Radley Balko has a great article up on Slate. Before you go pulling the lever for Obama, thinking he’ll bring change to drug policing think again. His selection of Drug Warrior Biden confirmed for me that Obama’s prior commitment to decriminalization was just political pandering to his left-wing base. To win this election Obama/Biden have to have the support of police unions.
Obama and Biden also want to revive the Byrne grant drug eradication program, another block grant initiative. At a speech last month in Florida, Obama promised to ensure funding for the Byrne program, adding that it “has been critical to creating the anti-gang and anti-drug task forces our communities need.” Although Byrne has not failed to achieve its stated goal (reducing the availability of illicit drugs), it has made drug policing more aggressive and militaristic and less accountable. And by prioritizing raw arrest statistics, the program tends to focus police efforts on low-level offenders instead of major distributors.
Because they tend to be multijurisdictional, no sheriff or police chief oversees the investigations of Byrne task forces. They are “effectively accountable to no one, least of all the communities they purportedly aim to serve and protect,” says Graham Boyd, director of the Drug Law Reform Project for the ACLU, which has documented abuses by Byrne-funded task forces all over the country.
Obama’s bad criminal justice ideas. – By Radley Balko – Slate Magazine.
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