CIVIL RIGHTS – ENFORCEMENT PLUMMETS UNDER BUSH

Civil rights complaints – including charges of abusive police tactics, racial violence, slavery or involuntary servitude, and blocked access to clinics ? have remained relatively constant over the last decade. The government’s enforcement of civil rights laws dropped sharply, however, during the Bush administration’s first term. A study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a non-partisan research center at Syracuse University in New York, notes that federal prosecutors filed nearly twice the number of criminal charges for violations of civil rights laws in 1999 than in 2003. Meanwhile, charges against terrorism suspects have increased significantly (despite the notably low conviction rate), while “federal charges on immigration violations increased more than 28 percent, according to the study.”