From Social Welfare to Social Control: Federal War in American Cities, 1968-1988

From Social Welfare to Social Control: Federal War in American Cities, 1968-1988 Elizabeth Kai Hinton Submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2013 © 2012 Elizabeth Kai Hinton All rights reserved ABSTRACT From Social Welfare to Social Control: Federal War in American Cities, 1968-1988 Elizabeth Hinton The first historical account of federal crime control policy, “From Social Welfare to Social Control” contextualizes the mass incarceration of marginalized Americans by illuminating the process that gave rise to the modern carceral state in the decades after the Civil Rights Movement. The dissertation examines the development of the national law enforcement program during its initial two decades, from the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, which established the block grant system and a massive federal investment into penal and juridical agencies, to the Omnibus Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, which set sentencing guidelines that ensured historic incarceration rates. During this critical period, Presidential Administrations, State Departments, and Congress refocused the domestic agenda from social programs to crime and punishment. To challenge our understanding of the liberal welfare state and the rise of modern conservatism, “From Social Welfare to Social Control” emphasizes the bipartisan dimensions of punitive policy and situates crime control as the dominant federal response to the social and demographic transformations brought about by mass protest and the decline of domestic manufacturing. The federal government’s decision to manage the material consequences of rising unemployment, subpar school systems, and poverty in American cities as they manifested through crime reinforced violence within the communities national law enforcement legislation targeted with billions of dollars in grant funds from 1968 onwards. By highlighting the role of race-neutral language in federal policy following civil rights legislation, the study also exposes the way structural racism endured after racism in the public sphere was no longer acceptable. Tracking the discretionary portion of the law enforcement budget that Congress permitted the White House to spend autonomously illustrates the way racism grounded color-blind crime control programs over time. With novel use of discretionary aid, White House Officials enlarged the federal government’s influence over local authorities while still operating through the new states’ rights paradigm the Safe Streets Act created via block grants. On the ground, federal law enforcement assistance heightened patrol forces in black urban neighborhoods and social institutions, causing disproportionate arrest rates and the unprecedented entrance of young Americans from areas of segregated poverty into state and federal penitentiaries. At the close of the first twenty years of the national law enforcement program, the number of inmates in American prisons had more than tripled. Ultimately, the dissertation questions the way the federal government helped to facilitate the process through which the state apparatus of punishment—including law enforcement, criminal justice, border management, and prison systems—quickly developed into its own viable industry in the context of urban deindustrialization and disinvestment. In contributing to debates about the persistence of poverty in the United States and drawing our attention to the federal government’s role in sustaining punitive policy that first emerged in the 1960s, “From Social Welfare to Social Control” provides critical insight to one of the most important questions facing our society: why, in the land of the free, are more than one in a hundred American citizens in prison or jail? TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii INTRODUCTION 1 “From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime” CHAPTER ONE 23 “Progress of Justice or Equality: The First Federal Crime Control Legislation and the Transition of Liberalism” CHAPTER TWO 100 “The ‘Long-Range Master Plan’”: The Rise and Fall of the New Federalism” CHAPTER THREE 173 “A ‘Reign of Terror’: Tactical Squads, Community Mobilization and the Battlegrounds of the Crime War” CHAPTER FOUR 244 “Pre-Emptive Policy: Juvenile Delinquency and the Ford Administration’s Assault on Urban Youth” CHAPTER FIVE 296 “Urban Policy as Crime Policy: The End of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration and the Rise of the Modern Carceral Complex” CONCLUSION 345 “From the War on Crime to the War on Drugs” BIBLIOGRAPHY 378 APPENDIX 394 Budget for the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, 1966-1981 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The seeds of this dissertation were planted amidst the barbed wire, concrete, and watchtowers that form the physical landscape of American carceral institutions. The conversations I had with family and loved ones serving time in California penal facilities—at High Desert State Prison in Susanville, at Riverside County Jail, and at the Centinella Correctional Facility in El Centro—made the stakes of this research on the historical development of federal punitive policy immediate and important. Tim K, Roger, Stone, Smoke, Rap, and Colton Simpson grounded my understanding of urban gang warfare (both with rival sets and state authorities) as well as the twin processes of criminalization and incarceration. Their insights and correspondence fueled my pursuit of answers in White House Central Files and Department of Justice Documents, and their support and encouragement supplied the strength to continue this project. Tim’s comments and criticisms on early chapter drafts and his willingness to distribute my writing to other inmates greatly enriched and emboldened my analysis. I am deeply indebted to Eric Foner, who has nutured my understanding of the contours of United States History and supported this dissertation project from its earliest iterations. By challenging my analysis and encouraging the progression of my ideas, Eric always pushed me to reach for the seemingly impossible. I could not have asked for a better or more generous advisor. Ira Katznelson was instrumental in cultivating my understandings of the nature of postwar liberalism and social policy. I am grateful to him for taking a more prominent committee role in the context of a major loss. Heather Thompson’s expertise and breadth of knowledge on the rise of the carceral state and the relationship between welfare and crime control policies enlightened my views on these ii issues. My conversations and debates with Heather can be felt on nearly every page of this dissertation. Alan Brinkley’s questions opened up narrative routes that deepened my overall perspective on modern United States history, and Mae Ngai’s insights on the relationship between knowledge production, race, and federal policy helped sharpen my argument. In addition to my committee members, a host of faculty has been crucial to my understanding of the intersections between systemic racism, policy, and poverty in the late twentieth century and the dynamism of the black freedom movement. Robin D.G. Kelley, Angela Dillard, and Penny Von Eschen have been formidable influences since my undergraduate days and continue to provide critical mentorship. Barbara Fields, Samuel Roberts, Evan Haefeli, Nicholas DeGenova, and Kenneth Jackson enriched my graduate experience at Columbia. The faculty in the History and African and African American Studies Departments at Harvard and at the Harvard Kennedy School offered me key reflections that enhanced my overall project at a critical juncture in the writing of my dissertation. Although Manning Marable passed away before my defense, he was an integral part of my graduate training and gave me a sense of the possibilities of history and theory. He believed in me as a scholar and student, and trusted me to serve as the Managing Editor of his beloved Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society through what would be its last three years at Columbia. I am honored to have worked with Professor Marable, and I will forever carry his legacy in my own work and praxis. In his absence, Leith Mullings continued to look after me through the final stages of my graduate career and I am grateful to her and the entire Editorial Working Group iii (EWG) of Souls. Whether or not EWG members knew it, our meetings and conversations about the direction and content of Souls inspired personal connections between scholarship and social change. Without the vast knowledge of the staff at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California, the Gerald Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the Jimmy Carter Library in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, I could have easily gotten lost in bureaucratic red tape while navigating federal manuscript collections. Yet the knowledge of archivists at these sites helped make the project more manageable. At the end of a long day of sifting through files, the National Archives and Records Administration staff proved incredibly patient with my relentless photocopying and generous with key anecdotes when appropriate. In many ways, I would not have survived graduate school without theorizing, commiserating, cavorting, and laughing with fellow students. Our Black Historians Matter (BHM) self-made cohort served as an intellectual and psychological backbone during my time at Columbia. BHM members Samir Meghelli, Megan French Marcelin,

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