The Enduring Power of “Tough on Crime”

The Enduring Power of “Tough on Crime”

During the slow news days at the end of August, there was a minor kerfuffle at the Democratic National Committee meeting in Minnesota. A speaker at the gathering, Insha Rahman of Vera Action, a political advocacy group that seeks to reduce the use of incarceration, unexpectedly became the main character on social media when she warned Democratic officials not to overreact to President Trump’s efforts to focus public attention on “lurid, awful st…