Let Nobody Turn Us Around An African American Anthology

Jarvis Tyner (1941– ) is the national vice chairman of the Communist Party, USA. He was the founding chairman of the Young Workers Liberation League (YWLL) in 1970 and has been active in struggles concerning civil rights, labor, peace, and anti-imperialism. He has written extensively on political action, civil rights, the struggle for peace, the fight against racism, and many other subjects. Tyner ran for vice president on the Communist Party ticket in both 1972 and 1976. He is currently a member of the Coordinating Committee of the Black Radical Congress. In this essay, Tyner presents a Marxian analysis for the reasons for crime in U.S. society.

The growing problem of crime and violence in our country has reached epidemic proportions, as have demands that the government find real solutions.

It is a serious problem indeed. There were over 14 million crimes committed in the U.S. in 1992. While 12 million of these were crimes of property, 1.9 million were violent crimes, including 1.1 million aggravated assaults and 22,760 murders.

Over the past decade the number of violent crimes has grown dramatically. There are over 200 million guns in the hands of civilian Americans. The odds of getting murdered in the U.S. are one in 12,000—which is high by any standard. The streets are not safe. Even children are carrying guns and many of the innocent victims of violence are children and the elderly. Some senior citizens dare not venture out of doors at night.

The growth of crime is one of the most dramatic examples of the general decay of U.S. capitalism. While our government goes around the world boasting of a “stable,” “democratic” and “free” technologically advanced society, the tragic presence of so many guns and drugs and the accompanying crime and violence show that our country is facing a deep social and political crisis. We are a nation that is technologically advanced but moving backward in terms of social relations and stability. The country is headed for greater chaos and suffering if the problem of crime and violence is not addressed in an honest, humane and democratic way.

Over the last decade there has been a massive campaign around the crime issue. The mass media has spared no effort in sensationalizing this issue. Listening to the evening news is like reading a police rap sheet. The sensationalized journalism of the cheap supermarket tabloids is becoming the dominant style of U.S. journalism—it is news designed to promote hysteria and panic. It is also designed to promote racism, male supremacy and other anti-working-class sentiments so as to rationalize repressive policies and sow greater division among the people. It is news designed to lower the confidence among the masses in humanity, and thereby promote hopelessness and powerlessness.

While the problem is very serious, and must be addressed, the U.S. ruling class has been projecting it as the central issue confronting the country. Many voters in the last elections said that crime is their main concern. This issue has to be carefully considered for it can divide and confuse more than any other. Clearly the answer does not lie in simple calls to “get tough.” It is necessary to understand the real source of the problem and act in a way that does not further victimize those already victimized.

Crime presents a danger to society, but it must be understood as a symptom of much bigger ailments.

Our nation is experiencing a prolonged, deep-going structural and systemic crisis of its capitalist system. This is the main sickness which must be addressed if crime and violence are to be seriously reduced.

While there has been a growth in the number of wealthy Americans over the past two decades, the most dramatic growth has been in the number of people living in poverty. Since 1970, 14 million have joined the ranks of the poor. We are a nation where even by modest count, 37 million people live in poverty—one out of every six persons.

Over 20 million are unemployed and underemployed. Millions of people have never had a steady job. These are the long-term unemployed, including the homeless and the millions who are hungry and without health care. With the closing down of many basic industrial plants in the ’70s and ’80s and the downsizing of major corporations in the ‘90s, millions of working people have been locked out of better-paying jobs and reduced to permanent unemployment and underemployment. For most working people there is no job security. There is a major decline in the standard of living of the entire working class. Most families need two or more wage earners to make ends meet today.

Hit hardest of all are the racially oppressed, the African American, Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Asian and Pacific Island and Native American working people. They are victims of economic racism.

The pro-corporate, racist policies of big business and government have led to a situation where the racially and nationally oppressed experience more than double the unemployment and poverty rates of white people. Forty percent of African Americans and Latinos now live in poverty. And linked to the growth in extreme poverty is the resurgence of super segregation.

The crisis is particularly sharp for African American and Latino youth who are confined to the hard life in the cities—a life of drugs, bad housing, underfunded schools, few recreation facilities and no jobs. These are youth whose unemployment rates range from 60 to 80 percent. Many have never worked, and if there is no basic change in the economy and the political situation, most have no future.

At the bottom of this crisis lies the historic decline of U.S. capitalism. This situation has created many hopeless and desperate people who see no honest way of surviving. Feeling that society has abandoned them, too many have concluded, “Why not abandon society?”

Because of the systemic crisis, despite the ups and downs in the business cycle, the economy has been going qualitatively downward. We now have a national emergency of the most urgent kind requiring government action to provide jobs and massive funding to rebuild cities and meet human needs. But the policy has been building jails instead of providing jobs. This situation is a breeding ground for unstable family life, drug addiction, street crime and many other serious problems. The crisis of capitalism is also breeding extreme greed, corruption and thievery in government and industry. This is part of the crime problem as well.

Along with economic conditions, the factor that has driven crime figures drastically up over the past decade has been the massive growth of drug abuse. Sixty-two percent of all street crime is drug-related; most random shootings and “drive-by” killings of innocent victims are related to the drug trade.

The drug epidemic has grown so severe because in fact the government’s policy is not to stop it. In fact, the government is part of the problem—it has allowed the massive importation of narcotics and other drugs. This can be seen in the Iran-contra conspiracy and in many new reports that show the CIA has for years been working with drug smugglers, and is even importing drugs itself.

On the community level, local police practice a policy called “selective enforcement”—which is really a form of drug legalization. Selective enforcement has been the chief law enforcement tactic on the nation’s streets, especially in low-income Black and Brown communities.

Selective enforcement allows drugs to be sold openly; it is responsible for the streets being turned into war zones where people in hundreds of communities dare not go outside for fear of being caught in the crossfire. Any 12-year-old can tell you where drugs are being sold. Certainly the police know, yet they allow it to go on and only periodically arrest the pushers. The government’s complicity can also be seen in the many examples of direct involvement by local police in dealing drugs and shaking down dealers. The authorities not only know where drugs are coming from and are being sold—they are part of the process.

The drug problem did not start in the ghettos and barrios, contrary to what is said in the media. The importation and distribution of drugs goes all the way up to the high councils of the CIA, the government, the military, organized crime and the banking industry.

African-American and Latino youth who are the prime victims of the drug epidemic are being arrested and jailed more than any other group. The prisons are full to the point of overflowing. We live in a society where millions of youth—in a special way African American youth—are tragically cast aside, oppressed and neglected, then imprisoned and criminalized. It is the shame of our nation that, by a wide margin, there are more African-American youth in jail or under the jurisdiction of the courts than are in college. This is a basic failure of the U.S. capitalist system.

However there are other types of crime to which scant attention is paid. White-collar crimes cost billions of dollars annually and cause massive human suffering because the dollars stolen could be spent to benefit the people. The S&L bailout—a multi-billion-dollar scandal that cost the American people dearly—is an example.

Studies show that crime—not to mention drug use—is also high amongst the upper-middle class and the rich. One study showed that the amount of money embezzled from banks was 6,000 times the amount robbed from banks (as cited by A. Monteiro in 4/91 Political Affairs). If one were to add up the amount of money lost because the rich, who are the biggest tax cheaters, are not paying their share of taxes, including wealthy bankers laundering drug money, the sum comes to hundreds of billions in cost to society, in effect many times more than the cost of petty crime on the streets. As a rule, the rich steal larger amounts, more often, and are punished less severely and less often.

In addition, the federal government is guilty of political crimes, like crimes against the cities. Over the past decade, 50 percent of the aid to cities has been cut—at a time when corruption in government has risen to an all-time high. There is no major city that is not in financial straits. Almost every state faces cutbacks and retrenchment as they try to avoid bankruptcy.

To this can be added the cost in human suffering and death caused by long-term unemployment, homelessness and hunger, and the fact that the denial of health care to 37 million is cause for a shorter life span and higher mortality rates. These are crimes too—crimes rooted in capitalist greed, racism and anti-working-class policies of government and big business. They are of a political and social character but are crimes nonetheless.

These are all reasons why crime is growing and will continue to grow unless the basic ailments of our society are addressed.

Rather than addressing the social and economic roots of crime, drugs and violence, the government, over the past decade especially, continues to put its emphasis on more cops, increased police brutality, more prisons, longer sentences and expanding the death penalty.

The mass media, government and most capitalist politicians are creating a hysteria—mainly a racist hysteria—about crime. This was most clearly revealed with the Willie Horton ads that the Republicans used in the 1988 elections. This policy continues under Clinton.

Typically the reason given for the rise in crime is that America has become too lenient on criminals. The view is often expressed that “criminals are getting away with crimes, and if arrested are given too short a sentence.” It is argued that the absence of the death penalty, lenient sentencing and the parole system have made committing crimes less risky. Similarly, it is alleged that the police are outgunned.

Most capitalist politicians are quick to blame crime on the criminal mind, lack of character, etc., of individuals, while they do nothing about the prison system, one of the most brutal and the worst in terms of rehabilitation.

Ignored by these views are the economic roots of crime. This school of thought, which is dominant in government, media and industry, is based on the notion that there is nothing basically wrong with the economic system but that there is something wrong with the American people. The victims of poverty and drugs are blamed rather than trying to eliminate the real causes.

Linking crime with race and gender is the most prominent form of this anti-people line of argument. Such ideas were very prominent in Pat Buchanan’s “family values” speech at the 1992 Republican Convention and the campaign rhetoric of ex-Vice President Dan Quayle during the presidential campaign.

Part of the move to the right by the Clinton Administration and other Democrats can be seen precisely around these issues. President Clinton’s speeches in Memphis and Los Angeles (November ’93) to promote his anti-crime bill had much of the same message as Quayle and Buchanan. In fact, Clinton has been promoting the right-wing “family values” issue openly, while heaping praise on the likes of Dan Quayle.

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan has built his career around attacking female-headed households, especially African American, as the prime causes of crime and violence. He insists that poverty is not the reason for crime. In an article in the winter 1993–94 issue of the American Educator, published by the American Federation of Teachers, he writes

A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future—that community asks for and gets chaos.

Former New York City Mayor Edward Koch has for a long time put most of his political energy into attacking non-whites. He has consistently raised the question of “Black and minority crime.” In his column which appeared in the New York Daily News (November 16, 1993), he hailed the Memphis and Los Angeles speeches of Clinton as a breakthrough because Clinton was willing to attack “minority crime.” Koch felt that the “dam of political correctness has been broken” and now one can discuss the question without being called a racist. To identify the African-American people with crime, according to Koch, is to honestly deal with the problem. In a bare-faced defense of racist oppression and injustice Koch put it this way: “… [the] lack of personal responsibility is the single most important factor contributing to escalating minority crime rather than white racism in all its manifestations.”

A widespread example of this approach is the chorus of blame directed at rap artists for crime and violence among youth. Whether or not one agrees with the content of the music, blaming the rappers takes the government and the corporations off the hook. It is the highly profitable record companies who are the main promoters, and beneficiaries—making millions upon millions by promoting violence….

Capitalism without entitlements means greater use of police state methods to control the enormous social problems that will result; it means more jails, not jobs.

When considered in light of Clinton’s pledge to arbitrarily throw people off welfare, a picture emerges of an administration that actually plans to force new hundreds of thousands into extreme destitution and ultimately prison—in order to contain their dissatisfaction, anger and rebellion.

Like NAFTA, this bill is strongly supported by big business. They see it as necessary for maintaining control over the victims of poverty and unemployment in an era where they want to eliminate entitlements.

Basically, the anti-crime bill is designed to control poor folks and curb possible political rebellion. It is not designed to stop crime—it’s designed to stop the people. It is first and foremost an attack on the rights of the unemployed and under-employed, primarily aimed at the ghettos and barrios, at the victims of economic racism. The thinking that motivates this kind of draconian legislative assault on democratic rights is racist and anti-working-class. It’s basically a defense of U.S. capitalism on the decline. And it shows that Clinton is continuing the same thinking and policies of the capitalist class that Reagan and Bush promoted.

It is important to understand that despite the fact that organized crime is behind much of the importation and the distribution of drugs, the proposed anti-crime legislation is not aimed at them at all. This shows that the ruling class has no intention of really attacking crime. There is a conscious racial, anti-working-class political bias behind the entire effort.

It is necessary to fight against this bill and demand instead that the government come up with a serious program that attacks the root causes of crime. Unless there is a strong protest from the people, this bill will be made into law in the early part of this year.

While in 1992 the people voted to defeat George Bush and his policies, the new crime bill is actually a continuation of the same old reactionary policies and worse. The fact that the Clinton Administration is staying the course shows that the capitalist class is unified and the new repressive policy transcends the two main capitalist political parties.

During the Reagan–Bush administrations, record numbers were arrested and imprisoned. The demand for prison space could not keep up with the rate of convictions. And the ’80s brought a new phenomenon: prisons for profit. Privately owned and run prisons is now one of America’s biggest growth industries. Lucrative profits are being made in this industry, over the misery of so many. And there are even different levels of prison accommodations based on one’s ability to pay—a new level of class differentiation in the prison system: horrible medieval-type prisons for the poor and country club prisons for the rich.

During the 1980s, African Americans and Latinos were jailed at unprecedented rates. Under the cover of these policies, the government criminalized hundreds of thousands, especially non-white youth. The United States has achieved the dubious distinction of being the number one nation on the earth when it comes to incarcerating its own population. By 1990 the inmate population, according to the ACLU study, Americans Behind Bars: One Year Later, had reached 1,139,803, which is a rate of 455 per 100,000 population—considerably higher than apartheid South Africa which is the second jailer-nation on earth with 311 per 100,000 population.

For African-American men, the rate is 3,370 per 100,000, which is ten times the overall U.S. rate and five times the rate for African males in South Africa. While the South African figures have gone down from 1989, the U.S. overall rate of incarceration increased by 6.8 percent. With the U.S. population at 250 million, by the end of the Reagan era 1 out of every 220 persons in the U.S. were in jail and 2,600 people were on death row. For African-American men that’s 1 out of every 28. The Reagan–Bush years were one of the worst periods of racist repression in U.S. history.

If measured by its impact on lowering crime and violence—which after all was the stated intent—this policy was a monumental failure. According to recent studies, even after doubling the number of people put in prison, the crime rate only dropped slightly and may actually have increased by 7 percent.

It is argued that the country cannot afford a federal jobs bill because the “money is not there.” However, incarceration presently costs the federal, state and local governments $20.3 billion a year. The absurdity and senselessness of this waste is mind-boggling: it costs about $40,000 a year to send a youth to prison but only $20,000 to send them to college.

The use of the death penalty has not worked either. Murder rates in states with the death penalty are usually slightly higher than in non-death penalty states. Reducing crime by increasing incarceration and through capital punishment has been a costly failure.

An increase in the prison population, use of mandatory sentencing, the death penalty, more cops with more lethal weapons and less rights for the people will lead us in the direction of a police state and do further harm to public safety and democratic rights. Based on the present policies, with more police there will be more police brutality. Communities, especially inner-city communities need real protection but that’s not what they get—bitter experience shows they get more repression.

This will all negatively affect thousands of working-class people, their families and their communities. And it won’t work. Any anti-crime bill that does not have a strong massive job creation component is no anti-crime bill at all.

Rather than eliminating entitlements, what is needed is a federal jobs bill to rebuild the country and create millions of jobs. Offering free treatment to the massive numbers of drug-addicted people and taking dangerous weapons out of the hands of the population is the way to reduce crime. Strong gun control is needed, starting with outlawing automatic weapons. Safe streets are possible only with less access to firearms and greater economic security of the working class. Jobs not jails has to be the starting point in attacking all of the problems that contribute to the high crime rates; be they medical, social, cultural, psychological, etc.

A job should be a constitutional right. It should be guaranteed by the government. When the private sector fails to provide the needed jobs, the government should be required to provide them. Rather than cutting back on government services and aid to the cities, the government should tax the rich and cut the military budget to provide funding to meet those vital human needs. Rather than throwing people off of welfare into starvation and homelessness, more welfare should be provided until a decent good-paying job can be created. “Jobs or income” needs to be the birthright of every American.

Rather than boot camps, what is needed is more money for education and massive job creation with union wages and affirmative action, and training. Rather than jailing people addicted to drugs, there needs to be a massive effort to set up free drug rehabilitation facilities all across the country.

When so many have been pushed into long-term joblessness and the depths of poverty, it is understandable that some would reach the point of despair, the sense of being defeated, without any hope. Lacking the necessary experience of work, many develop total alienation from family, friends and, of course, from society as a whole. When you add the ingredients of drug addiction, police brutality and racism, that alienation can take on a dangerous dimension. Many have been pushed to the limits of despair as a result of the crisis of capitalism and turn to crime and violence. This system has created conditions that are forcing hundreds of thousands down the path of self destruction; it is a form of entrapment, socioeconomic entrapment.

Some will argue that many have been so dehumanized that a job won’t be enough to bring them back. In some cases that is true. But every person must be fought for. We must keep in mind that this situation can be reversed. Most poor people are not criminal. Most youth who live in severe poverty do not turn to crime and drugs.

People are looking for real solutions. Many of them can be won to struggle and indeed can be changed through struggle. The overwhelming majority want to work and want to do the right thing. They have not lost all hope and can be won to a healthy, contributing relationship to society. Instead of pacification they need higher levels of class consciousness.

The first thing needed is to reverse the policies of government that are responsible for putting millions of young people, especially African American and Latino youth, into such horrible circumstances. Providing jobs is the first step in the many steps needed to bring hundreds of thousands out of despair. Health care is needed, plus counseling, sports and recreation—experiences that foster a healthy outlook toward one’s fellow human beings.

Ironically, those who demonstrate total alienation actually reflect in a stark way the attitudes of the corporate world: complete selfishness, total greed, not caring who you hurt as long as you get what you want. These are considered “virtuous” in the dog-eat-dog business world. Anything to make a buck is an accurate motto of big business. These ideas didn’t start with the drug pusher on the street corner, they started in the corporate suites and are alive and prominent in the media and on Wall Street today. There must be a total fight against such ideas, including exposing their source in the capitalist system, if we are to win.

After NAFTA and the many other rebuffs to the people’s agenda, it’s clear now that Clinton, left on his own, will not deliver progressive change. It is therefore necessary to build a multi-racial grassroots movement, of working people first and foremost, that can force change. And that is what the Communist Party USA is working for. We have a long history of participating in the building of such movements.

In our view, there is a new militancy in the ranks of labor and a new level of unity of labor and the racially oppressed. There is renewed militancy in the ranks of the racially oppressed and those desiring peace and equality. Among all progressive forces there is a greater willingness to build independent politics, including third-party movements, and to support candidates who are ready to fight for jobs and equality.

Our starting point is that there is a way out. Taxing the rich and slashing the military budgets are among the most popular slogans of our day. The goal of the Communist Party program is to bring these slogans to life. Our program would provide an additional one trillion dollars per year to finance people’s needs while reducing the tax burden on the majority. It would do more than provide the conditions for lowering crime drastically. It would upgrade the national spirit and social and cultural well-being of the people. It would provide the means for greater unity of all races and nationalities. It would make the streets safer and homes more livable for the people—working people in the first place.

This program is based on affirmative action, which means it would make a special effort where the problem is especially critical, in regards to the victims of discrimination. We are for a special effort to uplift those especially held back: African Americans, Latinos, other racially oppressed, and women.

Our country needs a different approach that protects people from crime but also gets more to the causes of crime, an approach that provides a humane and democratic solution. It must be a solution that rejects police state methods, that will unite the people across racial lines and move our country forward, not backward.

The death penalty does not deter crime and is mainly applied to poor people. What we need is not more prisons but more schools, free and accessible drug-treatment facilities, more recreation and health centers, decent housing for all and a guaranteed future for the youth. What is needed are tough laws against discrimination and racism and a commitment to provide for children and families, assuring a more stable home life. What is needed is a government, and a political-economic system based on the principle of putting people before profits.

And ultimately, what is needed is “Bill of Rights” socialism here in our country, if not today, then tomorrow.

Source: “Crime—Causes and Cures.” Reprinted by the courtesy of Jarvis Tyner, Vice Chairman, Communist Party USA.

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“Crime—Causes and Cures,” Jarvis Tyner, 1994