Read on Twitter
This is frustrating for me to see, because @jessesingal and @KeeangaYamahtta both oversimplify.
Taylor is correct on substance. But Singal is right that more stringent fact-checking would have changed the details of this paragraph.
(Thread)
https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1391467127954083841
Taylor is correct on substance. But Singal is right that more stringent fact-checking would have changed the details of this paragraph.
(Thread)
https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1391467127954083841
The connection between those two laws - the 1994 crime bill and CA's 1994 three-strikes law - and California's prison population is not self-evident.
The 1994 Crime Bill is a federal law, not a CA law. And the steep increase in incarceration was well underway before 1994.
The 1994 Crime Bill is a federal law, not a CA law. And the steep increase in incarceration was well underway before 1994.
Furthermore, CA's three-strikes law was created by a voter referendum. Taylor's article implies this law was motivated by a need to fill prisons, but I have a hard time believing that this is what motivated CA voters to pass this bill.
(But see below!)
(But see below!)
But Taylor's not totally wrong. By 1999, over 40,000 CA prisoners - about a fourth of the total - had been sentenced under the three-strikes law. It's implausible that the three-strikes law didn't have any effect on California's prison population.
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/sp/3strikes.pdf
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/sp/3strikes.pdf
But how could a 1994 law have had an effect, if the trend started before 1994?
Because there was a big counter-trend pushing incarcerations down even as laws like the three strikes law were pushing upward. The crime rate was plummeting.
https://www.ppic.org/publication/crime-trends-in-california/
Because there was a big counter-trend pushing incarcerations down even as laws like the three strikes law were pushing upward. The crime rate was plummeting.
https://www.ppic.org/publication/crime-trends-in-california/
And although the 1994 Crime Bill was a federal law, it still had a big impact on state laws. It provide $12.5 billion in grants to states to pay for incarceration. States that passed "tough-on-crime" got more money. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/1994-crime-bill-and-beyond-how-federal-funding-shapes-criminal-justice
It also, as the ACLU argues, signaled that the Democratic party under Bill Clinton would compete with the GOP to be the most pro-conviction, pro-incarceration party.
https://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/mass-incarceration/how-1994-crime-bill-fed-mass-incarceration-crisis
https://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/mass-incarceration/how-1994-crime-bill-fed-mass-incarceration-crisis
This was all happening in part because the private prison industry was using lobbying, donations to politicians, and propaganda to get more "tough on crime" laws passed.
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2016/aug/22/study-shows-private-prison-companies-use-influence-increase-incarceration/
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2016/aug/22/study-shows-private-prison-companies-use-influence-increase-incarceration/
Including California's three-strikes bill.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/how-for-profit-prisons-have-become-the-biggest-lobby-no-one-is-talking-about/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/how-for-profit-prisons-have-become-the-biggest-lobby-no-one-is-talking-about/
So I think Taylor's paragraph did oversimplify a more complex situation. More stringent fact-checkers would have made him add a disclaimer there.
But Singal doesn't credit that Taylor was basically right about the larger issue, even though Taylor's examples needed more nuance.
But Singal doesn't credit that Taylor was basically right about the larger issue, even though Taylor's examples needed more nuance.
The prison industry was, in fact, lobbying, donating and supporting candidates to get laws like these passed, and it's obvious they were doing this to get more bodies so more prisons were needed.
That was (as I see it) the deeper point of Taylor's paragraph, and it was correct.
That was (as I see it) the deeper point of Taylor's paragraph, and it was correct.
(End of rant.)
(Do I need to disclose that Jesse Singal has me blocked, and therefore I wrote this knowing he probably won't see this thread? Or is that not the sort of thing I need to disclose?)
(FWIW, I think I would have written the exact same thing even if he didn't block me.)
(FWIW, I think I would have written the exact same thing even if he didn't block me.)
