Thread by @JoshuaBHoe

A reminder, Virtually EVERY terrible law that created Mass Incarceration (including the 1994 Crime Bill) was preceded by a period of massive public outrage....often around horrific crimes.

A reminder, SINGLE CASE LAW almost always ends up being AWFUL and haunts us for DECADES

Yesterday POTUS asked for a "tougher" Death Penalty...don't be fooled, what he was asking for was two-fold

1) More use of the DP (it is dying quickly in the status quo)
2) More BRUTAL public use of the DP (he believes in public hangings etc. which he thinks will deter)

But Mass Incarceration was built on public outrage used to generate a patchwork of TERRIBLE laws

We are reversing mass incarceration, public anger can EASILY re-create it, remember crime rate & violent crime rate are as LOW as they have been since 1967 (see Uniform Crime Report)

Ben Franklin said "Passion Rarely Governs Wisely" for good reason...

Before you accept a new slate of legislative sentencing enhancements that will reverse the gains we have made, ask yourself how many mass killers have ever gotten out of prison?

ZERO

We don't need new laws

Some will say we need to use the law to deter these crimes, NO evidence has ever demonstrated mandatory minimums or enhancements have any strong relationship with deterrence...what we do know is prosecutors MISUSE these laws to apply them widely (see 924c stacking)

Some will say, we demand retribution...but, because they have to serve a sentence for multiple murders, mass killers NEVER GET OUT.

If they will never get out why do we need enhancements? Even if they qualified for release, no parole board is going to release a mass killer

Please beware, those who LOVE TOUGH ON CRIME lawmaking take advantage of moments like this.

We DON'T Need new laws to address this, and new laws b/c vehicles allowing new mass incarceration...they are used beyond what they are intended for every single time with glee

I say this despite spending a great deal of the last two days being entirely devastated by what is happening and has happened.

My aunt's mother was a holocaust survivor and her father did not survive. My comments are about strategy & law NOT about this awful crime

<my Aunt was adopted by my grandparents to get her out of Germany, but she is - in every way except blood - my Aunt and her family is MY family>

More evidence - summarizing the Uniform Crime Report: "Across the board, crime rates are the lowest they’ve been since the late 1960s or early 1970s and are generally far below levels seen in the 1980s and early 1990s." @Pye

freedomworks.org/content/end-fe…

Or you can parse the data yourself ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u…

And look to future trends @AmesCG brennancenter.org/publication/cr…

Just been informed I used the less recent one by @AmesCG - my mistake brennancenter.org/analysis/crime…

The larger point, while in many ways - and I have heard several times today - it feels like things are falling apart....remember, this doesn't mean we are in the middle of an overall crime surge or the "American Carnage" POTUS and Sessions have talked about.