‘Lock the S.O.B.s Up’: Joe Biden

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‘Lock the S.O.B.s Up’: Joe Biden and the Era of Mass Incarceration Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 1994, after a vote ensuring the passage of a vast crime bill, one of several key pieces of crime legislation he helped write. The Long Run He now plays down his role overhauling crime laws with segregationist senators in the ’80s and ’90s. That portrayal today is at odds with his actions and rhetoric back then. WASHINGTON — In September 1994, as President Bill Clinton signed the new Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act in an elaborately choreographed ceremony on the south lawn of the White House, Joseph R. Biden Jr. sat directly behind the president’s lectern, flashing his trademark grin. For Mr. Clinton, the law was an immediate follow-through on his campaign promise to focus more federal attention on crime prevention. But for Mr. Biden, the moment was the culmination of his decades-long effort to more closely marry the Democratic Party and law enforcement, and to transform the country’s criminal justice system in the process. He had won. “The truth is,” Mr. Biden had boasted a year earlier in a speech on the Senate floor, “every major crime bill since 1976 that’s come out of this Congress, every minor crime bill, has had the name of the Democratic senator from the State of Delaware: Joe Biden.” Video transcript transcript The consensus is, A: We must take back the streets. It doesn’t matter whether or not the person that is accosting your son or daughter, or my son or daughter, my wife, your husband, my mother, your parents — it doesn’t matter whether or not they were deprived as a youth. It doesn’t matter or not — whether or not they had no background that enabled them to have — to become social — become socialized into the fabric of society. It doesn’t matter whether or not they’re the victims of society. The end result is, they’re about to knock my mother on the head with a lead pipe, shoot my sister, beat up my wife, take on my sons. So, I don’t want to ask, “What made them do this?” They must be taken off the street. Video player loading Now, more than 25 years later, as Mr. Biden makes his third run for the White House in a crowded field of Democrats — many calling for ambitious criminal justice reform — he must answer for his role in legislation that criminal justice experts and his critics say helped lay the groundwork for the mass incarceration that has devastated America’s black communities. That he worked with segregationists to write the bills — an issue that recently dominated the political news and seems likely to resurface in Mr. Biden’s first debate on Thursday — has only added to his challenge. So has the fact that black voters are such a crucial Democratic constituency. Sign up for On Politics to get the latest election and politics news and insights. Mr. Biden apologized in January for portions of his anti-crime legislation, but he has largely tried to play down his involvement, saying in April that he “got stuck with” shepherding the bills because he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But an examination of his record — based on newly obtained documents and interviews with nearly two dozen longtime Biden contemporaries in Washington and Delaware — indicates that Mr. Biden’s current characterization of his role is in many ways at odds with his own actions and rhetoric. The Daily Poster Listen to ‘The Daily’: Joe Biden’s Record on Race As a senator, he opposed busing and championed laws that transformed the criminal justice system. Now, as a presidential candidate, he faces renewed scrutiny over the legacy of those decisions. transcript transcript Listen to ‘The Daily’: Joe Biden’s Record on Race Hosted by Michael Barbaro, produced by Alexandra Leigh Young and Eric Krupke, with help from Jessica Cheung and Luke Vander Ploeg, and edited by Lisa Tobin and Marc Georges As a senator, he opposed busing and championed laws that transformed the criminal justice system. Now, as a presidential candidate, he faces renewed scrutiny over the legacy of those decisions. michael barbaro From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” Today: In the Democratic race for president, Joe Biden is being asked to confront a record on race that some in his party now see as outdated and unjust. Astead Herndon on the policies Biden embraced and how they were viewed when he embraced them. It’s Wednesday, July 3. archived recording (kamala harris) I do not believe you are a racist. And I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground. But I also believe — and it’s personal. And I was actually very — it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing. And there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools. And she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me. So I will tell you that on this subject, it cannot be an intellectual debate among Democrats. We have to take it seriously. We have to act swiftly. michael barbaro Astead, to the average American watching the debates last week, what do you think that this now famous confrontation between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris seemed to be about? astead herndon On its most literal level, it was two top-tier Democrats having the most confrontational, direct moment we’ve seen in the primary so far. archived recording (joe biden) If we want to have this campaign litigated on who supports civil rights and whether I did or not, I’m happy to do that. I was a public defender. I didn’t become a prosecutor. I came out, and I left a good law firm to become a public defender, when, in fact — [APPLAUSE] — when, in fact, my city was in flames because of the assassination of Dr. King. astead herndon But in the bigger, more abstract view, these were two different generations of Democrats. One, a barrier-breaking, younger black senator, pushing the old guard, the senator who came in the 1970s, who had relationships with segregationists and avowed racists. She was pushing him on racial issues and trying to hold him accountable for how the Democratic Party has handled issues of race for decades leading up to this point. michael barbaro But it also felt like this was about the details of a specific policy that Biden was a part of. And most of us probably don’t really understand what his intentions were or what the context of that policy was. So take us back to that time. Where was Joe Biden in his political career? astead herndon Well, Joe Biden began as a lawyer in Wilmington and, eventually, a city councilor in the county. And he was emerging at a really racially contentious time within the city and state. archived recording In April, after the murder of Martin Luther King, the National Guard was called out in several cities to put down riots. One of these cities was Wilmington, Delaware. But now, in Wilmington, the National Guard is still on duty. And the governor, Charles Terry, has no plan to send it back. astead herndon And Joe Biden runs for Senate in 1971 as a new type of Democrat — archived recording (joe biden) I’m Joe Biden, and I’m a candidate for the United States Senate. astead herndon — a Democrat who understands black communities and has personal and deep relationships in those communities, but as a Democrat who can also unite the kind of outer portions of the state, which saw those issues very differently. archived recording (joe biden) Politicians have done such a job on the people that the people don’t believe them anymore. And I’d like a shot at changing that. astead herndon Joe Biden himself tells a story about how he was the only lifeguard at a newly integrated pool in Wilmington. archived recording (joe biden) I applied to the city of Wilmington for a job, and I was the only white employee here. And I learned so much. And I realized that I live in a neighborhood where I could turn on the television, and I’d see and listen to Dr. King and others. But I didn’t know any black people. No, I really didn’t. You didn’t know any white people either. That’s the truth. astead herndon It was part of his identity and part of his brand that he cared about civil rights, understood the plight of African-Americans in Wilmington, but also, he understood that kind of outer white Delaware was really motivated around grievance at the time. In 1971, a group of black students had filed a lawsuit in hopes to get the schools to further desegregate. And so the question of school segregation and school integration was very much on the forefront of the state’s politics. And at the exact same time, that’s when the young Joe Biden makes his way to Capitol Hill. michael barbaro And what was Biden’s position when it came to desegregation? archived recording (joe biden) Where the court has concluded that a school district, a state, or a particular area has intentionally attempted to prevent black, or any group of people, from attending a school, the court should and must declare that to be unconstitutional and thereby move from there to impose a remedy to correct the situation. astead herndon Joe Biden takes the position, as many other politicians did at that time, that they were not opposed to the idea of integration. What they’re opposed to was the remedy. archived recording (joe biden) I have argued that the least effective remedy to be imposed is the busing remedy. astead herndon You get a court order in the late ‘70s that says that Delaware schools are too racially segregated, and they must form a plan for racial integration. And a plan is instituted by the courts that says, from the city in Wilmington, which is majority black, and the suburbs outside of it, that both those groups of students were for some portion of their schooling going to have to bus to the opposite community. So for the kind of inner city students, which are majority black, they were going to have to go out to the suburbs for six years. And the outer suburbs would have to come into Wilmington schools for about three years. So this becomes the plan that’s put in place that inflames those racial tensions on both sides of the state. michael barbaro And what is Biden’s opposition to that specific solution? astead herndon That the idea of integration was not a problem, but it was how the courts were forcing them to go about it. You have to think — if you were a parent in the suburbs, which is almost exclusively white, who had made that choice for your family almost entirely around the school district that your child was supposed to go into. And then there is a court order that comes down that says not only are different people coming to that school, but that your child is going to be put on a bus to a different school. That is the logic that those parents used to oppose the idea of busing. And so at one point in 1975, Joe Biden says, the real problem with busing is you take people who aren’t racist, people who are good citizens, who believe in equal education and opportunity, and you stunt their children’s intellectual growth by busing them to an inferior school. And you’re going to fill them with hatred. michael barbaro So Biden is sympathizing with white parents in the suburbs who are suddenly feeling dislocated by this decision. But what about black parents in this city whose children would be bused to these theoretically better schools in the suburbs? What is Biden saying to them? astead herndon This is an important point. Although the kind of white suburbs were almost uniformly against busing, somewhat because of the method and sometimes because of pure racism, in black communities, particularly in Wilmington, there is not universal agreement on this issue. There is universal consensus that integration is important and that their schools had not been adequately funded or not been adequately supported by the state. But when you look at polling and when you talk to people at the time, the actual issue of busing is controversial. Remember, these parents themselves had to send their children further away into neighborhoods and communities that may have not always been welcoming to those students. So it wasn’t universally loved. In one poll, about 40 percent of black parents supported the idea, 40 percent were against it, around 20% were unsure. Joe Biden tries to take a nuanced position, where sometimes it seems like he is a vocal opponent of the idea of busing and that he is signaling to the kind of white Delaware that he is their advocate. archived recording (joe biden) And on the issue that the argument is about — and that is whether or not busing is, A, required constitutionally, and B, has a utilitarian value for desegregation — I come down on the side of A, it is not constitutionally required, and B, it is not a useful tool. astead herndon But there’s other times when he sounds very much like many of the black leaders in Wilmington who say, I don’t know if I like this remedy, but I do know that the issue of integration is really important. So he’s kind of firmly in the middle. And that kind of middle ground is something we see him stake on a number of issues, most notably crime, where he takes the kind of position and relies on those personal relationships with black communities, while, according to his critics, legislating in the interest of white ones. [music] michael barbaro We’ll be right back. So Joe Biden takes the middle ground, or the middle ground for that time, on busing. How do we then see that in his approach to crime? astead herndon This one’s a little different, because while Biden on busing was seen as kind of emblematic of the larger Democratic stance, with crime, he was really kind of pushing the boundaries. At that time, particularly in the ‘80s and ‘90s, was a kind of moral panic happening throughout the country — archived recording Crack, the most addictive form of cocaine, is now sweeping New York. astead herndon — around the explosion of drugs in cities — archived recording It’s going nationwide, especially among the young, a drug so pure and so strong, it might just as well be called crack of doom. astead herndon — and the violent crime that often associated and came with them. archived recording It’s the devil — see, this cocaine ain’t nothing but the devil, and the devil was telling me to do it. astead herndon And Biden, as someone who had come up in Wilmington, a community that was experiencing these things closely, he had black community leaders, neighbors of his, saying the issue was very important, but that they were looking at kind of root cause problems of why crime was happening. They were talking about issues like education or job opportunities and the like. When the outer Wilmington and the kind of all-white suburbs, you were hearing a more vocal cry for increasing cops, increasing prisons, and really cracking down on those tough-on-crime measures that came to the cities. So again, Biden is caught between political problem, but also one that’s divided pretty clearly on racial lines. michael barbaro And so what does he do? archived recording The truth is every major crime bill since 1976 that’s come out of this Congress has had the name of the Democratic senator from the state of Delaware, Joe Biden, on that bill. astead herndon There’s this split screen of Joe Biden that you often hear about when you talk to people in Wilmington. There is the neighbor who would go to black churches, would know the kind of leaders by name, and the issues they were advocating for. But then in Washington, you have a Joe Biden that is using those stories of Wilmington to kind of pass more tough-on-crime meas