CONSERVATIVE AGENDAS AND CAMPAIGNS

[madmusic]

THE RISE OF THE MODERN “TOUGH ON CRIME” MOVEMENT

“Doubling the conviction rate in this country would do more
to cure crime in America than quadrupling the funds for
(Hubert] Humphrey’s war on poverty.”
–Richard Nixon, 38th President of the United States of America

“(President Nixon] emphasized that you have to face the fact
that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to
devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.”
–H.R. Haldeman, Nixon’s Chief of Staff

The Origins of the Current Conservative Discourse on Law and Order

By Katherine Beckett, Ph.D. and Theodore Sasson, Ph.D.

Over the past several decades, the U.S. government has enthusiastically declared and waged wars
against crime and drugs. In this article, we focus squarely on this issue: Why have national-level
politicians so vigorously waged a war on crime and drugs that has created the largest prison
population in the world? We argue that in response to the social challenges of the 1960s, conser-
vative political leaders—and, increasingly, those at the national level—began to highlight the
problem of street crime in an attempt to steer state policy toward social control and away from
social welfare.

In what follows, we show that conservative politicians have worked for decades to alter popular
perceptions of crime, delinquency, addiction, and poverty, and to promote policies that involve
“getting tough” and “cracking down.” We also show that when advocating such policies, these
political elites were not simply responding to popular beliefs and sentiments about crime and
punishment, although they did help to shape the public’s perceptions of the crime problem and
preferences regarding what to do about it. Rather, their activities were part of a larger effort to
realign the electorate in ways that favor the GOP and, even more significantly, to reorient state
policy around social control rather than social welfare.

http://www.publiceye.org/defendingjustice/pdfs/chapters/toughcrime.pdf (pdf)

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:3GncbHd7fREJ:www.publiceye.org/defendingjustice/pdfs/chapters/toughcrime.pdf+bush+adopts+%22tough+on+crime%22+rhetoric+terrorism&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=10 (html)

[sweetheart]

1. This is a must-read k&R

I'm bookmarking this. Thank you for posting this. It explains the irrational
foaming mania behind the prohibitionists of the drugs war, it really is rooted in racism,
and harkens back to criminalizing civil rights protests against racism.

[madmusic]

3. More than racism...

Social control and anti-liberalism was/is the real goal. While their propaganda does appeal to racists, it is the fear mongering of all crime that really works, and it works because some fear of crime is logical. For those who remember the car jacking craze, there really was car jacking going on, but the media made everyone think they could be next, they would probably be next. They almost certainly would not be, but the fear was there. The L.A. riots played right into this fear and was in a very large measure part of the momentum of the California Three Strikes law. When the public is afraid, they don't want to think of social welfare.

[sweetheart]

5. they stand for slavery

and enslavement; millions enshrouded ensconsced.

phuque 'em

[liberaldemocrat7]

2. Have you ever noticed that most agendas that the conservatives bring up

stem from the failures of their economic and social policies in the last 26 years?

[madmusic]

4. And their solution? More laws.

Tougher laws. Rather than liberals "throwing money at the problem," conservatives throw punishment at the problem.

There is a balance somewhere in the middle that evidence based policy finds because it focuses on what works rather than politics.

[sweetheart]

6. they've gone nuts

The fact that your post has gotten so little attention, given the penetrating insight,
is testimony to what we find important.