Willie Horton — Social and Economic Issues — Galsworthy Criminal Justice Reform Program

Social and Economic Issues

Overcriminalization significantly undermines human flourishing and social well-being by harming the family, social networks, and social citizenship. Additionally, it prevents capable men and women from utilizing their creative capacities in the marketplace. This creates vast issues involving relations with family while incarcerated and reintegration into society after release. On the economic side, draconian cash bail systems undermine justice through basing someone's ability to attain pre-trial release upon their wealth, not their actual threat to society.

Are Voters Ready to Move on From Willie Horton?

“The back-and-forth between candidates, 15 months before the 2020 presidential election, would have been unthinkable in the Democratic debates of 1988 or 1996 or 2004 or even 2012. Unthinkable for fear that a Republican president or presidential candidate would immediately pounce on these reform ideas as being "soft on crime," and thus dangerous and unpresidential. George Bush, the elder, used Willie Horton in 1988 to successfully stir up white fear of crime about his opponent, Michael Dukakis. Donald Trump has used “American carnage” and unfounded fear of the link between immigrants and crime as a primal theme.“

The Marshall Project

August 2, 2019