The following is an actual headline from the national section of this morning's New York Times: "Number in Prison Grows Despite Crime Reduction."
Unbelievable. The last time the Times did this, we recall, it was ridiculed in the scrapbook section of The Weekly Standard. The Standard realizes that the Times is putting things backward; in fact, crime is being reduced because the criminals are locked up and not out committing crimes. But even after being mocked, the Times persists in asserting in its headline that a falling crime rate and a rising prison population are somehow contradictory trends that happen "despite" each other.
The current summer issue of City Journal also criticizes the Times on this point, writing that the reporter who wrote today's story, Fox Butterfield, "is nothing if not efficient. In September 1997, in an article titled 'Punitive Damages: Crime Keeps Falling but Prisons Keep on Filling,' he asked the mind-bending riddle: If the crime rate keeps falling, 'why is the number of inmates in prisons and jails around the nation still going up?' Over the next year, apparently no one at the Times was able to point out to Butterfield the obvious answer: that crime was falling in part because more people were serving more time. In August 1998, the same Butterfield puzzle appeared on page one: 'Prison Population Growing Although Crime Rate Drops.' Eight months later, in 'Prison Nation,' he pointed out the same insuperable paradox."
Today's story deals with the same issue, apparently for the fourth time. While the headline is stuck in the old Times paradigm, the last two paragraphs of the news article at least attempt to deal with the policy objection raised by City Journal and the Standard: The Times article today says: "One major issue that the Justice Department's study did not address was whether there was any relationship between growth in the incarceration rate and the drop in crime. Advocates of tougher prosecution and sentencing say the huge growth in imprisonment, with the incarceration rate tripling since 1980, has been largely responsible for the decrease in crime." So why the headline?
Bush and Buchanan: An editorial in today's New York Times claims that when Pat "Buchanan walked out of the Republican Party last fall, Governor Bush lamented his loss to the G.O.P."
In fact, while Mr. Bush may be criticized for trying to stop Mr. Buchanan from leaving the party, once Mr. Buchanan walked out, Mr. Bush's statement can hardly be characterized fairly as a lament. Here is that October 25, 1999 statement: "Pat Buchanan is leaving the Republican Party because Republicans rejected his views during his three failed attempts to earn the Republican Party's presidential nomination. Pat sees an America that retreats within her borders; Republicans see an America that is strong and confident and exports freedom throughout the world. Pat sees an America unable and unwilling to compete in the free market; Republicans welcome competition because we know America's best is the best in the world. Pat sees an America that should have stayed home while Hitler overran Europe and perpetrated the Holocaust. Republicans are proud of America's role in defeating Nazi Germany and know that freedom still depends on an America that is strong and engaged. Pat's message was rejected by Republicans across America, so he is choosing to leave the party of Lincoln and Reagan. I am confident that the vast majority of conservatives will stay with the party that represents conservative ideals: the Republican Party."
Bush and the Environment: An opinion piece in today's Times attacks Mr. Bush's "famously abysmal environmental record," noting that "Houston has now surpasssed long-suffering Los Angeles as the smoggiest city." Well, if we're going to blame Mr. Bush for that, it's probably just as fair to blame Houston's Democratic mayor, Lee Brown. In fact, Mr. Bush has compiled a respectable environmental record in Texas. Under his administration, the state cleaned up more than 450 contaminated brownfields. And Texas ranked first in the nation in a state-by-state EPA study of pollution reduction from 1995 to 1998.