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Body Count: Moral Poverty...and How to Win America's War Against Crime and Drug (1996)

Author Info:

William J. Bennett
1943-
John DiIulio Jr.
-
John P. Walters
-

So if it's not the handicaps we've imposed on cops and prosecutors, and it's not institutionalized
racism, and it's not material want, then what is the fundamental cause of predatory street crime.

Moral poverty.

    ...[M]oral poverty is the poverty of being without loving, capable, responsible adults who teach you
    right from wrong; the poverty of being without parents and other authorities who habituate you to
    feel joy at others' joy, pain at others' pain, satisfaction when you do right, remorse when you do
    wrong; the poverty of growing up in the virtual absence of people who teach morality by their own
    everyday example and who insist that you follow suit.
    ...

    The twin character scars left by moral poverty--lack of impulse control and lack of
    empathy--reinforce each other and make it far more likely that the individual will succumb to either
    the temptations of crime, or the blandishments of drugs, or, as so often happens, both.
        -Body Count

One of the more comforting aspects of conservatism is that you can adopt one set of principles--most elements of which are hundreds (capitalism and republican democracy) or even thousands (10 Commandments, Golden Rule, Sermon on the Mount) of years old, and have stood the test of time--and then stick with it your whole adult life. At any given moment several of the positions you adhere to will certainly be out of favor, but just as surely the tide will eventually turn back in your favor. New ideas and fancy fads will come and go, leaving trend-sucking liberals with their heads spinning, but you can just stick to your guns and ignore them all, secure in the knowledge that folks will eventually return to their senses and come scurrying back to the timeless virtues. This is especially the case when it comes to Crime and Punishment. Few issues, other than the equally intractable Taxation and Education, have been so susceptible over the years to "innovative" thinking and "radical" solutions as the problem of Crime. But time and again we all end up returning to the conservative mantra : what's needed are a societal emphasis on loving families and traditional morality, vigorous law enforcement, and harsh punishments.

This book then is an unsurprising call for a return to these first principles, in particular a clarion call for an effort to combat moral poverty, and, equally unsurprisingly, its policy prescriptions are currently back in vogue. Between the candidacy of Joe Lieberman and the victory of George W. Bush, religious belief is once again a central part of our national debate, morality is a hot topic, and a broad consensus has formed around the idea that faith-based institutions, with their manifest moral component, are better at delivering social services than government bureaucracies. Coauthor John DiIulio has, in fact, been named to be the coordinator of President Bush's Faith Based Initiative. And, what with now former President Clinton mired in a new scandal (which will inevitably come to be known as Pardongate) Bill Bennett is popping up all over the networks and editorial pages, getting to say, "I told you so" and preach the importance of morality in public life.

Meanwhile, in New York City, Rudy Guliani has proven that crime can be reduced and civic manners restored by relentlessly prosecuting even minor infractions. Perhaps most importantly, reforms like building more prisons, Three Strikes and You're Out, mandatory sentencing, and incarcerating even low level drug offenders, have helped to bring about a tremendous reduction in crime rates. It would seem that, in a sense, this book has been made superfluous by the very success of the ideas it advocates.

But never fear, already we hear calls to relax drug laws (many of them fueled by the new movie Traffic) amidst hand-wringing over the burgeoning prison population. Perhaps the best aspect of this book is that the authors actually go beyond just drugs and demonstrate the close connection between alcohol and crime. One of the most effective arguments of those who support legalization of drugs is the comparison to alcohol. The authors head off this line of reasoning by indicting alcohol too. You've got to admire a conservatism so fierce and intellectually honest that it's basically willing to refight some of the battles of Prohibition.

Another phenomenon we've witnessed in recent years is one of those patented psychic disconnects on the part of liberals that we conservatives so treasure, folks on the Left have actually taken to arguing that the statistics showing a drop in crime can not be right because of the size of the current prison population. Their characteristically fuzzy logic maintains that if crime really were going down there would perforce be less people in prison. This confusion over cause and effect, obvious as it seems, and the accompanying appeals to middle class white guilt will inevitably lead to an eventual relaxing of our guard and the pendulum will swing back towards leniency and permissiveness.

This book is somewhat dated now, because of its reliance on statistics and because too much of what it has to say has been adopted as public policy, but put it on a shelf for a few years and you'll be able to take it down during the next explosion in crime. Think of public policy making as a huge game of "Whack the Mole" conservatives always remain poised with the same hammer (a consistent set of ideas) and periodically have to bang away with the hammer when experimentation with liberal ideas manages to unleash a plague of vermin. Lift this book and you wield the hammer.

(Reviewed:04-Mar-01)

Grade: (B-)

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Body Count: Moral Poverty...and How to Win America's War Against Crime and Drug (1996)

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