Rand Paul on Ferguson: ‘I mostly blame the politicians’

Sen. Rand Paul said the events in Ferguson have shown him one thing — that the War on Drugs has taken quite a toll on communities and that politicians are pretty much to blame.

“In the search for culpability for the tragedy in Ferguson, I mostly blame politicians,” he wrote in an op-ed for Time magazine.

He went on: “Michael Brown’s death … indicate[s] something is wrong with criminal justice in America. The War on Drugs has created a culture of violence and put police in a nearly impossible situation.”

Mr. Paul didn’t indicate whether he agreed with the grand jury’s decision not to indict officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of teen Michael Brown. But he did say that poverty fuels crime — although the solution to that particular problem wouldn’t be found with government.

“In Ferguson, the precipitating crime was not drugs, but theft. But the War on Drugs has created a tension in some communities that too often results in tragedy. … Does bad behavior account for some of the interactions with law enforcement? Yes, but surely there must be ways that we can work to prevent violence from escalating,” he wrote. “I have no intention to scold, but escaping the poverty and crime trap will require more than just criminal justice reform. Escaping the poverty trap will require all of us to relearn that not only are we our brother’s keeper, we are our own keeper.”

Mr. Paul has pushed for reform of the criminal justice system for some time, saying that mandatory sentences for nonviolent drug offenses unfairly target blacks.

“Three out of four people in jail for drugs are people of color,” he wrote, in the Time piece. “In the African American community, folks rightly ask why are our sons disproportionately incarcerated, killed and maimed?”