Country coming together on criminal justice reform

We live in a time of political polarization, unable to solve even simple problems.

Look at our infrastructure. There is near universal agreement that we need to repair and upgrade our state’s roadways.

To do so, we have been handed the gift of a generation: a huge fall in gas prices. What’s more, gas prices are expected to not only remain low but also to continue falling, perhaps to $2 a gallon by year’s end.

That’s a drop from nearly $4 a gallon last year.

Gov. Jack Markell’s proposed 10-cent-a-gallon increase in the gas tax - which hasn’t been raised in over 20 years - looks puny by comparison.

We could have had our cake and eaten it too. Lower gas prices, better roads and a spike in construction jobs that would have employed thousands and injected millions of dollars into the marketplace.

But we didn’t.

One recent headline called out state legislators for a lack of leadership on the issue.

Nope, it comes back to us.

But there is hope on other fronts, most notably criminal justice reform.

Criminal justice reform has become the magic unicorn of modern politics: an issue where Democratic President Obama and conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch can actually find common ground.

Liberals and conservatives alike are beginning to see the folly of mass incarceration in the U.S.

The topic was among those discussed last week at a forum, “Keys to Delaware’s Economic Future,” organized by Delaware Americans for Democratic Action at Lewes Public Library.

Among the speakers was the Rev. Paula Maiorano, interim pastor for the Unitarian Universalists of Southern Delaware.

The U.S., said Maiorano, has about 5 percent of the world’s population but about 25 percent of the world’s prisoners.

Even on its face, that’s a scandalous figure, unless you believe Americans are strikingly lawless.

But the problem goes deeper. Many of the men and women are imprisoned for drug crimes, small-time selling and even simple possession.

Disproportionately, these prisoners are the urban poor, people of color.

“The police,” said Maiorano, “go after the low-hanging fruit in the urban centers.”

But black youth aren’t any more likely to use or sell drugs than white kids.

“White kids sell to white kids,” Maiorano said. “Black kids sell to black kids.”

And it’s not just kids. Older people sell drugs to people their own age, she said.

The urban poor face a double whammy. They’re more likely to get arrested and less likely to be able to afford a lawyer.

The result, said Maiorano, is that they’re twice as likely to be incarcerated and they receive longer sentences.

And, to digress briefly, it’s a little odd there’s suddenly such interest in treating heroin addiction as a public health issue. As prescription pain pills became less available, heroin has become more popular among whites.

I don’t disagree with this new approach, but we didn’t react that way during the ‘80s as crack cocaine ravaged black communities. The attitude then was: Get tough. Throw ‘em in jail. Meanwhile, the largely white population that used a powered form of the same drug received lighter sentences, if they received one at all.

For those imprisoned, the sentence is only the beginning. They confront a world of fresh trouble when they get out.

Often, Maiorano said, “they face a mountain of debt,” including fines and child support.

Find a job? Good luck with that. They’ve got a criminal record.

But even one job often isn’t enough. Not when you’re talking minimum wage.

“Even if you put together two minimum-wage salaries,” Maiorano said, “that doesn’t come up to what it costs to make it - on the very edge.”

Many people in Sussex County live on that edge.

“There are about 24 pockets of poverty in Sussex County,” said Fayetta Blake, chair of Sussex Unity, who spoke at the same event.

Just a short drive - or bike ride - from the lush life in Lewes lie communities lacking basic amenities.

“You absolutely look like you have walked into a Third World country,” Blake said. “It’s made no sense for us to have housing that is dilapidated. There are no roads, no street lights,” she said. “And in some instances, people don’t have good running water.”

These “pockets of poverty” and the imprisonment of non-violent offenders add up to what’s been called the “new Jim Crow.”

If you doubt that assessment, imagine yourself as a young man imprisoned for years on a minor drug charge. (Yes, I know, you didn’t inhale.)

You emerge from prison in debt, with bleak job prospects.

Would you be where you are now?


Don Flood is a former newspaper editor living near Lewes. He can be reached at floodpolitics@gmail.com.