This just in: law enforcement often overzealous, racist, hateful

“This is a story about how our idea of justice gets corrupted when we declare war on something.”

—Jeff Blackburn, criminal defense attorney

Hey social justice nerds! This is on PBS tonight and it'll provide you with even more reasons to hate Texas! (I know, I didn't think it was possible either.)

"On July 23, 1999, undercover narcotics agent Thomas Coleman carried out one of the biggest drug stings in Texas history. By the end of the blazing summer day, dozens of residents in the sleepy farming town of Tulia had been rounded up and thrown behind bars. Thirty-nine of the 46 people accused of selling drugs to Coleman were African American. But disturbing evidence about the undercover investigation and Coleman’s past soon began to surface.

TULIA,TEXAS follows the 1999 raid and its aftermath, which roiled the small rural community. When Gary Gardner, a retired white farmer, questioned the arrests, other residents who were convinced of the defendants’ guilt criticized him for raising the issue publicly. More questions were raised after 13 defendants were convicted and given unusually long prison sentences—25, 60 and in some cases even 90 years. The arrest of 22-year-old Freddie Brookins Jr. came as a shock to his family. A celebrated high school athlete, Freddie, who had no prior criminal record, was given a 20-year sentence. When a lawyer named Jeff Blackburn found numerous discrepancies in Tom Coleman’s testimony, further investigation revealed a warrant for Coleman’s arrest. Coleman, who had been named Texas Lawman of the Year, was caught lying and tried for perjury. A judge referred to him as “the most devious, non-responsive law enforcement witness this court has witnessed in 25 years on the bench in Texas.”

Yet despite evidence showing a clear miscarriage of justice in the original trials, some Tulia residents held on to their beliefs that all those who had been arrested were guilty and that Coleman’s “mistakes” were merely legal technicalities. And as former defendants tried to mend their disrupted lives and the town attempted to resume life as usual, the residents of Tulia, both white and black, were left with feelings of wariness toward one another. TULIA, TEXAS shows how America’s war on drugs and its over-zealous law enforcement, combined with racial divisions, have exposed deep-seated animosities and even starker injustices."

- Link

BY THE NUMBERS

PRISON POPULATIONS

The total inmates in custody in U.S. prisons and jails in 2007 was 2.3 million—the largest in the world

5.6 million

(1 in every 37 people)
Total number of American adults that are either in or have served time in prison (2008)

40,000

Approximate number of Americans in prison for drug-related crimes in 1980

500,000

Approximate number of Americans in prison for drug related crimes in 2008

1 in 4

Ratio of inmates in American prisons incarcerated for drug-related offenses (versus other crimes) in 2008

1 in 3

Ratio of women in American prisons incarcerated for drug-related offenses (versus other crimes) in 2008 (the incarceration rate for women has increased at almost double the rate for men since 1980)

RACE

African Americans made up 13 percent of the total U.S. population, but accounted for 53 percent of sentenced drug offenders in state prisons in 2003

1 in 106

Ratio of Caucasian American men in prison over age 18 (2008)

1 in 36

Ratio of Hispanic American men in prison over age 18 (2008)

1 in 15

Ratio of African American men in prison over age 18 (2008)

1 in 9

Ratio of African American men in prison ages 20 to 34 (2008)

MONEY

$13.7 billion

Amount the federal government spent on drug law enforcement in 2008

$10.6 billion

Tax dollars states spent on corrections in 1987

$44 billion

Amount of tax dollars states spent on corrections in 2007

$8 billion per year

Cost of incarcerating drug offenders in state and federal prisons (2005)

$3.2 million

Federal drug control budget for drug treatment and research (2008)