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| Source: https://lybio.net/president-trump-i-am-your-president-of-law-and-order/people/ |
President Donald Trump often touts himself as the law and order president. So, what does that actually mean? For most it conjures up images of someone who is tough on crime or a country with a strict criminal justice system with tougher criminal penalties. The idea here is that, the tougher the consequences, the less crime there will be. What it neglects to consider is the causes of crime in the first place.
When I hear words about law and order, the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr come to mind. He wrote, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Here, he is talking about war and the military more than crime and the criminal justice system, but it seems the same message applies. A “might is right” mentality does nothing to keep actual order. Submission is not the same as loyalty and allowing the root causes that perpetuate crime to fester leads society to a spiritual death.
It also makes me think of my own parents. My mother told me once that when we were little we would ask “Why?” all the time and my dad wanted her to just say, “Because I said so.” But, she says she always stopped and explained why because she wanted us to understand why certain rules were in place, and not just blindly follow them. She had the wisdom to understand that merely keeping us in check or keeping us afraid of the consequences, was not going to truly raise quality citizens and the moment we were out from under their watch, we would break free because we wouldn’t understand why the structures of society were in place as they were.
Now, Donald Trump talks a lot about “bad people.” He tends to paint people as good or bad and they tend to fall into those groups based on whether they are loyal to him or not. There isn’t a lot of nuance. However, who are the people that we call criminals?
80-90% of women and girls in the criminal justice system have a history of physical or sexual abuse. 1 in 4 children in foster care will interact with the criminal justice system just 2 years after their release from the foster care system. Incarcerated individuals have a lower literacy rate than the general population. Many people with mental illness or substance abuse issues end up in prison. So, are they failing society or is society failing them? Has our society already reached the point of spiritual death?
Another question I have is, should everyone that is in prison actually be in prison? Are these tough on crime laws actually deterring crime? The United States represents less than 5% of the global population and almost 25% of the global prison population. The United States has the highest prison population rate in the world. About 50% of prisoners are there for drug offenses. Much of this is a result of the “War on Drugs” that instituted mandatory minimum drug sentences. The prison population has increased 790% since 1980 but funding and space hasn’t kept up which has led to overcrowding.
In 2020, you absolutely cannot talk about law and order or criminal justice without recognizing the racial inequity involved. African American men are far more likely to be stopped, searched, charged, and sentenced than white men found guilty of the same offenses. Black people receive 60% longer sentences than white people for the same crime. 5 times as many white people are using drugs as black people, but black people are sent to prison for drug offenses at a rate of 10 times the rate of white people. African Americans serve nearly as much time in prison for non-violent drug offenses (58.7 months) as whites do for violent offenses (61.7 months).
The 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown brought a lot of these inequities into the public spotlight. Following his death and the resulting fallout, the Department of Justice investigated the Ferguson Police Department and found that “[Black people] accounted for 85 percent of traffic stops, 90 percent of tickets and 93 percent of arrests. In cases like jaywalking, which often hinge on police discretion, blacks accounted for 95 percent of all arrests.” Maybe you’re thinking, black people just committed more crimes. Wrong. Officials were actually more likely to find contraband on white people. Despite that, they continued to target black people.
People living in poverty are also dispraportionately incarcerated. Following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, donations to the Minnesota Freedom Fund went through the roof and enlightened a lot of people on the injustices of the cash bail system. The United States and the Phillipines are the only two countries with a for-profit bail system. The two primary types of bail are bail bonds which are paid to private companies and cash bail which is paid to the courts. The Minnesota Freedom Fund fights the injustices prevented by the cash bail system by paying bail for those who cannot afford to. On their website they explain that people who are arrested in Minnesota for any offense are brought before judges who determine their bail which is the amount of money that is to be paid to be released until their trial begins. If they can’t afford to do so, they have to stay in jail for weeks, months, or even years awaiting trial. In Minnesota, more than 60% of incarcerated individuals are being held in pre-trial detention. This means that many people that may go on to be found innocent are stuck in jail because they can’t afford bail. Not only does this affect a person mentally, it can result in job loss, housing loss, and loss of custody of children.
Now, I know a lot of people see this as not their problem. They follow the law, follow the orders of police officers, so why should they care about people who broke the law? They broke the law. They knew the consequences. I’m innocent, they’re guilty. I don’t need to worry about any of this. So, let’s talk about the issue that eventually gets everyone’s attention, money. It costs the federal government about $100 a day to hold someone in prison. If you want smaller government and lower taxes, the prison population is your concern.
Speaking of money, does Joe Biden want to defund the police? A friend of mine was recently telling me about getting her haircut and how her stylist was saying she was voting for Donald Trump because Joe Biden wants to defund the police so there will be no police and just chaos in the streets. There are three major problems with this statement.
The first problem is that it’s false. Joe Biden does not want to defund the police. In fact, he proposes a $300 million dollar investment in policing. The second is that it misrepresents what defunding the police means. Defunding the police does not mean getting rid of police all together. It means reallocating some resources to other government agencies to address the root problems of crime such as mental health agencies and crisis centers. And, the third problem is that it is under a Donald Trump presidency that we are experiencing chaos in the streets. We did not have riots under the Obama-Biden administration like we are today. And, to invoke Dr. King again, “riots are the language of the unheard.” This is not to condone them, but to explain their cause. That cause being racial inequality, which is a cause that is not being addressed by this current administration.
Finally, I can’t talk about Donald Trump being a law and order president without talking about all of the people around him who have been charged with and convicted of crimes. To date, the following people in his orbit have served prison time or been charged with crimes and are awaiting trial.
- Steve Bannon, Trump’s White House Chief Strategist was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering along with Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage, founder of the Build the Wall campaign.
- Roger Stone, longtime Trump friend and advisor was convicted of lying under oath to lawmakers, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering. The day before he was expected to report to prison, Trump commuted his sentence.
- Paul Manafort, Trump’s presidential campaign chair, was convicted of tax fraud and bank fraud, and pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges related to money laundering, lobbying violations, and witness tampering. He is currently serving his 7 ½ year prison sentence at home after being released in May due to the coronavirus.
- Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer, was found guilty of orchestrating hush money payments to women who had sexual encounters with Trump and for lying to Congress about a proposed Trump Tower in Moscow. He was also released from prison due to the coronavirus to serve the remainder of his 3 year prison sentence at home.
- Michael Flynn, Trump’s National Security Advisor, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his interactions with Russia’s ambassador. Trump’s Attorney General William Barr has worked to have this case dismissed.
- Rick Gates, the deputy chairman of the Trump campaign, pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and lying to investigators. He was sentenced to 45 days in jail after cooperating with the Mueller investigation and testifying against Paul Manafort and Roger Stone.
- George Papadopolous, another Trump campaign advisor, was sentenced to 14 days in jail for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia.
Additionally, Trump has lost 38 lawsuits brought against him and settled with about 100 more plaintiffs in issues ranging from defamation to contract violations to sexual assault. Likely, he most famously settled in the case of the fraud charges brought against Trump University where he agreed to pay $25 million to settle the lawsuit. He has also settled when being sued for violations to the Fair Housing Act where he was charged with renting to white people over black people,
So, is he really a law and order president? You can decide for yourself.
But furthermore, what can be done about the criminal justice system? Here are the candidates records and proposals.
As president, Biden would
reduce the number of people incarcerated by sending those arrested for drug use to drug courts and treatment programs instead of incarceration thereby reducing federal spending on incarceration and reinvesting those saved funds into communities affected by mass incarceration.
call for the immediate passage of the SAFE Justice Act originally proposed by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Rep. Jason Lewis (R-MN).
create a $20 billion competitive grant program to spur states to shift from incarceration to prevention.
invest in education for all by making pre-K available to all, tripling funding for Title 1 schools, and make community college free for qualified students.
expand federal funding for mental health and substance abuse research and services.
address systemic misconduct in police departments.
invest in public defenders’ offices.
eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing for non-violent crimes.
decriminalize the use of cannabis.
eliminate the death penalty.
use his clemency power for non-violent and drug crimes.
end cash bail.
end the federal government’s use of private for-profit prisons.
condition receipt of federal criminal justice grants on adequate care and gynecological care for incarcerated women and re-evaluate programs that allow non-violent offenders who are primary care providers for their children to serve their sentences at in-home monitoring.
invest $1 billion per year in juvenile justice reform.
incentivize states to stop incarcerating youth.
expand funding for after school programs, community centers, and summer jobs.
double the number of mental health professionals in our schools.
set a goal to ensure that 100% of incarcerated individuals have housing upon re-entry in order to reduce recidivism rates.
counter the rise in hate crimes through “moral leadership that makes clear that such vitriol has no place in the United States.”
During President Trump’s presidency he has:
announced $98 million in grant funding through the COPS funding program to allow 802 additional full-time law enforcement officers.
signed Executive Order 13809 to restore state and local law enforcement’s access to equipment from the Department of Defense such as armored vehicles.
announced the new National Public Safety Partnership, a cooperative initiative to reduce violent crime.
expanded the Project Safe Neighborhoods to encourage U.S. Attorneys to work with communities to develop customized crime reduction strategies.
directed prosecutors to take illegal guns off the street resulting in a 23 percent increase in criminals being charged with unlawful possession of a firearm.
signed 3 executive orders aimed at cracking down on international criminal organizations, including drug cartels and gangs, and preventing violence against law enforcement officers.
designated MS-13 as a priority for the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.
appointed conservative judges Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
appointed more than 50 circuit or appeals court judges.
appointed more than 80 district court judges.
signed the STOP School Violence Act and the “Fix NICS Act.”
allocated $2 billion for school safety.
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