America's troubling racial tinderbox

Not so long ago, the US believed it had cracked the violent crime epidemic. "Zero tolerance" and "three strikes and you're out" were the mantras of the 1990s. Declining homicide rates were its product. Today, as the riots intensify in Baltimore after the death of yet another unarmed black man in police custody, such verities no longer hold.

With 2.3m people behind bars, zero tolerance has delivered the largest incarcerated population in the world. US prisons are fuller than those of autocratic China, which has a population more than four times as big. It has also unpicked some of the gains of the 1960s civil rights era. Tens of thousands of black men are in jail for offences that merit little more than a slap on the wrist for their white counterparts. It is little use pointing to the fact that the US has elected its first black president. A generation believes it has been stigmatised and their complaints ignored. As Martin Luther King said before he was assassinated in 1968: "A riot is the language of the unheard."

Yet amid the gloom, there are signs that America is coming to terms with the scale of the challenge. Bill Clinton, who as president was the chief author of the 1990s penal reforms, recently admitted they had "overstepped the mark". In his day, no politician could afford to be seen as "soft on crime". Today, both parties accept the need to reduce the jail population in the US and give those with criminal records a fairer chance at a fresh start.

This is a positive change. Not only has the creeping militarisation of US police forces failed to sustain the fall in the homicide rate. It has created a culture of impunity that has led to several hundred shootings of unarmed civilians every year. Only a fraction involved are held to account. Little wonder that so many communities - from Ferguson, Missouri to Baltimore, Maryland - feel alienated from those who are meant to protect them. Little wonder, too, that many black men feel shut off from the opportunities that society gives to others. The question is: what to do about it?

The most important step is to grasp the complexity of the challenge. After the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old in Ferguson last summer, Barack Obama set up a task force on 21st-century policing. Its recommendations were laudable but abstract. They focused on the need to rebuild trust between the police and their communities. Other groups believe it should be mandatory for police on patrol to wear body cameras.

More encouraging are proposals to overhaul the penal system. US drugs laws are counterproductive. In some parts of America, people can now legally smoke marijuana. In others, black and white people face life in jail for possessing it. So too is the three-strikes rule adopted by half of US states. The statistics on mandatory sentencing are clear. It is racially biased and must be ended. Non-violent offenders should also be able to purge their records. Here too, there are hopeful signs. The Koch brothers, ultraconservative political donors, have joined the "ban the box" movement, where employers refrain from asking about an applicant's criminal record until later in the interview process.

Then there is the question of leadership. For understandable reasons Mr Obama has been reticent about the scale of young black alienation in the US. Now he has little to lose. In the 1950s and 1960s, a potentially radical generation was channelled towards constructive protest by inspirational leaders. Mr Obama is the only figure who can do the same today. Of all presidents, this one cannot afford to leave a legacy of simmering racial tension.

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