Balko on Obama on Crime

I've generally avoided presidential election discussions on Grits since many, many other blogs perform that function with much more focus and enthusiasm than I could ever provide. But like Doc Berman, I wanted to recommend Radley Balko's critique of Barack Obama's crime policy at Slate, "Bad Cop: Why Obama is getting criminal justice wrong," in particular because of his dead-on analysis of Democrats' backing for pork barrel grant programs designed to make them look tough on crime.

Of special interest to me was Balko's analysis related to the federally funded drug task forces like the ones in the infamous Tulia and Hearne cases. (He even cites a report I authored in 2002 on the topic for the Texas ACLU!) This entire portion of Balko's piece, in particular, falls under the category of "Wish I'd written it. Agree with all of it":

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.

In Texas, Byrne-sponsored task forces created so many problems that much of the state has stopped participating in the program. A Byrne-funded operation was in charge of the 1999 debacle in Tulia, Texas, in which 46 people were arrested based on the word of a lying undercover police officer, Tom Coleman. Most of the 46 were later released and shared in a $6 million settlement. The next year, another Byrne task force arrested 28 people in Hearne, Texas, based solely on the word of a police informant who also proved to be a liar.

Because Byrne grants are given out primarily on raw arrest statistics, they also distort the way drug investigations are handled. Take the use of drug informants. Typically, police arrest a low-level drug offender, then try to make a deal with him to give up his supplier. They then continue their way up the ladder as far into the operation as they can go. But when funding for a task force depends on the number of arrests it makes, the incentive is instead to go down the ladder. A midlevel distributor may supply dozens of lower-level dealers, who boost the arrest numbers. Investigators thus have a reason to cut deals with bigger players in exchange for giving up the street dealers they supply.

The Byrne program has been opposed by analysts for the Heritage Foundation, the American Conservative Union, and the National Taxpayers Union on the right as well as civil rights groups like the National Black Police Association, the Drug Policy Alliance, and the National Council of La Raza on the left. The Bush administration has been phasing Byrne grants out, just as it has with COPS grants.

But Obama, Biden, and Democratic leaders (as well as several Republicans) in Congress want to bring the Byrne grants back. Perhaps one reason is that they're essentially federal job programs for blue-collar workers. They're also strongly backed by police unions and police organizations that, despite the GOP's image as the party that's tougher on crime, have traditionally supported Democrats. (The National Association of Police Organizations endorsed Obama last month and Kerry and Gore before him.) Members of Congress from both parties also benefit when they can put out press releases announcing a big federal grant for the police department back home.

Obama's support for these programs is particularly disappointing given the sensible things he said previously about crime, not to mention his experience as a law professor and community organizer. Sending big federal checks to local police departments may help repudiate GOP efforts to make Democrats look soft on crime. But it reinforces another Democrat cliché—that there's no problem that can't be solved with a wad of federal cash.