Chicago Policeman Planting Drugs
The Chicago Police Department has been known for consistently failing to address officers' misconduct. Even after receiving at least 25 complaints about Sergeant Ronald Watts, including allegations that Watts and his team had planted drugs on people, the department allowed them to continue working in the Ida B. Wells public housing complex. "Watts' officers at times planted such large quantities of drugs on Wells' residents that they were charged with a Class X felony, the highest-level felony after first-degree murder." [1]
As of early June, Chicago prosecutors had thrown out 32 convictions of people who were arrested by Watts and his team. Given that the Watts team was involved in about 500 felony convictions between 2004 and 2012, critics are contending that all of these convictions should be overturned.
Cairo, Il. Public Housing
Cairo, Illinois had a higher percentage of residents living in public housing than any other city in Illinois, and some of these projects were nearly as racially segregated as they were 40 years ago. "Nationally, more than 10,000 public housing units are lost each year to decay," and the "capital project backlog for existing buildings is growing by more than $3 billion a year." [2]
The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that housing discrimination could exist even when it wasn't explicitly intentional. In January 2018, the Department of Urban Housing and Development (HUD) suspended, until 2020, implementation of the order requiring communities to devise plans to proactively remedy segregation. In April, HUD proposed new work requirements, and suggested raising the minimum rate of payment for residents of public housing and recipients of Section 8 vouchers -- in some cases tripling it. (I believe this payment increase may have recently been withdrawn.) If Ben Carson's vision of HUD were enacted, it is estimated that the budget cuts would move 200,000 families off Section 8 assistance, which helps tenants cover rent at privately-owned buildings.
Civil Commitment
Civil commitment allows states to confine people who have not been convicted -- or even accused -- of a crime -- if a judge decides they pose an imminent danger to themselves or others. For an opiate addiction, specialists say that tapering down the dose over five to seven days in the shortest period that's humane. The fly in the ointment is that patients whose tolerance as been lowered by a few days of detox are at a heightened risk of overdose if they return to using. Detox symptoms, including nausea, dehydration, and intense stomach pain can be dangerous and even life-threatening if untreated. [3]
Section 35 of Massachusetts' law -- enacted in 1970 -- allows a family member, law enforcement officer, or a medical professional to petition a judge to have someone committed for up to 90 days.
Undocumented Immigrant Crime
Supporters of the Trump theory of crime rely on data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which covers violent crimes handled by the federal court system, few of which involve murder. Almost all of the murder cases are handled at the local or state level.
The American Immigration Council points out that from 1990 to 2013, when the number of undocumented immigrants tripled from 3.5 million to 11.2 million, violent crime rates dropped 48 percent nationwide. Although the report acknowledges that one can't draw broad conclusions, since undocumented immigrants make up a small percentage of the population, the study looked at incarceration rates for males between 18 and 39 years old -- most crimes of violence are committed by males in that age group. Only 1.6 percent of foreign-born males were incarcerated, compared to 3.3 percent of the native-born. Even the anti-immigrant Center for Immigrant Studies says: "There's no evidence that immigrants are either more or less likely to commit crimes than anyone else in the population."
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