Martin Luther King gave his "I Have A Dream" speech in August 1963. Very regrettably, it took the country a full generation to embrace one of the most beneficial programs for African Americans in its history -- the adoption of criminal justice reform. In the late 1980's and for the next few years, the federal government, with many of the states following suit, adopted determinate sentencing. Decades of unlimited discretion exercised by (mostly white) judges was out; rule-based sentencing was in. Focusing on the offender, black or white, was out; focusing on the offense was in.
Determinate sentencing theory was not the only innovation that took root at about that time. So did hiring more police and requiring more proactive policing. For years, calls in the black community for more action against the crime that was ravaging it went unheeded, as the white majority looked the other way. All that started to change.
A generation later, the results are in. They are heartening, and the country should be proud of them. There are more than 10,000 fewer murders per year now than there were in the early 1990's. Since our population is about 13% African-American, that means that roughly 1300 fewer African Americans are murdered per year now than then. And that figure is sure to be low, because blacks are disproportionately victims of murder (as they are disproportionately victims of crime generally). It would probably be more accurate to say that there are 3000 fewer African American murder victims per year now than there were in the early 1990's.
It would be a tragedy and a disgrace to turn back the clock on reforms that helped save the lives of so many African-Americans.
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