William Barr is Stuck in the '90s — But Americans Have Moved Forward When it Comes to Criminal Justice Reform
Almost five years to the day of the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Attorney General William Barr descended on New Orleans to deliver a major policy address. His speech dismissed police violence and espoused a dangerous vision for America — one in which ‘90s era tough-on-crime politics shape policies and pro-civil rights attitudes are derided as “anti-police.”
to the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), Barr used war analogies to describe the work of police officers, painting opponents of police brutality as a “vocal minority that regularly attacks the police.” He minimized the type of police violence and racism — like that which took Michael Brown’s life — as being the result of “a few bad apples.” This phrase has been used as code to distract from deeply systemic issues that protect and perpetuate the devaluing of Black and brown lives in the criminal legal system.
Barr suggested that the problem of police violence is with the victims for not complying with police demands — an assertion recognized as odiously false by those who followed the murders of Philando Castile and many others. He went on to disparage the new wave of reform-oriented prosecutors who won elections by espousing fair and smart justice policies as “anti-police” and “dangerous to public safety.”
Yet, to those who have seen the epidemic of police abuse and the devastating impact of mass incarceration, we know that Barr is wrong. His speech was a slap in the face to families who have suffered from police violence and to voters who have organized around and elected prosecutors committed to tackling mass incarceration.
It should come as little surprise that Barr advocates for the death penalty and even greater mass incarceration. In 1992, while serving his previous term as AG, Barr published a report titled, “,” arguing for more prisons and longer sentences. The report was a major boost to mass incarceration in America as it provided the Justice Department stamp of approval. Based on this week’s speech, little has changed in Barr’s views since 1992.
Barr delivered his speech before a friendly crowd of FOP officers because he knew that his rhetoric wouldn’t fly with a general audience. Polls consistently show that Americans on both the left and right prefer smart justice policies: Three-quarters of voters say they would vote for a candidate committed to criminal justice reform; eighty-nine percent of voters support prosecutors who want to cut mass incarceration.
The reform-oriented prosecutors derided by Barr ran on sensible policies of using incarceration only as a last resort. They ran on the commonsense idea to offer rehabilitation services to people suffering from drug addiction, rather than incarceration. They promised to end the criminalization of poverty and predatory practices like cash bail and fines and fees that lead to incarceration because of inability to pay.
Barr would have you believe that reform policies negatively impact public safety, but decades of data show that, actually, the opposite is true: Between 2007 and 2017, . Keeping families together and people out of prison and jail is key to building healthy, safe communities. Yet more is needed, as the United States continues to imprison its people at rates much higher than comparable countries.
The policies espoused by Attorney General Barr created today’s mass incarceration crisis, disproportionately locking up people of color and poor people. The War on Drugs and a tough-on-crime mentality have devastated communities across the nation, and have led to the United States being the world’s biggest jailer, with 2.3 million people incarcerated on any given day. In fact, the state where Barr delivered his speech, Louisiana, has the second-highest incarceration rate per capita in the world. Until the implementation of recent bipartisan reforms, which Barr would have almost certainly opposed if in office, Louisiana had the highest incarceration rate in the world.
Barr’s speech before a conference room of police officers was not about public safety. It was about creating a climate of fear, where police officers are “manning the ramparts” between — as he put it — “chaos and carnage on the one hand, and the civilized and tranquil society we all yearn for,” and incarceration is the primary solution to all of society’s problems, including mental illness, poverty, and drug addiction.
What scares Barr the most is that the politics of mass incarceration are beginning to change. Fear-mongering rhetoric no longer resonates with voters in the ways that it did in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Americans have been influenced by movements like Black Lives Matter, and understand the devastating impact that mass incarceration has had on millions of lives. Voters recognize that the War on Drugs and Broken Windows policing have failed: Seventy-eight percent are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports criminal justice reform, including 71 percent of Republicans.
Americans are ready for change. We are not proud of the fact that we have less than five percent of the world’s population, yet more than 20 percent of the world’s prisoners. This is why in 2018 alone, criminal justice reform won in the ballot box, and 122 criminal justice reform bills passed in state legislatures that will result in thousands of fewer people incarcerated.
Attorney General Barr is stuck in the 1990s. But Americans have moved forward, and we are ready for fewer prisons and more dignity and humanity in our justice policies, not to mention the safety that comes along with it.
Learn More About the Issues on This Page
-
Press ReleaseDec 2024
Prisoners' Rights
Criminal Law Reform
ACLU Sues Bureau of Prisons for Keeping People in Prison Longer Than the Law AllowsACLU Sues Bureau of Prisons for Keeping People in Prison Longer Than the Law Allows
WASHINGTON – A federal lawsuit brought today by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of D.C., and Jenner & Block LLP challenges the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for unlawfully incarcerating people longer than the law allows under the First Step Act. The lawsuit contends that the BOP’s failure to implement the First Step Act according to its plain language violates the rights of thousands of people who should be returning to their communities and rebuilding their lives but instead remain incarcerated. Signed into law in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump, the bipartisan First Step Act was designed to reduce the population in federal prisons, reform extreme sentencing laws, and provide programming and reentry transition services to people in prison. Central to the First Step Act is a system of earned time credits, which allows people in prison to earn time off their sentences and time out of prison by participating in rehabilitation programs. Through the First Step Act, Congress unambiguously ordered BOP to move people out of prison when they meet certain requirements to use their earned time credits. Instead of faithfully following the mandatory law, BOP adopted a regulation treating the law as optional. As a result, thousands of people, who should already be back in their communities and with their families, remain in prison. “Every extra unlawful day our clients spend in prison is a serious injustice,” said Emma Andersson, deputy director of the Criminal Law Reform Project at the ACLU. “It is egregious that the Bureau of Prisons is imprisoning people for months longer than the law allows. The government must follow through on its legal obligation to get people out of prison on time and back into their communities, where they belong.” Additional comments below from: Vanessa Crowe, plaintiff: “Time is what I owed for my wrongdoing, and I have paid my time. But I should not have to spend more time in prison than the law allows. I often reflect on what I will miss during the months after when I should be out of prison. I will miss work and lose out on wages that would help me get back on my feet. I could be a tax paying citizen instead of a burden on society. But most of all, I will miss more precious time with my family. My family and I are ready to tum the page on this period in our lives — we are all ready to start a new life, a life with purpose, hope, and healing together. I want to start that life when I am legally entitled to start it-not five months later.” Arthur Spitzer, senior counsel at ACLU of D.C.: “There’s no excuse for the Bureau of Prisons to pretend not to understand Congress’s clear command that people who have earned the right to early release must be released. This law has been on the books for six years. The Bureau of Prisons has had plenty of time to understand it. Law enforcers should obey the law.” Betsy Henthorne, partner at Jenner & Block: “It has been six years since the First Step Act was signed, but despite Congress’s clear directives, the Bureau of Prisons continues to hold thousands of people in prison longer than the law allows. We should and do expect better—it’s past time for the BOP to ensure that those who have earned their release are able to return home to their families and communities according to the law Congress passed.” -
Maryland Supreme CourtDec 2024
Criminal Law Reform
Roland Branch v. State of MarylandRoland Branch v. State of Maryland
This petition to the Supreme Court of Maryland asked the court to reconsider its adherence to Whren v. U.S., 517 U.S. 806 (1996), which declared that a traffic stop undertaken for pretextual reasons does not violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution so long as the police have probable cause to believe that a traffic violation occurred. The ACLU, alongside the ACLU of Maryland, filed an amicus brief in support of the defendant’s petition, in which the ACLU argued that the court should take up the question of whether pretextual stops violate the Maryland Constitution. In September 2024, the Court denied the petition. -
North Carolina Supreme CourtDec 2024
Criminal Law Reform
State v. WrightState v. Wright
This case in the North Carolina Supreme Court involves the question of whether the police violated the U.S. Constitution when they searched the defendant, Mr. Wright’s, backpack even after he repeatedly said no to the search requests. The ACLU alongside the ACLU of North Carolina filed an amicus brief arguing that the search was unconstitutional because Mr. Wright’s eventual “consent” was the result of police coercion. Our brief urges the court to consider the totality of the circumstances that make one more susceptible to coercion, including race and poverty. -
News & CommentaryDec 2024
Criminal Law Reform
Disability Rights
Incarceration Should Not be a Death Sentence for Individuals Who Use OpioidsIncarceration Should Not be a Death Sentence for Individuals Who Use Opioids
New litigation centered on increasing access to substance-use disorder treatment in jails and prisons is helping to reduce mortality rates among incarcerated individuals.