SECTION: Editorial; Pg. 10G

LENGTH: 737 words

HEADLINE: Candidates mum on anti-black bias in justice system;
OUR OPINION

BYLINE: Cynthia Tucker, Staff

SOURCE: AJC

BODY:
The presidential debate season opens this week, and voters will hear plenty from candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush about health care, education and Social Security. They'll also be talking taxes, the national debt and a nuclear-missile defense.

There will probably even be a few foreign policy questions: Bush has no doubt boned up in case moderator Jim Lehrer, anchor of PBS' "NewsHour," throws out a couple of questions about Sierra Leone or Chechnya.

But there is at least one subject about which you are likely to hear little or nothing: reform of a criminal justice system that unfairly penalizes African-American men. Given that the high rate of incarceration of black men represents a gaping hole in the nation's social fabric, you'd think the subject would come up in a presidential campaign. The numbers are alarming: Almost 10 percent of black men between the ages of 25 and 29 are incarcerated. In all, nearly one-third of black men in their 20s are under some type of correctional control --- incarcerated, on probation or on parole. Based on current rates of incarceration, 28.5 percent of black men can expect to be jailed at some point in their lives.

Try to imagine what placing nearly one-third of its men behind bars does to any community or culture. Those years of early adulthood ought to represent the passage into responsibility, a time when young men start careers and families.

Can there be any wonder that fewer African-American men than women attend college when so many are in prison? Is there any mystery to the disintegration of the black family, with so many young black fathers locked up?

This is no plea, by the way, for thugs or gangbangers. Violent criminals ought to be locked up for a very long time. Black robbers, rapists and murderers represent a greater threat to their own communities than anybody else; poor black neighborhoods get the opportunity for economic development only when violent crime is quelled.

But America has purchased a sense of security by incarcerating not only violent criminals but also nonviolent ones. The drug war --- actually a war on black America --- has played a major role in driving up rates of incarceration. While experts believe that white drug users outnumber black drug users 5 to 1, black men are sent to state prisons on drug charges at a rate about 13 times that of white men, according to Human Rights Watch.

Nor does it seem to matter much whether black men are actually guilty of the crimes for which they are convicted. The release of Ronald Cotton, imprisoned in North Carolina for 11 years for a rape he did not commit, has made headlines because of the remorse of his mistaken white accuser, Jennifer Thompson. But Cotton's plight is not so unusual. Here in Atlanta, Calvin Johnson Jr. was released from prison last year after 16 years in prison for a rape he did not commit.

Since the overriding theme of this presidential campaign seems to be spreading opportunity to those still shut out of the expanding prosperity, you'd think Gore and Bush might have noticed that putting large numbers of black men in prison not only shuts those men out of the economic mainstream but also limits their families and communities.

But if Gore has noticed, he's not likely to say so. Democrats have been browbeaten by conservatives for decades for supposedly being "soft on crime," so no ambitious Democrat is going to raise the issue of criminal justice reform.

That leaves Bush, who has the conservative bona fides to do something daring --- to speak out about the burden our criminal justice system places on black America. But his tenure as governor of Texas suggests that Bush is quite comfortable playing the role of tough sheriff. Not only has he presided over 144 executions in less than six years in office, he has also been at the helm during a period when incarceration rates soared. (While Louisiana has the highest rate of incarceration, Texas and Georgia are right behind it.) So don't expect any leadership on this issue from Bush either.

A criminal justice system so thoroughly tainted by racial and economic discrimination does not bode well for this nation. But if Bush or Gore has given it a second thought, neither has said so. Their silence is not good news.

Cynthia Tucker's column appears Sundays and Wednesdays.
Editor of the Constitution editorial pages
e-mail: cynthia@ajc.com

LOAD-DATE: October 1, 2000