Running head: POLITICS AND LAW ENFORCEMNT ISSUES 1

Politics and Law Enforcement Issues

Jeremy L. French

University of San Diego

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Introduction

Politics is the process by which resources are distributed or allocated. As the famous

political scientist Harold Lasswell wrote, Politics is who gets what, when, and how. Political

manipulation and law enforcement seem to have always been closely connected in the United

States. Political considerations are a necessary but sometimes problematic part of criminal

justice. Political agendas and policy directly impact law making, policing, prosecution, judicial

decision making, corrections, and demagoguery. Politics is a major theme that connects the

critical law enforcement issues discussed in the course LEPS 500 and influences almost all

aspects of the criminal justice system and how crime problems are addressed. .

Politics of selecting decision makers

Criminal justice decision makers are selected through election or appointment. In some

states, voters elect judges, while in other states, governors appoint them. In both cases the

selection process is political. Lawyers who have performed political deeds for their party often

become candidates for judgeships. As for federal judges, the president appoints them and the

Senate confirms them. The political process profoundly influences the U.S. Supreme Court.

Retirements from the Court and new appointments produce shifts in the Court's positions on

criminal justice issues, the pendulum affect.

Politics of lawmaking

Perhaps the most important way that the democratic political system shapes criminal

justice is through the lawmaking process: Politics influences the laws that legislatures enact.

During the 1980s and 1990s, state legislators and the U.S. congressional representatives rushed

to frame politically conservative gettough sentencing laws. These laws mandate longer

sentences and fewer opportunities for parole. One lawyer who was instrumental in rewriting
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federal drug laws in 1986 and 1988 says the severe sentencing laws came about through whim

and attempts by politicians to oneup each other as drugs seized media headlines just before

elections. There was a level of hysteria that led to a total breakdown of the legislative process,

says the lawyer, Eric Sterling, who as lead attorney on the U.S. House Committee on the

Judiciary who wrote the laws that established long mandatory sentences for several types of drug

convictions. What has resulted from two decades of gettough sentencing policy? The prison

population has exploded. Costs of corrections have skyrocketed. The distribution of revenue

within state governments has shifted in favor of allocating more money for prisons and less for

education and other important human services.

Politics and policing

Law enforcement and administration are connected with politics on a number of levels.

Dominant political theory and ideology affect the structure, organization, and expectations of a

society's criminal justice institutions ("Political process and crime," n.d.). In turn, these

institutions affect the ways in which the criminal law is enforced and administered. Even though

politics doesn't have a direct impact on the routine, daily decisions of police officers on patrol,

the political culture of a community determines the style of law enforcement and the nature of

departmental policy. Form of government (commissioner, mayor/council, city manager) makes a

difference in the extent to which politics shape policing. Politics permeates police departments in

cities that employ a mayor/council type of government. By contrast, a professional city manager

makes political intervention into policing less likely.

Politics of prosecution

Political considerations influence prosecutors in a direct way. Prosecutors are elected in

most states and are heavily involved in local politics. At the federal level, U.S. attorneys are
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political appointees and tend to mesh their career ambitions to the needs of their political party.

Both state and federal prosecutors often use their office as a springboard for higher political

office. One of the biggest threats to a civilized, free society occurs when prosecutors abuse their

power and allow politics to drive their administration of the criminal-justice system (Von

Spakovsky, 2014). Occasionally, an unscrupulous prosecutor will abuse power in the worst way:

Acting on the basis of political motives, the prosecutor will engage in political prosecutions by

pressing criminal charges against political enemies. A case can be made, for example, that

independent counsel Kenneth Starr's conservative politics motivated his investigations of

President Clinton's extra-marital affairs during the late 1990s.

Politics of judicial decision-making

Judges experience tremendous political pressure. Questionable political influences come

into play when judges are faced with the decision of whether or not to impose the death penalty.

It isn't a coincidence that elected judges impose the death penalty at higher rates than appointed

judges. This difference stems from elected judges' fear of appearing soft on crime. Refusing to

impose the death penalty may make a judge vulnerable to attacks from political opponents who

may use the judge's decision against him or her at the next judicial retention election.

Politics of corrections

Corrections officials also take political considerations into account. Politics can drive a

parole board's release decisions. Parole board members are susceptible to influence from the

governors who appoint them. Members almost inevitably make release decisions cautiously. If

parolees commit crimes, the media, the governor's political rivals, or both may blame the

governor.

Politicization of criminal justice

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Serious problems for citizens and the criminal justice system can result from the

politicization of criminal justice, a process through which political leaders seize opportunities to

use criminal justice issues to enhance their own popularity or power. Politicization can be

observed most readily in political campaigns in which law and order issues are prevalent. When

criminal justice issues become too politicized, politicians are tempted to engage in demagoguery,

appealing to people's emotions, passions, and prejudices rather than to people's minds.

Demagoguery is a discourse that promises stability, certainty, and escape from the

responsibilities of rhetoric through framing public policy in terms of the degree to which

and means by which (not whether) the outgroup should be punished for the current

problems of the ingroup (Roberts-Miller, n.d.).

Political demagoguery is the enemy of clear thinking about solutions to the crime problem.

Unnecessary political wrangling over criminal justice issues which can happen when

winning political arguments become more important to public officials than controlling crime

and providing for justice severely cripples the justice process. One undesirable result is the

justice process comes to a halt. The U.S. Sentencing Commission did not have any members for

the last three months of 1998 because Republicans and Democrats couldn't agree on selections to

the seven slots on the commission. This commission, created by Congress in 1984, has as its

main purpose the establishment of guidelines for meting out punishment for those convicted of

federal crimes ("United States Sentencing Commission," n.d.). It was started to reduce disparity

in federal sentencing and to help develop effective and efficient crime policy.

Summary

Politics has no place whatsoever in the criminal-justice system. We are a country based

on the rule of law and the principle of equal protection for all citizens, regardless of who they are
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or what they believe. Abuses damage not only the administration of justice, but the publics

confidence in the fairness and impartiality of the justice system.

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References

Political process and crime. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://law.jrank.org/pages/1695/Political-

Process-Crime-politics-law-enforcement-administration.html

Roberts-Miller, T. (n.d.). Characteristics of demagoguery. Retrieved from

http://www.drw.utexas.edu/roberts-miller/handouts/demagoguery

United States Sentencing Commission. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ussc.gov/

Von Spakovsky, H. A. (2014, September 12). When politics drives law enforcement. Retrieved

from http://www.nationalreview.com/article/387725/when-politics-drives-law-

enforcement-hans-von-spakovsky