Assault rifle seized in Mexico. Drug gangs illegally import firearms from the United States, which helps them drive their criminal activity. Credit: GAO

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO, Jan 13 2025 (IPS)

The case of a man arrested in Texas, in the south of the United States, for shipping arms parts to Mexico immediately caught the attention of authorities in both countries. But it was only one thread in a web that continues to become more and more tangled.

At a binational meeting in early October, following the inauguration of leftist President Claudia Sheinbaum on 1 October, Mexicans complained to their counterparts about the flow of gun parts through online shops and the United States postal service into Mexico.

The host, the Mexican government, briefed the United States government on the issue and asked for more measures to control the smuggling, including uniform shipping codes to make it easier to identify packages and confiscate them, which Washington has so far rejected.“Most trafficked weapons are obtained by dozens or hundreds of proxy buyers who conduct multiple transactions of low quantities of weapons, which are then trafficked across the border in large quantities of small shipments, usually in private cars. Detection and interdiction of these shipments is impossible”: Matt Schroeder

Sheinbaum herself stressed in her morning conference on Thursday 9 January the importance of cooperation to curb trafficking at customs and borders.

“Just as they are concerned about the entry of drugs into the United States from Mexican territory, we are concerned about the entry of weapons. What we are very interested in is that (with Trump) the entry of weapons stops,” she said.

Mexican drug cartels hire individuals in the United States to ship parts to Mexico, where they assemble the weapons, and people who receive payment in cash or remittances on both sides of the border.

In the Texas case, which broke out in December 2023, the accused sent parts and manuals, and assessed on how to assemble 4,300 rifles in exchange for payment of US$3.5 million.

It is a modality that belongs to the so-called “ghost guns”, which can be manufactured with 3D printers or assembled with parts without serial numbers, making them untraceable.

Eugenio Weigend, an academic at the public University of Michigan, with its campus in Ann-Arbour, Michigan, noted that the manufacture of so-called “miscellaneous weapons”, such as components, is on the rise.

“They are a problem. Traffickers find many ways, it’s a new channel they use, it’s one of several options. It adds another layer to the arms trade and exacerbates the problem” of drug trafficking and violence, he told IPS from Austin, capital of the border state of Texas.

The Gun Control Act of 1968 does not regulate the fragment industry, so minors and people who would not pass a legal background check in the United States can buy them.

In recent years, the production of these components has increased exponentially in the northern nation, with lethal consequences for Mexico.

As the November report Under the Gun: Firearms Trafficking in Latin America and the Caribbean, produced by the non-governmental Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), explains, transnational criminal organisations frequently change their methods and ways of obtaining weapons, persistently seeking the least guarded route.

Fragments are components, such as frames and receivers. However, specific figures for seizures of arms parts alone are not always published in a disaggregated manner, as statistics tend to group together both whole weapons and their components.

US and Mexican government delegations met in October in Mexico City to discuss security issues. Despite bilateral efforts to control the trafficking of whole or parts of arms to Mexico, this flow continues to flourish, fuelling violence in the country. Credit: SRE

Lethal mix

While Mexico provides drugs for the United States trafficking and consumption market, its northern neighbour supplies weapons to criminal gangs, in a vicious cycle that causes its share of death in both territories.

Between 2016 and 2023, seizures of shipments to Mexico more than tripled, according to the non-governmental Small Arms Survey (SAS), based in the Swiss city of Geneva.

In parallel, figures from the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)  indicate that half of the weapons seized in Mexico were manufactured in the United States, while almost one-fifth came from other countries.

In more than one-sixth of the cases, non-United States companies produced them, while the ATF was unable to establish their origin in a similar percentage.

ATF was able to trace half of the product to retail buyers, but failed to link almost 50% to a specific buyer. Half were handguns and one third were rifles.

The statistics show an obvious underreporting, as the ATF only receives weapons that a federal agency, such as the attorney general’s office or the Army, captures in Mexico and forwards to it. But captures by state agencies are excluded.

Texas and Arizona were the main sources, due to their gun shops and fairs, and this Latin American country was the main market. There are more than 3,000 arms manufacturers operating in the United States, including several producers of parts kits.

Since 2005, the trend in the manufacture of miscellaneous weapons, which are essentially frames and receivers, has been on the rise, totalling 2.7 million in 2022. But between then and 2023, production fell by 36%, according to the United States Department of Justice, based on its partial figures.

Guns boost the capacity of criminal groups vying for access to the juicy United States criminal market, which also has an impact on violence levels in Mexico.

This has a direct impact on violence in this country of 130 million people, where more than 30,000 homicides occur annually, most of them committed with firearms, and more than 100,000 people go missing.

“Most trafficked weapons are obtained by dozens or hundreds of proxy buyers who conduct multiple transactions of low quantities of weapons, which are then trafficked across the border in large quantities of small shipments, usually in private cars. Detecting and interdicting all of these shipments is impossible,” SAS researcher Matt Schroeder told IPS from his Washington headquarters.

Estimates indicate that between 200,000 and 873,000 firearms are trafficked across the United States border into Mexico each year, with between 13.5 million and 15.5 million unregistered firearms circulating in Mexico.

The trafficking of US weapons, especially high-powered rifles, has fuelled violence in Mexico throughout this century, and US and Mexican authorities have failed to curb it. Infographic: Wilson Center

Inefficient

Measures implemented by both governments have not been sufficient to stem the flow of arms and their fragments.

The two nations formed the High-Level Security Dialogue in 2021, with five groups, including one on cross-border crimes. They are also part of the Bicentennial Framework, a binational security initiative that replaced the Merida Initiative that the United States funded between 2008 and 2021.

The United States has provided Mexico with US$3 billion in assistance since 2008 to address crime and violence and strengthen the rule of law, without the desired results.

This could be explained by facts such as those detected by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), which found no specific activities to achieve the set goals, nor performance indicators and evaluation plans.

In 2021, the GAO recommended improved weapons tracing, investigations of criminal organisations and greater collaboration with Mexican authorities.

That year, Mexico sued eight companies, including six United States-based producers, for US$10 billion in damages for negligent marketing and illicit trafficking of weapons in a case before the United States Supreme Court.

And on the other side, the administration of outgoing President Joe Biden, in office since January 2020 and set to hand over to ultraconservative tycoon Donald Trump on 20 January, stepped up federal controls on the purchase and distribution of guns.

Because of the loophole, the ATF issued a provision in 2022 reclassifying parts kits to have serial codes. The United States Supreme Court is considering a lawsuit brought by the producers of these kits against the measure.

The academic Weigend envisioned a complicated panorama, especially with Trump’s return to the White House.

In Mexico “this issue will continue to be a priority and a problem on the border, but in the United States I am not so optimistic that a regulation will pass at the federal level,” he said.

“Perhaps the Mexican administration will raise its voice more than the United States, it can generate more information about the impact of guns in the country, do more research, highlight the fact that the Hispanic population (in the United States) suffers more gun violence than other groups,” he said.

In fact, during his first term in office (2017-2021), Trump had a mixed performance on gun control, as his administration strengthened background checks for gun buyers and increased prosecution for gun crimes.

But it did not establish stricter laws, production and sales increased in 2020, among other causes due to the covid-19 pandemic, and the fight against cross-border trafficking made little or no progress.

For researcher Schroeder, binational trafficking requires resources to shore up several areas.

“A significant reduction in this trafficking requires, at the very least, a significant increase in resources for inspection at ports of entry and exit, for investigation of trafficking schemes, and greater coverage and education of potential sources of weapons in the United States,” he said.

Bilateral cooperation is on hold on the eve of Trump’s inauguration, who has criticised Mexico for its role in drug trafficking, to which the Mexican government has responded by asking it to help stem the flow of weapons.

A latent threat is the disappearance of the ATF, which would complicate the investigation and tracing of weapons. Republican senators Lauren Boebert, an explicit gun enthusiast, and Eric Burlinson introduced an initiative to that effect on Tuesday 7 January.

A vigil for Ferguson at McGill University in Montreal in November 2014. Credit: Gerry Lauzon / Flickr Creative Commons CC BY 2.0.

By Phoebe Braithwaite
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 31 2016 (IPS)

Stressing the enduring relationship between injuries inflicted by slavery and contemporary injustices, a UN committee has recently issued a strongly-worded call for reparations for black U.S. Americans.

“A systemic ideology of racism ensuring the domination of one group over another continues to impact negatively on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of African Americans today,” said the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, in a report released in August.

So far this year 212 black people have been killed by police in the United States, according to statistics collected by The Guardian. This is almost a quarter of the total 883 people killed by police in 2016, despite the fact that only 14.4 percent of US Americans are of African descent.

While only 6.5% of the US population are African American men, they constitute 40.2% of prison populations, according to Ana DuVernay’s recent film 13TH. While 1 in 17 white men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime, one in three black men can expect to be incarcerated.

The group’s report, which focuses especially on police brutality against black Americans as “reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynching,” makes 35 diverse recommendations, from establishing sovereign human rights commissions to the reinstatement of voting rights of former felons.

Yet critics question whether the liberal human rights paradigm can adequately address this kind of cruelty and oppression, originating as it does in 20th century Europe, where fascism had recently taken root, and in light of Europe’s own role in creating and perpetuating racial injustice.

“In the era of the Atlantic slave trade,” says Andrew Johnson, Professor of African American Studies at Harvard University, “new notions of difference – absolute, racial notions of difference – were used to define, describe, and justify the political economy of slavery”, articulating the centrality of racism in capitalist exploitation.

Demands for reparations have been largely ignored in the political mainstream. A bill, HR-40, introduced in 1989 to establish a commission examining the “fundamental injustice, cruelty” and brutality of slavery has gained little traction – though the UN committee recommends its passage through Congress. Last year, then-presidential candidate democratic socialist Bernie Sanders dismissed the question of reparations saying that it wouldn’t get through Congress and would be “too divisive”.

Noting Sanders’ determination to push the boat out on issues of class, celebrated writer and proponent of reparations Ta-Nehisi Coates deplored this lack of political imagination: “I thought Sanders’s campaign might remind Americans that what is imminently doable and what is morally correct are not always the same things, and while actualising the former we can’t lose sight of the latter,” Coates said.

He urged that class-based solutions are inappropriate to address “racial plunder” – borne out by the fact that the median income for African American households ($36,898) is almost half their white counterparts ($62,950). The median value of total assets of black families, $4,900, versus white families, $97,000, reveals an even starker difference.

Movement for Black Lives

The Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of over 50 black-led organisations, has set out five key requests which would begin to restore what has been being stolen “since the time that the first black person was kidnapped from the shores of Africa,” in the words of Black Panther Angela Davis.

They focus especially on education, a particular site of harm since it was made illegal to teach enslaved people to read, a law which began in South Carolina in 1740 and was punishable by death in Louisiana. Since then, owing to redlining policies and explicit disinvestment in primarily-black schools, African Americans have continued to suffer from worse educational opportunities, with black students expelled at three times the rate of white students.

“You’re more likely to walk into your hallway and interact with a police officer – in a school – than a guidance counselor,” Kesi Foster, Coordinator at the Urban Youth Collaborative, and contributor to the policy recommendations for the Movement for Black Lives’ demand for reparations, told IPS, saying that in New York, there is one guidance counselor for every 322 students, but a police officer for every 192 students.

These officers are more prevalent in schools with metal detectors, which are usually primarily non-white. Describing what is often called the ‘school-to-prison pipeline’, Foster says that reparative justice could begin by defunding the COPS programme which stations police in schools in line with the perception that black and brown males are “inherently dangerous”.

Reparations

After the end of the American Civil War in 1865, people who were formerly enslaved were given forty acres of tillable land – and, sometimes a mule. But after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination the same year, his successor Andrew Johnson reversed Lincoln’s directive for redistribution.

Calls for reparations have a long history proceeding from this date, and have tended to focus on material restitution, which makes the Movement for Black Lives’ emphasis on education salient. “Not only is there no curriculum recognition about the real history of our country… but there’s also no cultural recognition,” Foster says. “In Germany and other places… where really atrocious things have taken place, there are markers.”

They call for “mandated public school curriculums that critically examine the political, economic, and social impacts of colonialism and slavery, and funding to support, build, preserve, and restore cultural assets and sacred sites to ensure the recognition and honoring of our collective struggles and triumphs.”

It is clear that fulsome reparations for the continued atrocities perpetrated against people of African descent are not about to be freely given simply because whites are made to see the error of their ways. In the words of Mariame Kaba, organiser, educator and founder of Project NIA, speaking at a recent conference on the disproportionate effect the war on drugs has had on black communities, “the system can’t indict itself. You can’t think that the system that is killing you is going to save you.”

Kaba, who helped in the fight for plaintiffs’ justice in the Burge torture trials, discussed the extensive public apology that was eventually won by some of those Burge tortured, and the history’s inclusion in Chicago’s curriculums, demonstrating the essential role honest expressions of responsibility can play in processes of healing for black communities who have been brutalised by the state.

But the Movement’s foremost demand is for the “full and free access for all Black people (including undocumented and currently and formerly incarcerated people) to lifetime education” in its every form, including the “retroactive forgiveness of student loans”.

Professor Harold McDougall, who teaches law at Howard University, has, among many others, argued for the necessity of black-only education. McDougall would like to see Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), like Howard, funded to set up “Reparations Academies” for the descendents of people who were “damaged by educational racism”. This is a practical measure as much as it compounds Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton’s view that “group solidarity is necessary before a group can operate effectively from a bargaining position of strength”.

McDougall, like others in this struggle, wears two hats: “you have to be able to firmly advance your point of view in the governance process, but even at that time to have your feet firmly grounded in the community, so that the broad-base of the population is continually informing your sense of what needs to be done,” he told IPS.

“When this is going to happen is not something we’re necessarily wrestling with,” Foster says. “For me, it’s more important [to ask]… how does this struggle lead us forward in a way that’s actually transformational, and that’s actually trying to significantly change the material conditions that black people are living under, because of the way that the system was set up, which is to basically profit off of our bodies, profit off our labour, and then give nothing back to us,” citing Chicago’s victory as an example.

Taking a long view, McDougall says that “it’s important to look at these struggles as multi-generational – the problems were not created in a generation. It is unlikely, although not impossible, that they will be solved in your lifetime, so what you do is you roll the ball forward for as long as you can.”

A #NoDAPL demonstration in Oakland, CA. Credit: Peg Hunter / Flickr. CC BY-NC 2.0

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
NEW YORK, Oct 11 2016 (IPS)

Resistance towards the controversial Dakota Access pipeline continues after a federal court rejected requests to halt construction on Monday.

Since August, members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and thousands of allies from across the North American nation have gathered in North Dakota to protest the 1,172 mile long pipeline.

The movement, known as #NoDAPL, an acronym of No Dakota Access Pipeline, has also garnered unprecedented support across the world, from Ecuador to New Zealand. In September, New Zealand Maori politician Pita Paraone voiced his support, stating: “If I didn’t support this, then what planet am I on?”

The $3.8 billion pipeline, undertaken by oil company Energy Transfer Partners and the United States Army Corps of Engineers, is to transport over half a million barrels of oil per day to Illinois. If built, it would be laid under multiple bodies of water including the Missouri River close to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s reservation.

The project was met with widespread criticism as it would destroy sacred and culturally important landscapes.

“[The pipeline] has absolutely no regard for our existence on this place…it has completely disregarded our burial sites, and our spiritual sites. It has disregarded all of those things that bind native people to the landscape,” artist and Sioux County native involved in #NoDAPL Cannupa Hanska Luger told IPS.

Standing Rock Sioux tribe reported that several sacred sites including burial grounds and places of prayer have already been destroyed.

The pipeline also poses a great risk of contaminating the tribe’s main source of water. Luger stressed the necessity of clean water, especially for an area that relies on agriculture.

“We actually have alternatives to oil. We don’t, as a living being on this planet, have an alternative to water. Once the last river is poisoned, we’re done,” he told IPS, also noting that they are “water protectors” rather than protesters.

According to federal data, pipeline spills are a daily occurrence. Between 2010 and 2013, there were almost 2000 incidents of leaks, amounting to an average of 1.6 incidents per day.

Despite these risks, critics say that plans for the pipeline were fast tracked, as the U.S. Corps of Engineers did not adequately assess the potential for oil spills or its impact on the environment.

In response, the agency said that a more rigorous environmental assessment would have been conducted if the initial evaluation showed any significant environmental effects.

However, the Army Corps noted negative consequences after rejecting a prior route from Bismarck, the state capital of North Dakota, citing potential contamination of the state capital’s water source.

“What they did is they went backdoor and went straight to tribal lands…which is always the fallback for any major construction project that has to do with fossil fuel extraction,” Red Warrior Camp organiser Krystal Two Bulls told IPS.

Red Warrior Camp is one of the main camps established along the Missouri River to protect the land from construction.

Beth Hill, a former Greenpeace activist who has been fundraising and delivering supplies to camps set up by the river, told IPS that the project is reminiscent of another controversial pipeline, stating: “This is basically Keystone with a different name.”

The 1,179 mile Keystone XL pipeline was poised to transport an increased supply of oil from Canada to the U.S. While the U.S. State Department said that the project would not impact the environment significantly, the agency also expressed the need to find alternative routes to avoid impacting the “environmentally sensitive area” of Sand Hills.

After six years of reviews, President Obama finally rejected the plan in 2015, citing concerns of environmental protection and climate change.

“America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change. And frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership,” he stated.

Recently, during the 8^th Annual Tribal Nations Conference, President Obama addressed the issue of DAPL, telling attendees that “together, you are making your voices heard.”

The issue of the controversial pipeline also reached the halls of the United Nations, prompting Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples Victoria Tauli-Corpuz to call on the U.S. government to halt construction of the pipeline and to consult with indigenous groups who were denied access to information and excluded from the planning processes.

“The United States should, in accordance with its commitment to implement the Declaration on the rights on indigenous peoples, consult with the affected communities in good faith and ensure their free, and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands, particularly in connection with extractive resource industries,” she stated.

Prior to Tauli-Corpuz’s statement, the Department of Justice, the Department of Army and the Department of the Interior made a joint statement to temporarily halt construction while the government reviews its previous decisions and to hold formal consultations with tribes.

On Sunday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed this ruling anddenied the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s injunction to stop construction of the pipeline.

Many expressed disappointment in the ruling including Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Dave Archambault II who responded that “this is not the end of this fight.”

“We will not rest until our lands, people, waters and sacred places are permanently protected from this destructive pipeline,” he continued.

Indigenous Environmental Network’s Native Energy and Climate Campaign Organiser Kandi Mossett told IPS that it has been an “emotional rollercoaster” but that the Energy Transfer Partners has yet to acquire a permit to build the pipeline under the river.

“We’re here and we’re going to be here if they try to continue to build,” she said.

On the other hand, North Dakota Senator John Hoeven applauded the decision, stating: “Energy infrastructure is vital to our country’s economy and national security, and it can be built safely.”

He added the need to provide help to local law enforcement to “ensure that any ongoing protests are within the law.”

Aggressive Response to “Water Protectors” and Media

However, observers have reported that the #NoDAPL movement is being met with militarised aggression and violence.

Hill told IPS of the militarised presence by the camps, noting that there were cars without license plates and armed guards who would not say who their employer was.

“You feel like you’re being watched constantly,” said Hill.

Similarly, Luger express his concerns to IPS of such a presence, stating: “When you bring miltarised people to a protest where people are just basically trying to protect their water, stuff gets ugly really fast.”

Earlier in September, security guards working for the pipeline company allegedly attacked Native Americans with dogs and pepper spray. At least 30 people were pepper sprayed and six, including a young child, were bitten by dogs. While speaking at the 33^rd Session of the UN Human Rights Council, Archambault told UN officials of the incident, stating: “We stand in peace but have been met with violence.”

Energy Transfer Partners did not immediately respond to IPS’ requests for comment.

In a statement, the County Sheriff’s department said that it was protestors who became violent. “This was more like a riot than a protest. Individuals crossed onto private property and accosted private security officers with wooden posts and flag poles,” said Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier. The Sheriff’s department is currently leading an investigation into the incident.

Confrontations have since continued leading to numerous arrests. Most recently, almost 30 people were arrested during protests on Monday following the ruling.

Mossett told IPS that if construction continues, there would only be more arrests of those protecting the river.

Also among those arrested since the movement began have been media personnel.

“The coverage of this issue is clearly a threat,” said Luger to IPS in response to media arrests.

“[The government is] focused on media folks because they are terrified of this information getting out,” he continued.

After filming and covering the incident with the dogs, Democracy Now! host and executive producer Amy Goodman was charged with criminal trespassing by North Dakota.

“This is an unacceptable violation of freedom of the press,” Amy Goodman said in a statement. “I was doing my job by covering pipeline guards unleashing dogs and pepper spray on Native American protestors,” she continued.

Larger than Just One Pipeline

As winter quickly approaches, Native Americans and allies are bracing themselves for the long haul.

“All of us are prepared to be at camp for as long as it takes,” Two Bulls told IPS.

But this is not just their fight, she added.

“Anybody that breathes air, lives on this land or drinks water—this is their fight too,” Two Bulls told IPS.

“This is much larger than this pipeline…it’s about [deconstructing] this system and [creating] another system that works in the benefit of all people,” she continued.

Luger echoed similar sentiments to IPS, stating: “This is not an indigenous movement, this is a human movement…if there is a leak in the river, half of the country has the potential of being tainted by this.” But they cannot stop this danger alone, he said.

“I just hope that my children can go back to North Dakota and I can point out these geographical places and say this is our story, this is our history and we are from here. And look, that hill proves it,” Luger said.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, locking up about 750 people per 100,000 residents. Credit: Bigstock

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Jun 14 2013 (IPS)

A Congressional task force started work Friday to review the massive U.S. federal penal code and cull statutes deemed to be overlapping, ineffective or otherwise unnecessary.

The bipartisan House Committee on the Judiciary Over-Criminalisation Task Force will also come up with recommendations for broader reforms of the criminal justice system, the first time such reforms have been discussed in two decades.

In recent years, some efforts to look at ways to tame the penal code and rein in the country’s record-high prison population have been scuppered by political wrangling.

Nonetheless, the task for has received broad support from across the political spectrum, uniting conservatives afraid of government overreach and liberals concerned with the criminalisation of minor offenses and “prison state” tactics.

“The Judiciary Committee is one of the most partisan committees in the Congress, so conservatives and progressives agreeing that it is timely and important to take a look at the criminal justice system – this is a tremendous opportunity,” Jennifer Bellamy, legislative counsel with the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), an advocacy group, told IPS.

“This is also the first time that we’ve had this type of re-examination since the 1980s, so it’s a pretty huge undertaking.”

In introductory remarks on Friday, task force members noted that recent decades have seen Congress massively expand the number of federal offences.

“Federal offences increased by about 30 percent between 1980 and 2004, so that we’ve averaged almost one new crime a week over the past few decades,” Representative Bobby Scott said Friday.

“In the 4,500 provisions of the federal criminal code, there are an estimated 300,000 or more federal regulations that can be enforced with criminal penalties. But far too many of these criminal offenscs and regulations lack the adequate criminal intent…requirement to protect the innocent.”

The lack of adequate “intent” requirements for many statutes is blamed for allowing for the criminalisation of innocent people or those who unknowingly break certain laws. Other laws are seen as overly broad, particularly given the relatively recent rise in crimes that carry mandatory minimum punishments."An individual's fate often hinges on not the actual offence but the authority that prosecutes them."
-- Bobby Scott

“The bottom line is that an individual’s fate often hinges on not the actual offence but the authority that prosecutes them…including car-jacking and drug offenses,” Scott continued. “An unforeseen consequence of this over-criminalisation and over-federalisation has been over-incarceration, with an explosion in the U.S. prison population.”

The number of federal prisoners in the United States has increased by almost 800 percent over the past three decades, to almost 220,000 today. According to a February report by the Congressional Research Service, the Congress’s main research wing, that build-up is “historically unprecedented”.

It also means that the United States today has both the largest number of people in prison and the highest rate of incarceration of any country – locking up some 750 people per 100,000 residents, seven times the international average, and inordinately affecting minorities.

Not only have those numbers created a massive budgetary drain, but scholars have suggested that this level of incarceration is dangerous for society at large. According to landmark research by the Pew Centre on the States, a research group, any incarceration rate over 500 per 100,000 actually produces more crime by affecting families and vesting people with criminal records.

Meanwhile, states are locking up African-Americans at an average rate of 2,200 per 100,000. According to a major report on racism that the U.S. State Department sent to the United Nations on Thursday, African-American men remain 6.4 times more likely to be incarcerated than white men.

State models

A significant amount of the work – and potential – for the new task force will simply be in disentangling federal from state statutes. On a broader level, advocates are hoping that the process will result in an effort to redefine the role of the federal government in prosecuting criminal activity.

“The states have historically had responsibility for prosecutions, and it’s only fairly recently that the federal government has become increasingly involved,” the ACLU’s Bellamy said.

“It’s quite difficult politically for policymakers to step back and admit that an issue is already being adequately handled at the state level. But this process is now an opportunity to do that.”

States in recent years have become cauldrons of innovative – and bipartisan – thinking on criminal justice-related reforms. Motivated to a great extent by the fiscal challenges that have cropped up since the economic downturn, state governments have been increasingly tackling policies that have led to high levels of incarceration.

Juvenile detention and drugs sentencing have constituted two particular focuses, and the latter could now form a central part of the task force conversation. Federal drug policy is widely acknowledged as a leading driver for the current high incarceration rates, accounting for roughly half of the federal prisons population.

The last Congressional attempt to address over-criminalisation, in 2011, failed because conservatives worried that it could lead to lighter punishments for marijuana-related offences. Yet some advocates suggest drugs law could today provide fruitful middle ground.

“In recent years, we have seen the left and right coming together to critique excessive federal intervention in the drug war and the often wasteful and unnecessary incarceration,” Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, an advocacy group, told IPS.

“So there should be a lot of potential for common ground around drug policy and mandatory sentencing. Either way, it is a very intriguing development that we have bipartisan interest around these issues, though it remains to be seen what set of issues receives priority.”

The task force is expected to hold open meetings for the next six months, aimed at coming up with a final set of reforms recommendations that would then move through Congress as a normal law.

For the moment, however, some critics note that Congressional lawmaking is proceeding as normal.

“Less than 24 hours before this morning’s… hearing, the House Judiciary Committee heard testimony on a new immigration bill that expands the federal criminal code, creates a crime without including an intent requirement, and establishes new and expands existing mandatory minimum sentencing provisions,” Julie Stewart, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, an advocacy group, said Friday.

“If House Judiciary Committee leaders think we have too many federal crime laws, and that these laws are vague and duplicative, then they should stop passing them. They really don’t need expert witnesses to find the cause of over-criminalisation. They need a mirror.”