Add sloppy opposition research to the list of problems plaguing Al Gore's listless presidential campaign. In the course of a May 2 speech on crime, Gore launched a crude complaint about the criminal justice policies of Texas governor George W. Bush. It's really quite simple, Gore contended. Bush has emphasized incarceration over rehabilitation and has "slashed drug treatment programs and alcohol treatment programs for Texas prisoners." So naturally enough, Gore went on, "Recidivism has jumped by about 25 percent in Texas since [Bush] took office, to a level far above the national average."
Gosh. If the state's recidivism rate had jumped 25 percent under Bush, it would now be close to 50 percent. But when the Washington Post asked Gore spokesman Chris Lehane where the vice president had found this remarkable statistic, "Lehane said the 50 percent figure came from news reports, and he did not know the original source."
Not to worry, Chris. THE SCRAPBOOK can help. Gore's research drones invented their (entirely bogus) anti-Bush recidivism factoid by too-casually plundering from . . . this magazine! In our January 24, 2000 issue, an article by Andrew Peyton Thomas, "Completing the War on Crime," made passing note of the following figures: In Texas, "an average of 50 percent, and nationwide, an average of 33 percent, of inmates are rearrested within three years." Those figures were perfectly relevant to Thomas's broader argument.
And they are perfectly irrelevant to a judgment about George W. Bush. That's because the numbers (from the 1997 Corrections Yearbook) track Texas inmates over a three-year period following their release in 1993. In 1993, Democrat Ann Richards was the governor of Texas. And she remained the governor of Texas until January 1995.
Oops. Here's the truth: Since Bush became governor, the recidivism rate in Texas has dropped -- to 40.8 percent. Don't hold your breath waiting for Gore to correct the record.