We all have different ways of interpreting, translating, and perceiving ideas, concepts, and situations, which makes it difficult for us to trust anybody including the criminal justice system. We believe that the criminal justice system has the answer to everything relating to crime, but do we really trust them? Does the criminal justice system perform to the full extent of the real meaning of the word “justice”?
Usually, when I am sitting in court listening to the cases, most of which are drug use, I have always asked myself how does the judge know what decision to make or whose side to take. I have seen some defendants, charged with the same offense, being released on ROR (Release on own recognizance), bail, or ACD (Adjourned contemplating dismal). ACD is when the defendant is released with the condition that he/she does not commit another offense within 6 months and their case is dismissed. Before anything, the judge learns about the defendant’s case, but the judge only gets a quick overview of why he/she got arrested. The judge does not know the needy details of the incident, and therefore she would be basically making a decision based on the police officer’s point of view. In my point of view, this is not fair or justifiable because the judge does not know exactly what went on. What if the cop maybe slipped a bag of weed into the defendant’s pocket or book bag just to fulfill his/her duty for the day? Or what if one of his friends tried to get rid of their bag of weed by hiding it in their back bag? There could be so many perspectives, but which one do we believe. It is like we are caught up between the wall and the sword not knowing whose side to take. I wonder since we all have different perspectives on certain issues does the side we choose to believe, is it in any way affected by our culture, values, morals, or traditions?
18 comments:
I agree, one of the main reasons the idea of 'justice' is such a sensitive topic is because not only do we all have our own form of justice but there is the problem of who's right and who's wrong. In most countries, you are raised to believe authority (police). It's almost a learned aspect of your life. There is no arguing or fighting and all police are "honorable and just." The justice system is not equipped for corruption, yet it happens. Why is it so hard to believe the troubled kid over the honorable police officer? We've all had a run in with the roudy kid on the subway or the ones who stalk the girls and say totally rude things, is it our own bitterness/desire of revenge from our own incidents that we refuse to believe in the one sitting in front of the judge?
(Bahhh I was attempting to make this short so it'd be easier to respond to others ha)
I definitely agree with Dani's statement about growing up with the police being the authority figure to be trusted by the general population. I would also like to say that this is especially true depending on the cultures, with the Japanese respecting their police a lot. In our culture, we do trust the police to do their jobs, but we also hate them for getting in our personal business when they do their jobs. I personally trust our own criminal justice system more than others, but that's only because it is one of the few systems that function well. It's not perfect, but at least it can accomplish most of what it was designed for. I think that we are trained to trust the police, because we expect the theories that are used to create the criminal justice systems to work. If the theories work, then the police should be doing their jobs properly and we wouldn't have to worry about their honesty. I think it's hard to believe the troubled kid over the officer because of the way they present themselves. The troubled kid is most likely to dress and act like the people who mugged me twice in front of my own home. Even if they are doing it in order to survive in their own environment, they are bringing their way of life into the everyday life of other people. On the other hand, the officers are uniformed are there to protect the citizens. It's not the kid's or the officer's fault that the kid will portray a less trust-able image to the public. It's just how the system has been for years, and it will take even more years to change. For the short term, hard evidence is better than our gut feelings of whether to trust the officer or the kid; camera phones are now commonplace in many countries.
Are clothes, and even attitudes, a kind of "language" that is open to interrpretation depending on perspective, as Simon's post implies? How do the various "uniforms" that players in the criminal justicee system wear impede or support their goals?
Clothes and attitudes are definitely their own language. An officer dressed in 'uniform' is automatically respected more. Personally, every time I see a Marine or anyone in the army walk by in their 'outfit,' it's almost commands a silent respect from a passerby. isn't an outfit the final touch on impressions. Will Simpkins who came to talk about the interviews and careers made very clear that the wrong outfit can ruin you. It's true in almost every society, showing up as a slob or rude talking will get one no where in life.
If one looks at the concept of being "ghetto," what is that makes them that? For a "ghetto woman," it could be wearing outfits that are way to small for them, talking like the 'streets,' eating with their mouth open, talking loud....these are some characteristics the public could associate with the 'ghetto society.' I know we all want to argue that everyone is equal and no one judges you on appearance but let's face it, we heavily judge people on appearance. Who will the subconscious trust more, a respectable outfit or a baggy mess? In essence, couldn't your clothes be more important then your talk?
In thinking through Gary’s final question about how culture, values, morals, and traditions might influence whom we believe, I can’t help but think of our class discussion on “In a Grove.” To Gary’s list of influences, which I believe ARE influences, I would add positionality—a phenomenon related to class but also encompassing things like gender, sexual identity, status, and level of cultural and social capital. Gender in particular played a large role in our class discussion about who was “lying,” when they were “lying,” and why they might be “lying.” Many of us found it perfectly plausible that a man might confess to murder for no reason other than masculine bravado and that a woman might do so in order to assuage shame brought about by loss of feminine virtue. Undoubtedly, our own positionality in terms of gender influenced how we viewed these issues, and so I think it’s another important piece to think about.
What I find most interesting about this post is that it highlights how the issues we discussed about “In a Grove” are not esoteric considerations whose “proper” realm is literary criticism. Rather, the difficulty of deciding whom to believe is a real, on-the-ground problem confronted daily in the halls of justice right here in NYC. Noticing that Gary uses the feminine subject pronoun “she” to refer to the judge, I wondered whether the judge ever felt pressure to be as “tough as the boys” or to prove that she could move within the “old-boys clubs” that have traditionally been the police department and the judicial system as well as any man could. Might her positionality influence her decisions about whom she believes? It’s also fascinating that we’ve moved from talking about who’s telling “the truth” to discussing whom to believe.
All this talk about the police and uniforms and respect for authority—well, I don’t know. I think about images of Rodney King surrounded by uniforms and Yell (the woman maced by police at Occupy Wall Street) on her knees in tears behind orange netting and Sean Bell in his coffin. I can’t help it. I get my news from The Nation magazine and Democracy Now! When I think about uniforms, I don’t think about how they command respect; I wonder how they influence the subjectivity of those who wear them. And before anyone brings this up, I’m not saying all cops are dirty. They're not. In any case, I don't think the main problem is individual action. We’re in an era of too many uniforms—military uniforms, police uniforms, security officer uniforms. What does it say about us that in an age of terrifying economic insecurity we have turned so far toward reliance on guns and bombs and uniforms for national and personal security?
Check this out: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/12/police-militarization-9-11-september-11_n_955508.html?ir=Divorce&utm_source=pulse&utm_medium=direct
The side we choose to believe, could be affected by our culture, values, morals, or traditions but I feel that personal experience is the best teacher. For example from previous post I observed that some of us may see police officers as a way of demanding authority, but I beg to differ. Growing up in the urban setting I have seen what the other side of what an individual in a uniform can do. Again as Robert pointed out earlier not all cops are corrupt it is just where I lived and the communication many police officers had with the residents of my neighborhood which causes me to have a mistrust toward police officers.
Clothes, and even attitudes, are a kind of "language" that is open to interpretation depending on perspectives. But at the end of the day simply because I dress a way that is different from the norm or looked down upon should not make a someone in uniform more respectable. Yes uniforms usually could equate to more prestige and more respect. But at the end of the day human beings no matter what they wear are human beings and could lie.
Look at this interesting article from the Daily News.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/10/16/2011-10-16_bad_busts_cost_12m_city_paid_big_to_settle_false_drugarrest_lawsuits.html
I just want to expand the notion of the word “uniform”. Yes, there are uniforms for Marines and Catholic school girls, for doctors and security guards. But uniform also means standardized and homogenous. The uniforms that others wear denote an identity that for us, the viewer, eliminates context and irregularity. The uniform of low slung pants or stiletto heels or three piece suits plays into stereotypes that allow the looker to erase individual circumstances or personalities and impose a set of assumptions. When we parade our own uniform (and everyone wears one), whether it’s the smirk we wear or the hips we sway, we are performing an identity, usually advertising the positionality that Robert mentions. I can’t help but remember the language of the question Gary raises: how is the criminal justice system performing justice? Gary’s wording may have been inadvertent but it made me wonder to what degree cops, judges, defendants, juries, etc. are simply costumed players “performing” justice according to a preordained script. I could go on and on but I will leave it here for your follow-up. How does the script get written and why do we all follow it so blindly?
Gary, I also think it is unfair for the judge to make a decision on the fate of a defendant when they only have a few minutes to glance at their profile. Often times the prosecutor looks up their file and it is their defense attorney’s job to make up a file or argument that would be a persuasive defense. I’ve seen more lenient prosecutors that do not disagree with the defense attorney’s offers and other times I have seen the judge be very biased with his/her conclusion.
Like Simon, I also have been robbed before, but I don’t turn it against the people robbing me. I actually think the police are not really doing their jobs because on both accounts they never caught the robber or returned my belongings, nor did they offer me any type of advise/support. I do not feel that it was safer around those neighborhoods even with their presence, but I cannot fail to recognize the society’s need for police and the criminal justice system.
I do have issues with judging people by the way they look. Yes, I recognize the need to use racial profiling and other forms of criminal profiling to catch a criminal. It is still very dangerous when those tools are used the wrong way. A perfect example is how the police advised women to not dress “provocative”, “inviting”, or “sexy” when walking in the streets. There are many different problems with this scenario. Some might be patriarchal, some might be racially motivated, or class motivated. Why does the society punish the victim (i.e. the girl being raped) as opposed to the criminal who raped the girl? Of course many of those problems are long term issues that have been inherently a part of our society for a long time. Heteronormative attitudes will be the dominate view of the U.S. so long as we allow it to be.
According to Aristotle, in the Nicomachean Ethics, those who come from poorer backgrounds commit less of a crime than those of the rich. The idea has to do with responsibility and the free-choice. If a poor individual steals a dollar from a homeless man on the street, the crime is quite different from if Bill Gates steals the dollar. We stress the intent of the crime rather than the actual crime that is committed. It can be wrong to judge so subjectively on such an “objective” idea such as justice, but according to Aristotle, this is the only way to balance out the geometric proportions. Justice is really predicated off of the virtues of the society and their happiness as a whole. This “happiness” and virtue is only the view of those who have been in power in the U.S. since its inception.
So what is it? Do we be subjective or objective? Maybe subjectively objective.
It should not be a question of WHO to believe? Rather, WHAT to believe? What is plausible is supposed to be based on concrete, direct evidence; never based on who is speaking, their status, title or the "costume" they are wearing. Unfortunately, personal experiences, prejudices and biases influence decision making within the Criminal Justice System. Furthermore, there are several Criminal Justice Systems (in which the scales are tilted) within the CJS. The Majority>The Minority, The Wealthy>The Poor, Law Enforcement>Civilians, just to name a few.
The power of "Discretion" given to police officers, judges and even the prosecutors (as mentioned in the reading "Sentencing Shift Gives New Leverage to Prosecutors") may also allow prejudices to infiltrate the CJS. Utilizing discretion, officers can basically pick and choose whom to stop and frisk, issue tickets and also arrest. Racial profiling and other forms of police corruption is a result of such freedom of discretion. To clarify, I do not oppose discretion, just the abuse of it.
Professor Stein asks "why do we all follow [the script of justice] so blindly?" I don't know, but it reminded me of the moment in seminar when Popy and then Ruby both thought that -- of course -- all this messing with our heads was fun but there must be ONE true version of events in "In a Grove." What is so interesting is that even while knowing that there is not one true version, we still powerfully desire one being produced.
I have enjoyed the discussion about positionality and performing identity. They are both important aspects of understanding the importance of perspective. We reflected on how these roles/uniforms can be oppressive, which reminded me of one of my favorite poems which emphasizes the playfulness/creativity that comes from trying on different identities.
"Two of A Kind" by John Holmes
I asked the gentle chameleon that accommodates
The color of its life to loving's red,
Pride's blue, the loaded yellow of wealth,
Green for those who feel green, brown for dead,
If in his own heart he was no one, stained
With whoever he came to, mimic of any voice,
I turn me down to children, up to priests,
Side-ways to taxi drivers, slant my poise
So to lean sour, avuncular, or lewd.
A nine-faced liad puts everyone at ease.
I asked again. The Lizard on my lapel,
Unchanged, seemed not one of my devotees.
And was not. He knew two of a kind had met.
One another's words were equable to translate,
"Curiosity," he said, "the spacious heart;
An unhurt citizenry of the single state;
A touch of the artist to the design," he said,
"The quirky selves we ill if we suppress;
And as for colors, I haven't tried them all,
If you know what I mean," and I said ,"Yes."
Identity performance! Now we're talking my language. It reminds me of my problem with a recent trend toward teaching "cultural competence," which Popy and I discussed briefly in class a couple of sessions ago where I suggested that the problem is not lack of knowledge of conventions (as if people don't have televisions!) but rather just a refusal to perform the conventional, demanded identity, preferring instead to perform the non-normative identity, perhaps even believing "this is the real me"--a belief that likely flies out the door in the presence of grandma. Yes, chameleons, all of us, who "slant our poise" this way and that depending on who, where, what, and when.
An anonymous insight from an N.Y.P.D officer of what really goes down when someone’s arrested:
“A small bag of weed or cocaine found on the ‘perp’ will usually be useless in adding it to an arrestee. It just doesn’t make sense to keep it. It’s just going to be D.P’d., the ends don’t justify the means. All the effort put into the paperwork and man hours generated in building a case all go to waste because the D.A. doesn’t feel that small plastic bags of ‘weed’ or ‘cocaine’ are suffice to prosecute. They call it “personal use”, So they throw the trash back into the streets to either O.D., sell, or shoot their dealer in a drug sale gone bad so that then they can say that the cops aren’t doing their job and that the projects are infested and always will be. The system needs to change from the top not the bottom. “What say you of this testimonial and what does this say of our criminal justice system?
Hmmm, intriguing argument Gray. I agree with your ideas on the grounds that judges get a quick overview of a defendants' case. Which to me is also unfair. Decisions regarding a person's consequence to a crime should not be made with such haste. I believe ample time should be allocated to cases before making a decision that has the power to change a person's life drastically.
As for clothes, and its implications. I agree with Dani. The uniform police officials wear signifies a sense of authority, however, are they "automatically" respected as Dani states? To me, fearing someone is not a sign of respect. Citizens show a level of respect to police officers because they work on a regular basis to maintain safety in communities. In England, police officers are dressed like civilians. Thus, they work to build relationships with the community, which we see very little of in New York City. In contrast, police officers come off power hungry or aggressive to the general population. If police officers in NYC dressed like civilians, would they be able to deter crime as the police officers in England? Most definitely not and my assumption falls under the lack of social skills. Simon and Dani state that the general population should "trust" the criminal justice system and police officers, I also agree with this idea, however, this isn't the case in America.
I couldn't post yesterday because my computer wouldn't process the comment in order to get it published, but I see how this question can directly impact me on so many levels. An incident occured to me the other day in the subway. I was stopped by a cop as I sat there I looked around and saw that other younger kids were also sitting there. They were all African- American. One of the kids story was that he was going to his friend's house because his mother was at work. The cops started to search the kid.I was shocked at how their attitudes towards a minor of black color was being treated. My judgement right away was that cops were being racists because of the kid's color. When I was being adressed, my way of talking to the cop was no different than the way the kid was talking to him. He wasn't screaming or yelling at them. The kid was simply talking to him as if they were both having a conversation. The question that popped in my head was: why was this young kid being treated like trash for no apparent reason?
My judgement was that this kid's version of the story was true. He was going to his friend's house.I had chosen this side because of my experience. I have a younger brother and he's always traveling to his friend's house with a bookbag. Even when there is no school, he'll pack his sweats and drinks and leave. If you see his bag looks as if he is carrying something suspicious, but in reality it's only his clothes. This kid's bag look similar to what any other young boy would carry. The reason he got stopped was because he was of black skin color. I am very distrustful of cops for that reason. Growing up I've seen how even in elementary school, the police officers love to create their version of a story to fulfill "their duty", as Gary said, of the day. My judgement of things are affected by my education and experiences. As a Hispanic, I count as a minority, as are African- Americans. Through history we see the tensions between whites and minorties. The ideoligies which were thought to whites are completely different from the ideoligies learned from monorities. This isn't to put any race down, but for the purpose of observing how the way one learns can affect the way we judge as an individual and what side to believe at a given situation.
Because we're touching base on trust and law enforcement, here's an article that made the Daily News today. What's your take on this?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/10/17/2011-10-17_nypd_cop_michael_daragjati_taped_making_racial_slurs_about_black_man_accused_of_.html
I saw that on the news and it's horrific. I worry, though, that focus on the actions of "bad apples" obscures the systemic problems--like the stop and frisk policy. Someone pointed out to me that although Commissioner Kelly circulated an internal memorandum telling officers not to arrest people stopped and frisked for small amounts of marijuana, there was no mention of changing the stop-and-frisk policy itself, which mostly affects young black and hispanic/latino men.
I wanted to comment on a lot last night, but something screwed up and I couldn't save my post. One of my points was going to be about focusing on the few individual cases and not the entire system, because I feel like the police system works to an extent. Although, Robert just pointed out some of the flaws in the system that needs to be changed and I have to say I completely agree with him. I didn't think about some of the overall flaws of the system. Instead, I was focusing my attention on the NYPD as a whole compared to other police systems and doing the opposite of what the newspaper does.
One point I wanted to make yesterday was the militarization of police forces is definitely something we should watch out for. Law enforcement should be more about protecting the peace and not using weapons meant for war (extreme example being the Metropolitan Police force of the UK not using any lethal weapons at all). On the other hand, if a police force was just hiring more people, I would support the police. They probably need more people to handle the rising population.
I don't think hiring more police officers is a remedy to this sickness; because then we would probably just have more police corruption. I think officers should get more extensive training on how to react, or not react in certain situations regarding certain cultures. I guess even before that, they should be educated on the norms of the different cultures within the neighborhood they are going to be policing. They are so many researches and sociological studies on just about every culture. Why can't officers be mandated to study, take an extensive class and pass an exam regarding the specific neighborhood cultural norms of the population they will be policing? I think many times it boils down to lack of understanding... or the lack of desire to understand.
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