<story><title>Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers</title><url>http://harvardlawreview.org/2015/04/policing-mass-imprisonment-and-the-failure-of-american-lawyers/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>CPLX</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s all this discussion of these issues, which relate to racism, economic issues, police brutality, crime, etc.&lt;p&gt;They seem complicated and nuanced and people throw their hands up and say well what can we do. The answer to that question is actually so simple you can say it in four words:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;End the drug war.&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Someone far more eloquent than me, The Wire creator David Simon, can flesh that out a little:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;rweb&amp;#x2F;commentary&amp;#x2F;want-to-fix-baltimore-end-the-drug-war-says-david-simon&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;696c2063a2386c61999ad0ae2f96956d_story.html?tid=kindle-app&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;rweb&amp;#x2F;commentary&amp;#x2F;want-to-fix-ba...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ams6110</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ll agree that the drug war is out of control and as a &amp;quot;cure&amp;quot; it&amp;#x27;s worse than the disease. But people are not being locked up just because they are black, or poor. They are committing crimes, and pleading or being found guilty. The problem I have with pieces like the original article are that they are making it sound like we are engaging in a Gestapo-like rounding up of large numbers of minorities for &lt;i&gt;no reason&lt;/i&gt; and throwing them in jail.&lt;p&gt;By blaming the war on drugs we are also completely ignoring the other elephant in the room, and that is the massive breakdown in family structure that has occurred amongst the impoverished.&lt;p&gt;This is particularly the case for African-Americans but I don&amp;#x27;t claim that it&amp;#x27;s a racial thing, directly. It&amp;#x27;s part of the cycle of poverty. In DC, which is a large focus of the original piece, over half of babies are born out of wedlock. For African Americans it&amp;#x27;s close to 70%.&lt;p&gt;With no parents working, and fathers typically absent, children do not learn the behaviors and responsibilities that are required to be a productive and self-supporting member of society. They then perpetuate this in subsequent generations. Our &amp;quot;war on poverty&amp;quot; has, like the war on drugs, been a failure. The poverty rate in 1965 was about 15%, same as today, with trillions of dollars spent.&lt;p&gt;The war on drugs funds a massive effort to catch and punish drug dealers and users. So of course that happens. The war on poverty rewards disfunctional, irresponsible, and self-destructive life choices.&lt;p&gt;You get what you pay for.</text></comment>
<story><title>Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers</title><url>http://harvardlawreview.org/2015/04/policing-mass-imprisonment-and-the-failure-of-american-lawyers/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>CPLX</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s all this discussion of these issues, which relate to racism, economic issues, police brutality, crime, etc.&lt;p&gt;They seem complicated and nuanced and people throw their hands up and say well what can we do. The answer to that question is actually so simple you can say it in four words:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;End the drug war.&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Someone far more eloquent than me, The Wire creator David Simon, can flesh that out a little:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;rweb&amp;#x2F;commentary&amp;#x2F;want-to-fix-baltimore-end-the-drug-war-says-david-simon&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;696c2063a2386c61999ad0ae2f96956d_story.html?tid=kindle-app&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;rweb&amp;#x2F;commentary&amp;#x2F;want-to-fix-ba...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rayiner</author><text>The drug war is a symptom of something more basic: Americans lack compassion. Consider something in the non-drug context: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.motherjones.com&amp;#x2F;politics&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;georgia-probation-misdemeanor-poor-jail&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.motherjones.com&amp;#x2F;politics&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;georgia-probatio...&lt;/a&gt;. You can bring up private prisons and probation companies, but the fact is that these laws have been on the books all along. They were passed by part-time state legislators, who are pretty representative of ordinary people in the state.</text></comment>