Kevin Drum Smackdown Watch: Judge Scheindlin Didn’t Care If Stop-and-Frisk Reduced Crime

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“Wow this is a terrible @kdrum post,” says Adam Serwer about my comment on yesterday’s court ruling putting a halt to New York City’s stop-and-frisk program. When Adam speaks, I listen! Here’s the offending bit:

If stop-and-frisk really is the reason crime has dropped so dramatically in the Bronx, then a judge would be justified in weighing this against the legal issues on the other side. Even decisions based on fundamental constitutional rights aren’t rendered in a vacuum.

Adam correctly points out that Judge Scheindlin didn’t consider the effectiveness of stop-and-frisk in her decision, so in this case, and with this judge, it wouldn’t have mattered if the policy reduced crime. Point taken.

What happened here is a common blogging sin: I used a specific case to make a general point without making it clear that I had switched gears. In general, even fundamental constitutional rights are never absolute. There are different shades of violation and there are competing interests, and judges routinely take those into account. That was the point I wanted to make.

Now, even in this case, the judge’s ruling was hardly absolute. She ruled that New York’s policy was so extreme that it amounted to effective racial profiling, and that was flatly unconstitutional regardless of whether it reduced crime. But a modified program would be OK, and it’s possible that the degree of modification might depend on how effective various versions of stop-and-frisk are. If not for this judge, then quite possibly for another one. For that reason—not to mention the effect it should have on policy in the first place—the actual reason for New York’s crime decline really does matter. Apologies for the confusion.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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