Increasingly, the progressive left has abandoned the cause of decriminalization in favor of decarceration, expanding the terms of the debate around criminal justice reform to include the virtual abolition of criminal justice as we know it. What was the genesis of this idea, and what could its political consequences be?

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  1. FredGoodhue Coolidge
    FredGoodhue
    @FredGoodhue

    Your closing music should be a bassoon solo.

    • #1
  2. Jeff Hawkins Inactive
    Jeff Hawkins
    @JeffHawkins

    The crime arguments are also tied into Critical Race Theory.  Blacks commit crimes because they are othered/poor due to racism, therefore black crime shouldn’t be punished and in part, it’s karma for white privilege

    It’s wrapped in a general reform argument, but for the most part, the goal isn’t tearing down the entire justice system, just the part that punishes black people.

    You know this because the same people who argue “criminal reform” and “reduced sentences for nonviolent offenders” want to throw the book at Republicans or rich white people or Trump and give them the maximum amount of pain.

    • #2
  3. ShellGamer Member
    ShellGamer
    @ShellGamer

    When I read the op-ed in Sunday’s time, I was struck by how far she was down Alice’s moral rabbit hole. The individual could not be culpable, because of her abuse that, purported, affected her brain development. But society (the government that failed to protector) could be culpable, and so its individual members were collectively culpable. In this view (which I think common to many progressive causes), people not culpable because of anything they did, but only because of a culpable group to which they are assigned.

    • #3
  4. JuliaBlaschke Lincoln
    JuliaBlaschke
    @JuliaBlaschke

    The left still wants prisons. They just call them re-education camps.

    • #4
  5. FredGoodhue Coolidge
    FredGoodhue
    @FredGoodhue

    JuliaBlaschke (View Comment):

    The left still wants prisons. They just call them re-education camps.

    George Soros already has all our names, addresses, and offences in his database.  When the revolution happens, we will all be collected and shipped off.

    • #5
  6. GeezerBob Coolidge
    GeezerBob
    @GeezerBob

    Two points:

    The first: In the opening sentences, JPod speaks of the unreliability of the present resident of the White House, citing it as in indication that the relief bill might not be signed. Please, Mr. Podhoretz, what is the basis for this opinion? Please cite the “numerous” (as in none)  where Mr. Trump refused to sign a bill, especially one as significant as this?

    And second: regarding the priority for vaccines, might it best be determined by efficacy? That is, if administering vaccinations to prisoners significantly reduced the spread, thereby possibly saving unknown numbers of lives, wouldn’t that be a preferable choice? Trying to determine who “deserves” the vaccine is an impossible task. 

    • #6
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