PC: No Reagan = No Mass Incarceration?

Reference thread. Supposing a Democrat is President during the 1980's (let's say Ford wins narrow re-election in 1976) -- would the escalation of the War on Drugs, and the subsequent rise in mass incarceration, still happen?

I might have been tempted to think so before, but was reading Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow earlier today, and found this renewal on the Drug War actually preceded the crack cocaine epidemic that is usually credited with said policy; that, in fact, the Administration, having already decided on this course, went to great lengths to publicize the scourge of crack cocaine and connect it with their preferred solution. So, from I understand, if the President and Administration at the time had shared Nixon's preference for treating the drug problem in America as a National Health Crisis instead of a Criminal Problem, then even if crack still arrived in American cities around this time, it would be perceived and handled differently.

But what do you think? And if I am right, how curbed do you think America's prison population would be today? And what would be the effects of that?

Have the supreme court decide all the talk about being equal under the law and freedom are not just empty promises?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_the_War_on_Drugs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs#Legality

It is argued that drug prohibition, as presently implemented, violates the substantive due process doctrine in that its benefits do not justify the encroachments on rights that are supposed to be guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. On July 27, 2011, U.S. District Judge Mary S. Scriven ruled that Florida's legislation purporting to eliminate intent as an element of the crime of drug possession was unconstitutional. Commentators explained the ruling in terms of due process.

Freedom of religious conscience legally allows some (for example, members of the Native American Church) to use peyote with definite spiritual or religious motives. The sacramental use of dimethyltryptamine in the form of Ayahuasca is also allowed for members of União De Vegetal. The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment implies no requirement for someone to be affiliated to an official church – therefore leaving some ambiguity.

The inequity of prosecuting the war on certain drugs but not alcohol or tobacco has also been called into question. Prohibition of alcohol required the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. It has been argued that prohibition of marijuana would also require an amendment to the Constitution, but no such amendment has been made.

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Michelle Alexander is right. No Reagan, and the War on Drugs is more significant than Nixon's War on Cancer, but no way do gulag-levels of mass incarceration travel across time and space to find their way into American black and Latino communities without President George Wallace (R-CA).

When I compare Reagan to Jackson, I have more in mind than "good politics, bad policy" if one catches my drift. The canonization of Reagan will hopefully be extremely embarassing in retrospect for the Republican Party, because they're idolizing monstrous racist policies.

I wish the following source had dived into more details, but is making a claim about Reagan's first term:

http://books.google.com/books?id=JM...a=X&ei=o_oEVILADbO38gHhhIDwBg&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA

"During his first administration, anti-drug funds at the FBI surged from $38 million to $181 million, and the Drug Enforcement Agency's spending skyrocketed from $86 million to over $1 billion."

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And Clinton also jumped on this same bandwagon.

Ronnie Reagan was an artist type of personality. He had his issues he cared about and thought a lot about. And other issues he just wasn't that interested in.

He is one of the presidents who was not a generalist, which is a little different for a chief executive officer.

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As you note, an intriguing POD and branch point might be that Ford wins the close election in 1976. We still have the same or similar difficult economic times in the late 70s and no way in hell a Republican wins the presidency in 1980.

GeographyDude said:

I wish the following source had dived into more details, but is making a claim about Reagan's first term:

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The New Jim Crow goes into a bit more detail about it. They got a lot of the money from the anti-white-collar crime budget. Of course.

Since (so far anyway) we're on board for an alternate 1976 and 80's as sufficient cause for preventing mass incarceration, does anyone have thoughts on potential effects?

John Fredrick Parker said:

Since (so far anyway) we're on board for an alternate 1976 and 80's as sufficient cause for preventing mass incarceration, does anyone have thoughts on potential effects?

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Well, presumably minority communities would be more economically successful in general, considering that fewer of their members (especially their male members) are going to be either locked in prison, earning no money, or marked with criminal convictions, limiting their job options. This would, again presumably, be good for the economy inasmuch as there would be more people spending more money on more things. Obviously it's hard to predict specific events down the line, though.

A less militarized and bulked up police might be more able to integrate itself into local communities, as well, pulling minority communities into a more trusting and symbiotic relationship with the police. That would have obvious positive effects, though it might lead police to be ill-equipped in some (rare) cases.

Workable Goblin said:

Well, presumably minority communities would be more economically successful in general, considering that fewer of their members (especially their male members) are going to be either locked in prison, earning no money, or marked with criminal convictions, limiting their job options. This would, again presumably, be good for the economy inasmuch as there would be more people spending more money on more things.

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The Internet is further along for starters. For example, maybe microtransactions for content has become more the norm. Independent, largely non-corporate journalism is starting to be built up.

Really interesting to think about! More economic opportunity is right, though ending mass incarceration doesn't end the education disparity. So what I think we'd see is this large percentage of African Americans who are currently "unemployable" holding down a lot of the jobs in sectors immigrants have jumped into. It might mean a less vibrant economic picture for potential immigrants. It might mean an African American constituency in the Democratic Party that's more anti-immigrant than OTL.

And while on the subject, we've got millions more African Americans who can vote- US politics will be noticeably "bluer."

We might see a very different construction sector, for example. It's a notably exploitable sector IOTL, due to the marginalized status of the workers. I wonder how it would be if more established African American communities were more involved in the sector? Greater attempts at organizing? Not out of the question.

But it would be wrong to assume this just hits the most disadvantaged. We can expect substantial margins of the black community to proceed further into more advanced education. We can expect a likely explosion of credit opportunities unavailable to African Americans today due to arrest records. Banks wouldn't think, "at most we can target only a fraction of the black market if we open in that neighborhood," and so availability of financial services would certainly increase. Probably nothing blue chip, you understand, but better than a pay day loan.

Expat said:

More economic opportunity is right, though ending mass incarceration doesn't end the education disparity. So what I think we'd see is this large percentage of African Americans who are currently "unemployable" holding down a lot of the jobs in sectors immigrants have jumped into. It might mean a less vibrant economic picture for potential immigrants. It might mean an African American constituency in the Democratic Party that's more anti-immigrant than OTL.

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Now this is an interesting element. It's an interesting hypothesis about OTL -- that the large demand for immigration was the result of mass incarceration preventing the utilization of America's own poor population.

John Fredrick Parker said:

Now this is an interesting element. It's an interesting hypothesis about OTL -- that the large demand for immigration was the result of mass incarceration preventing the utilization of America's own poor population.

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Yeah, not a theory I have done any research on, I should note. Just a possible idea. Seems logical that if we fix incarceration but not education that we'll still have a lot of under-educated African Americans (though it's important to recognize the disproportionate effect the drug war has had in derailing the potential education of minorities as well.) And what jobs will the under-educated be eligible for? Those done in large part by minorities.

Though another possibility is the earlier infeasibility of teenage employment that we're just starting to see now. The summer and after-school job is coming to an end and a big factor is that adults are more willing to take them. Maybe that happens earlier? in the 2000s or 1990s, even.

We were almost talking about jobs in 1992. Governor Clinton struck a very responsive chord when he talked about that we're working longer for less, and people who are playing by the rules seem to be sliding further behind.

But it's just very difficult to translate this into medium policy steps to see how it works. And President Clinton was not really able to make the policy translation.

Can the lack of a response to the increasing crime rate

cause the flight of even more citizens and business

creating a Detroit like death spiral in even more cities?

It may not have been nice, but people were

demanding something be done. So if it appeared that

it was only going to get worse you may have seen 20

or 30 Detroit like situations in the 90s. Leading to a far

worse backlash against criminals.

GeographyDude said:

The Internet is further along for starters. For example, maybe microtransactions for content has become more the norm. Independent, largely non-corporate journalism is starting to be built up.

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It seems rather odd to assume that a generally wealthier black America would cause something which has gotten no traction anywhere in reality (well, to a certain extent recently with *coin this is becoming less true, but that's quite recent) to become a thing. Indeed, the comment about "the Internet being further along" due to a wealthier black America is rather curious, considering that it was mostly developed in the 1970s and 1980s by people who had been in advanced education or business for some time by that point; that is, by people who would not have been substantially affected by the PoD. There could certainly be some effects by the late 1980s as, presumably, more blacks are able to gain access to higher education and enter computer science or related fields, but by that point the share-alike culture that led to advertising becoming the financial foundation of the Internet was well entrenched.

I'm also not sure why you think independent journalism would need micro transactions to be "built up," considering the success of advertising-supported black journalism earlier in the century and the demonstrated ability of people on the modern Web to engage in independent journalism without them. Almost everyone agrees that the Internet has greatly enhanced the ability of holders of alternative viewpoints to disseminate their views.

Expat said:

But it would be wrong to assume this just hits the most disadvantaged. We can expect substantial margins of the black community to proceed further into more advanced education. We can expect a likely explosion of credit opportunities unavailable to African Americans today due to arrest records. Banks wouldn't think, "at most we can target only a fraction of the black market if we open in that neighborhood," and so availability of financial services would certainly increase. Probably nothing blue chip, you understand, but better than a pay day loan.

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I was alluding to this with the comment on "Obviously, it's hard to predict specific events down the line," actually. I had written a thing on how the housing crisis might have been derailed due to the greater availability of prime loans to minority homebuyers (hence less interest in subprime loans and less ability by the banks to sell them), but removed it because it's quite possible that the underlying deregulations that allowed it would never have taken place, whatever the effect on minorities would be. But yes, there would certainly be more access to credit and other financial and educational resources.

Actually, it's easier than most people think, as you mentioned. Butterfly Watergate, and Reagan doesn't have as great of a chance of getting into office. Furthermore, Nixon, while the founder of the War on Drugs, allocated 2/3 of the money for treatment-methadone clinics, urban health centers, etc-rather than incarceration.

Of course, crack would still come to the USA anyway, and we would still deal with the social fallout/crime and demands for law and order... and demands for law and order will lead to demands for "getting tough with criminals".

There is still the problems of poverty and lack of education to deal with. While this definitely makes things better for minorities, it isn't a cure-all.

Realpolitik said:

Actually, it's easier than most people think, as you mentioned. Butterfly Watergate, and Reagan doesn't have as great of a chance of getting into office. Furthermore, Nixon, while the founder of the War on Drugs, allocated 2/3 of the money for treatment-methadone clinics, urban health centers, etc-rather than incarceration.

Of course, crack would still come to the USA anyway, and we would still deal with the social fallout/crime and demands for law and order... and demands for law and order will lead to demands for "getting tough with criminals".

There is still the problems of poverty and lack of education to deal with. While this definitely makes things better for minorities, it isn't a cure-all.

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Is crack inevitable without the contras?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Commission_on_Marihuana_and_Drug_Abuse

The National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse was created by the Controlled Substances Act to study marijuana abuse in the United States. While the Controlled Substances Act was being drafted in a House committee in 1970, Assistant Secretary of Health Roger O. Egeberg had recommended that marijuana temporarily be placed in Schedule I, the most restrictive category of drugs, pending the Commission's report. On March 22, 1972, the Commission's chairman, Raymond P. Shafer, presented a report to Congress and the public entitled "Marihuana, A Signal of Misunderstanding," which favored ending marijuana prohibition and adopting other methods to discourage use.

....

The Nixon administration did not implement the recommendations from The National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse; and in fact, while the study was pending, Nixon attempted to influence the result by telling Shafer, "You're enough of a pro to know that for you to come out with something that would run counter to what the Congress feels and what the country feels, and what we're planning to do, would make your commission just look bad as hell."

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Polandc4 said:

Can the lack of a response to the increasing crime rate cause the flight of even more citizens and business creating a Detroit like death spiral in even more cities?
It may not have been nice, but people were demanding something be done. So if it appeared that it was only going to get worse you may have seen 20 or 30 Detroit like situations in the 90s. Leading to a far worse backlash against criminals.

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Locking up people who have not hurt anyone has no positive effect on crime rate, instead, it increases the crime rate in the future because there will be less legal oppoturnities for the same individuals.

Polandc4 said:

Can the lack of a response to the increasing crime rate... [lead] to a far worse backlash against criminals.

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Realpolitik said:

Of course, crack would still come to the USA anyway, and we would still deal with the social fallout/crime and demands for law and order... and demands for law and order will lead to demands for "getting tough with criminals".

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Quite likely there will still be calls for "getting tough on criminals", but it bears remembering: Who will be making those demands? And would a different President (and political situation) in Washington lead to a different response to a particular demographic or interest group?

If the people who are banging loudest about "out of control" crime and/or drug use are likely to vote for conservative Republicans anyway, would a Democratic President and Congress still be looking to pacify their complaints, even if it caused tensions with African American voters? (And before anyone says "But black people were talking about crack too", remember: We are not talking about an administration that just ignores such a problem, but one which responds differently than the Reagan Administration did OTL. And it belies credibility that the GOP response put stock in the concerns of the African Americans being "plighted", who were not part of their base, than white conservative voters, who were.)

Remember, like alcohol, drugs would still be capable of ruining families, increasing crime rates and causing a general ruckus even if they were legal. Black communities would probably be just a tinge more like Native American reservations.