Waukesha Tragedy Calls for Serious Bail Reform, Not Finger-Pointing
But, amid the storm of reactions in sympathy and pain, the most consequential is the question of why Darrell E. Brooks, 39, who was arrested and charged with this heinous crime, was still on the street, let alone behind the wheel of a car.
Brooks, who is from Milwaukee, has a long, violent criminal history, including previous allegations of bail jumping.
He was freed less than a week earlier after being accused of trying to run over his girlfriend with the same SUV. His bail: $1,000, which even the prosecutor’s office said in a statement was “inappropriately low.”
Before that, he had been charged with or convicted of various charges in the past 22 years, including battery, domestic violence, cocaine possession and resisting arrest in several jurisdictions in Wisconsin.
He also has served, according to news reports, at least two jail sentences and various years on probation and in court-mandated work-release and, significantly, anger management programs.
All of that and more has touched off a flurry of outrage, particularly among leading conservative commentators, blaming this tragedy, among others, on the bail reform movement that has seen growing popularity in response to campaigns against mass incarceration.
Such a backlash should come as no surprise to anyone who has paid attention to the nation’s long-running debate over crime and imprisonment since the crime surge in the 1960s.
Further inflamed by the war against crack cocaine in the 1980s, it led to the 1994 crime bill, sponsored by then-Sen. Joe Biden, which passed at a time when, to everyone’s surprise, overall crime began to decline nationally to its lowest numbers since the ’60s.
That touched off a new debate over possible causes for the decline. Was it tougher law enforcement or a range of other factors, such as the economy and a range of social innovations?
It also led to a shift in prison policies as political leaders in both parties looked for less drastic and costly alternatives to imprisonment.
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