No wonder the United States Commission on Civil Rights delayed its report on Bush until after the election; the president heads an administration in which civil rights laws go largely unenforced.
Federal enforcement of civil rights laws has dropped sharply since 1999, as the level of complaints received by the Justice Department has remained relatively constant, according a study released Sunday.
Criminal charges of civil rights violations were brought against 84 defendants last year, down from 159 in 1999, according to Justice Department data analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
The study also found that the number of times the Federal Bureau of Investigation or another federal investigative agency recommended prosecution in civil rights cases fell by more than one-third, from more than 3,000 in 1999 to just over 1,900 last year. Federal court data also show that the government has sought fewer civil sanctions against civil rights violators.
This is not a situation in which civil rights complaints — which include charges of abusive police tactics, racial violence, slavery or involuntary servitude, and blocked access to clinics — have gone down. The complaints have stayed the same; it’s enforcement that’s dropped.
The Justice Department’s case load has gone up 10%, but two areas of enforcement have fallen — civil rights and environmental prosecutions. It happens, of course, to coincide perfectly with Bush taking office. What a coincidence.
One of the study’s authors, David Burnham, said the results showed that civil rights enforcement dropped across the board in President Bush’s first term in office. “Collectively, some violators of the civil rights laws are not being dealt with by the government,” Professor Burnham said. “This trend, we think, is significant.”
Ironically, when John Ashcroft resigned, the outgoing attorney general boasted of his department’s civil rights prosecutions. Maybe his replacement — you know, the one that approves of torture — will be more vigilant in enforcing civil rights laws.