>So we come back to the question of what praxis is suggested by the
>analysis produced thus far, given that we, the Left, seem unlikely to
>exert a political force equal to World War II or the Russian revolution
>any time in the near future.
I've been making an argument that, given our limited resources, it makes sense to highlight the centrality of criminal justice in the reproduction of race & racism. It seems to me that there is a good chance to make a difference now, due to several reasons:
1. The "boom" -- such as it is -- of the 1990s & relatively low rates of unemployment have reduced crimes & made an increasing number of Americans less fearful about personal safety than during the 1980s. Since the boom is likely petering out (though it's not clear if it will end in a soft or hard landing) soon, we may not have much time left. Nonetheless, we should take advantage of low unemployment rates which tend to make people -- especially youths -- less conservative than otherwise (Seattle, A16, etc. are signs of good times).
2. The wars on drugs & crimes have become so costly that changes in policy must come, one way or another -- or so many Americans have begun to think. Prop. 36 in California may be a harbinger, and medical marijuana legalization is gaining momentum:
***** The Plain Dealer November 30, 2000 Thursday, FINAL / ALL SECTION: EDITORIAL & FORUM; Pg. 11B HEADLINE: VOTERS REJECT DRACONIAN DRUG POLICIES AND ENDORSE TREATMENT BYLINE: By Ethan A. Nadelmann
Election Day 2000 was a big day for drug policy reform.
In California, voters overwhelmingly endorsed Proposition 36, the "treatment instead of incarceration" ballot initiative that should result in tens of thousands of nonviolent drug-possession offenders being diverted from jail and prison into programs that may help them get their lives together. The new law may do more to reverse the unnecessary incarceration of nonviolent citizens than any other law enacted anywhere in the country in decades.
It wasn't just California that opted for drug reform. Voters in Nevada and Colorado approved medical-marijuana ballot initiatives, following in the footsteps of California, Oregon, Alaska, Washington state, Maine and Washington, D.C. In Oregon and Utah, voters overwhelmingly approved ballot initiatives requiring police and prosecutors to meet a reasonable burden of proof before seizing money and other property from people they suspect of criminal activity - and also mandating that the proceeds of legal forfeitures be handed over not to the police and prosecuting agencies that seized the property but rather to funds for public education or drug treatment.
These were not the only victories for drug policy reform at the ballot in recent years. California's Proposition 36 was modeled in part on Arizona's Proposition 200. In Oregon, the first of 11 states to decriminalize marijuana during the 1970s, voters in 1998 rejected an effort by the state legislature to recriminalize marijuana. And in Mendocino County, Calif., voters this year approved a local initiative to decriminalize personal cultivation of modest amounts of marijuana.
Clearly, more and more citizens realize that the drug war has failed and are looking for new approaches. The votes also suggest that there are limits to what people will accept in the name of the war on drugs. Parents don't want their teenagers to use marijuana, but they also want sick people who could benefit from marijuana to have it. People don't want drug dealers profiting from their illicit activities, but neither do they want police empowered to take what they want from anyone they merely suspect of criminal activity. Americans don't approve of people using heroin or cocaine, but neither do they want them locked up without first offering them opportunities to get their lives together outside prison walls.
So what do drug policy reformers do next? In the case of medical marijuana, three things:
Enact medical marijuana laws in other states through the legislative process.
Work to ensure that medical marijuana laws are implemented effectively.
Try to induce the federal government to stop undermining state officials' good-faith efforts to establish regulated distribution systems.
The struggle over implementation of the initiative in California has begun already, with many of its opponents trying either to grab their share of the pie or to tie the process up in knots. Powerful vested interests in the criminal justice business, accustomed to getting their way, did not look kindly on the challenges the proposition posed to the status quo. If California's new law is implemented in good faith, with minimal corruption of its intentions, the benefits could be extraordinary, saving taxpayers up to $1.5 billion in prison costs over the next five years while making good drug treatment available to hundreds of thousands.
Perhaps it's too early to claim that all this adds up to a national vote of no confidence in the war on drugs. But the pendulum does seem to be reversing direction. Call it a new anti-war movement. Call it a nascent movement for political and social justice. Or simply call it a rising chorus of dissent from the war on drugs. The election results have made it clear that drug policy reform is gaining momentum - in California and across the country. *****
3. With the George W. Bush presidency, there is a likelihood that liberals & leftists will find it easier to mount an aggressive offensive on the criminal justice front. Who can better serve as the emblem of the American Panopticon than the former _Texas_ governor? Who can better symbolize American hypocrisy & class privilege than the former frat boy with criminal records who grabs the highest office in the country in an election tarnished with suspicions of frauds & intimidations of black voters?
4. With the war on drugs in Columbia, there is a chance that leftists will get motivated to rejuvenate & expand Central American solidarity groups created during the 1980s.
Yoshie