyone else. But I am not deciding on a candidate till next Spring.

And I really do not want to read anything else like this article until then.