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Two Black men serve as symbols of the bitter politics of crime and justice in contemporary America: Edward Garner and Willie Horton. This chapter presents how the Garner and Horton controversies dramatize the subject of this book which is the problem of discretion in the criminal justice system. It argues that the problem is not discretion itself, but its misuse. Two competing perspectives on criminal justice are presented in this chapter, the idea that the system has failed to promote justice by discriminating against the poor, racial minorities, and other powerless people, and the idea that the system has failed to control crime, leaving the law-abiding majority vulnerable to dangerous criminals. A brief history of the discovery of discretion is presented in this chapter to examine why it was ignored for so long. The chapter also looks at the halting and tentative efforts to control crime.

Political consultants played a large role in the presidential elections of 1984 and 1988, including the Democratic and Republican primaries. In 1984 the Reagan re-election team included James Baker, Ed Rollins, Lee Atwater, and Lyn Nofziger; Roger Ailes was brought in during the general election. The television commercials “Morning in America” and “Bear in the Woods” played a role in Reagan’s victory. Democratic consultants for Mondale included Bob Beckel, Peter Hart, Ray Strother, Dotty Lynch, Patrick Caddell, and Roy Spence. In the 1988 election, many veteran Democratic political consultants decided not to work on the presidential campaign. Gary Hart imploded in the Democratic primary. In the general election, a dysfunctional Dukakis campaign faced a seasoned Bush team, with James Baker, Lee Atwater, Robert Teeter, and Roger Ailes. The Bush campaign featured the infamous “Willie Horton” ad. Indeed, Republican consultants played a key role, running a strong, ruthless, and effective campaign against Dukakis.

This essay explores the speech act of dogwhistling (sometimes referred to as ‘using coded language’). Dogwhistles may be overt or covert, and within each of these categories may be intentional or unintentional. Dogwhistles are a powerful form of political speech, allowing people to be manipulated in ways they would resist if the manipulation was carried outmore openly—often drawing on racist attitudes that are consciously rejected. If philosophers focus only on content expressed or otherwise consciously conveyed they may miss what is most powerful and pernicious in the speech of political culture. This essay is a call to start paying attention to these more covert speech acts, and a first attempt at beginning to theorize them. It argues that dogwhistles present a complex and interesting case for the philosopher of language, and explores their implications for democratic politics.

Chapter three describes how lifers for this study were recruited and the context in which the life history interviews took place. It also touches on the characteristics of the interviewees, and the geographical and cultural background that shaped their lives. This includes the place of incarceration (in particular Walpole State Prison and Bridgewater State Hospital), the time of incarceration and the socio-cultural context of their lives at the time of their crimes. They are a heterogeneous, though collective, group of individuals, whose histories leading up to the homicide were remarkably similar. Since virtually all interviewed lifers were on parole, this chapter also devotes attention to the nature of parole, parole supervision and the influence of the Willie Horton and Dominic Cinelli cases.

This chapter begins with the intersection of the Altamont concert in 1969 and the first blaxploitation film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, and ends with the Willie Horton ad that contributed to George Bush Sr.'s election as president in 1988. Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song focused attention on the death of Meredith Hunter, a black man killed by a motorcyclist at the Altamont concert, and the Willie Horton ad was introduced to a group of motorcyclists in Virginia months before it was released to the nation. Taken together, these events highlight the role “law and order” has played in the history of motorcycling, including the relationship between the police (that is, motorcycle cops) and motorcyclists and the opposition to the civil rights and Black Power movements.