Amid two decades of economic growth and social neglect, the white majority in America presented its inner cities with an expensive gift – a new and improved criminal justice system. It would, the government promised, bring domestic tranquility – with particular relevance to African-Americans. No expense was spared in crafting and delivering it inside the city gates. In reality the gift was a Trojan Horse.

While neoconservative commentators like Charles Murray argued that welfare had undermined family stability and sabotaged work incentives, the real value of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and food-stamp payments to the poor had been steadily declining. Not so with criminal justice. In a society obsessed with single mothers on welfare, more money ($31 billion) was being spent in 1993 at local, state, and federal levels on a failed drug war (mostly directed at African-American and Latino citizens) than on AFDC, that much vaunted symbol of liberal largesse ($25 billion). The politics of crime and welfare came with a decidedly racial cast.

As governmental investment in social and employment programs in the inner city was held stable or reduced, the criminal justice system was ratcheted up to fill the void. The citizenry was told the reason was an explosion of crime – particularly, violent crime. However, a closer look would show this to be a highly questionable premise. Meanwhile, federal, state, and local funding of the justice system literally exploded in the 1980s. Average direct federal, state, and local expenditures for police increased 416%; for courts, 585%; for prosecution and legal services, 1,019%; for public legal defense, 1,255%; a nd for corrections, 990%.