Safe at any price

An unpopular truth

[Reprinted from Issues & Views September 23, 2002]

In "Ashcroft and Justice: Mutual Exclusives," on LewRockwell.com, William Anderson tells of the increasing power of Attorneys General and prosecutors to menace hapless defendants, who face multiple indictments and long prison sentences for infractions of mundane regulations (see also Paul Craig Roberts book).

In a just society, the one the Founders thought they had created, after a crime is committed, the law then looks for the person who committed it. In a corrupt and perverted justice system, a particular person is first targeted and then the law books are searched, or investigators put to work, to find an offense to pin on him. Anderson describes a "legal regime of overkill," where society desires security above all else:

Modern prosecutors have legal tools that would have caused many of their predecessors to recoil in horror. Thanks to RICO laws, prosecutors can pick up a violation of any regulation, no matter how mundane, and bundle those violations together into huge counts of "conspiracy" charges that carry 25-year sentences upon conviction. Upon a RICO indictment, the government can freeze the assets of individuals and their families, thus making it difficult for them to adequately defend themselves.

Given that the United States incarcerates more people than any other nation on earth, I doubt that most Americans care whether or not "criminals" are railroaded into prison. Since the majority of Americans likely do not know anyone in prison, they probably believe that whoever is behind bars deserves to be there. The truth is murkier.

Those of us who do know people in prison are likely to see things differently, especially if we know the stories behind their incarceration. Contrary to what the political classes tell us, most prisoners, whether in state or federal facilities, are not there for violent offenses or robbery, or even burglary. Instead, they are serving time for drug possession, possessing drug "paraphernalia," or violation of one of the hundreds of thousands of federal and state regulations that increasingly govern our lives. And for large numbers of the almost two million people currently in U.S. prisons, their incarceration places enormous burdens upon their families, as people are deprived of homes and income. . . .

Each year, Congress creates criminal penalties for activities that for centuries have been legal. At the same time, the historic legal protections such as mens rea (crimes require intent to commit them), reasonable bail, and the rights to counsel are being eroded away as "law and order" politicians convince the voters that only a tyrannical regime can make people safe.

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