Would you believe that the median sentence length given to a terrorist has fallen since 9/11? In fact, it’s fallen by a lot, from 41 months of prison time to just 20 days of prison time. Have we gotten soft on terrorism? Of course not. In my judgment, sentence length has fallen because in an effort to increase the terrorism stats and scare us all into compliance the FBI and other government agencies have defined terrorism down. The situation has gotten so absurd that in recent years Federal prosecutors have declined to prosecute approximately 90% of the international terrorism cases brought to them by the investigative agencies.
Read the whole report here.
I am at least heartened by the fact that our decentralized system of justice means that prosecutors need not feel that they must march in lockstep with the agencies and the administration. This is another reason to oppose abandoning the traditional American system of justice for "military tribunals" and other dependent courts not subject to checks, balances and review.
Hat tip to Boing Boing Blog.
Thank you, Alex. It makes me so happy to see a blogger with a libertarian bent actually OPPOSE tossing away long-standing civil liberties/defendants’ protections in the name of the almighty Global War On Terror. Sadly, many of your fellow libertarian bloggers fail to see this. OK i will call them out specifically- Instapundit and certain members of the Volokh Conspiracy.
Just as in its interference with the marketplace, the State often acts wrongly or recklessly, and it is best kept in check with countervailing forces and by shining a light on its actions, not by giving it unquestioned power and shrouding its processes in secret.
> Would you believe that the median sentence length given to a terrorist has fallen since 9/11?
Curiously, when I started reading this I thought it was referring to the word-length of sentences journalists used in describing terrorists…
Mao: Can you give us any concrete examples of “terrorism” being so-misused?
And, Murphy, the quote is “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety…”, which is, well, significantly more nuanced, isn’t it?
(What essential liberty is this being given up? And weren’t un-uniformed combatants subject to summary execution in wars in Franklin’s day?)
Back to the report, it says Given the widely accepted belief that the threat of terrorism in all parts of the world is much larger today than it was six or seven years ago, the extent of the recent decline in prosecutions is unexpected. … haven’t they ever heard of low-hanging fruit? The “threat” of terrorism is not directly related to the ability to arrest terrorists. The people easiest to find and prosecute were the first ones found and prosecuted.
(Next they’ll be shocked that prison populations and crime rates are often inversely related!)
The cases declined are not necessarily “international terrorism” cases, but cases, it says, involving people identified as being “international terrorists”. If someone so-identified is referred under any charge, taht’d be counted for that study – and if the charge was silly (or significant and lacking convictable evidence), it’d be not prosecuted.
I imagine some prosecutions and arrests were done knowing that a conviction would not be obtained, simply to get leverage or information or to get someone out of the loop, so to speak… and I don’t see that, inherently, as a problem.
I do expect more critical thinking on statistical and criminal justice claims here, though. Even when such thinking might dull an anti-Administration point.
(It’s also interesting to look at the specific types of charges data. The second largest group is a catch-all “Anti-Terrorism All Others”. More of those have been prosecuted than just let go, and the conviction to non-conviction rate for prosecutions is approximately 2:1. That doesn’t seem all that bad to me.)
My observation is that the more frighten a jurer is of the crime the defendent is accused of, the more likly they are to convict. It seem likly the closer we were fron 9/11 the easier it was to get a conviction. Prosecutors know this, so are now less likly to bring a case to trial.
Sigivald,
My post stated that ‘terrorism’ is overused rather than ‘misused’ as you mention in your query?
In any case, terrorism can be defined as broadly as you would like it to be. Therefore ‘concrete’ examples are only as concrete as your personal political philosophy and viewpoints.
Be it ‘terrorism’ or ‘terrorism-related’; the term/phrase is currently being defined too broadly – it has turned into a miscellaneous category and many pressing questions/concerns regarding U.S. policy in general (including civil liberties issues) and more specifically policy toward the Middle East/Islamic world are placed in the greater ‘war on terror’ box.
I also think the term terrorist is widely over used. I would think that the median sentence time for a real terrorist would increase not decrease. The president has recieved too much disapproval from the public for his strong miltary actions already; so he would not be letting real terrorism go unjustified. I do think though the less substanical terrorist times have decreased so the public will be scared of the alarming amount of terrorist we are locking up and feel more obligated in helping the government and police forces find terrorism.
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