Yesterday's tour was an amazing experience for me. So many things that Mr. Giovanni said were surprising, even with my decent knowledge of how the criminal justice system works, and I left there feeling disheartened and saddened. He mentioned the common sentiment about the greatness of our criminal justice system, and asserted that this belief stems from the number of arrests made, and the speediness of processes, though usually at the cost of humanity.
As a nation, we justify policies such as stop-and-frisk, because they generate more arrests. There are many civil rights groups and individuals who condemn this practice because of the obvious abuses and inherent racism it promotes. Yet, there are many policies similar, in theory, to stop-and-frisk that are barely contested at all. It has been proven by the Associated Press that the NYPD enforces a policy of surveillance of the Arab, Muslim, and South Asian populations. The NYPD claims that this policy has helped weed out terrorists and has prevented attacks on our city. However, when the stories are looked at more closely, it is often the case that an undercover officer befriends a lonely Muslim and engages in talk about extremism and violence, in an effort to trap him into saying something that can be misconstrued, and hence easily label him as a terrorist. Professor Stein sent me the following short article yesterday because of the ethical questions it raises:
http://www.businessinsider.com/sweetie--the-scary-new-face-of-a-war-on-pedophiles-2013-11
Pedophilia, like terrorism, is a universal evil that everyone can agree upon and join in an effort to eliminate. While the aforementioned methods claim to weed out "terrorists" and "pedophiles" and eliminate the crime, are they actually creating these criminals? Would these people have engaged in the crimes had they not been entrapped and enticed into doing so? This is a tricky situation because while we all want pedophiles and terrorists to be locked up, how far are we willing to go to do so? If, in "fighting terrorism," we drop a drone on a village in Pakistan and kill a "terrorist" along with his wife and children, is it okay because we all want to be safer? Does this create a dangerous precedent? We would never allow the use of drones if it were not for our common belief that terrorism is an evil. But where do we draw the line then, in deciding for which crimes these methods are acceptable in eradicating? How far are we really willing to go to make arrests? Are we willing to target specific populations and entrap people into committing crimes? Unfortunately, It seems that we are, and with very little opposition.
15 comments:
Thanks for the start, Leena! In a little English professory way, I just want to underscore something implied in Leena's post and the title of her post: if we make the rhetorical move to cast our attempts to stop crime as a "war" (War on Terror, War on Drugs, War on Poverty), are we all of a sudden creating the space to use special "war-time" ethics that allow us to do things (target people) that we would otherwise find uncomfortable or reprehensible in "peace time"? Do normal people do things in war that they wouldn't do in peace? Does the language we use help us cross from one state to the other?
Hello All,
Thanks for getting the blog on a roll this week Leena. I want to start by saying the trip to court was eye opening and made me think. When we all met Thomas Giovanni in the morning and the conversation about America having the greatest court system in the world began I smirked. I put the half smile on because I thought about the history of country, so many people love. The history is as black as night and as dirty as the sewers. The land that makes the claim of equality to all is the same land that was able to decimate Native American culture, steal Africans from their homeland and counts them as 3/5 of a person, exclude many immigrant groups and try to kick Mexican people off land that was theirs to begin with. People cannot proclaim something great if one does not take into account things from the past.
As the tour continues, we go through the metal detectors and Thomas walks right in by showing his id card. Something occurs to me people, who come to see their family members are criminals long before they enter the building. A similar practice exists at CASES, the people that come in with staff id go through a different entrance, and everyone else has to go through the metal detectors. Once inside Manhattan court things became very real for me. I felt like we were aliens from another planet observing the practices of the criminal justice system. Everything that was happening around us was in real time a playwright could not have written the scene better. Did anyone notice the young man black man in the red hood in cuffs? When I noticed the cuffs, I was that young man.
The second phase of the trip going into the courtroom made an even greater impression. I sat back and took note of what was going on. In our thirty-minute period of being in the court, I saw five cases, three of the men being of Latino descent, a Black woman, and a black man. One of the more shocking things about the cases was the charge of “theft of services.” I thought theft of services to mean something very different than hopping the turnstile. I did take note of the structure of the courtroom. Above the judges head was “In God we trust” but that is not the truth the system has people getting the final word. A more fitting phrase may be “in people we trust” since judgment is left up to mere man. The other thing that I took note of was the lighting in the room. The area by the judge and lawyers had the most light almost like glorifying a scene.
Lastly, when I went to the bathroom disbelief is the only word to describe the scene. The bathroom was dirty and had no soap dispensers or paper towels. I thought about the people that had to go to the bathroom while being there for so long. The processes to get into the building and the comfortable level through tenure are very dehumanizing. I do not have the answer to these questions but would like to hear thoughts: How do we reform a system that can better severe the people? Is there a way for the people coming out of criminal justice schools such as, John Jay to help the system or will the process continue to be cyclical and have the dehumanizing qualities perpetuate?
I thought if anyone had listen to this spoken word piece that Apple showed me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Wf8y_5Yn4
J.T.
Thanks for your post, Leena.
I came to the U.S. from Nigeria with an admiration of the efficacy of the United States’ law enforcement and criminal justice systems. From my comparative perspective, I could make several generalizations that allude to the quality of public safety enjoyed in the U.S.—the streets are safer, policing is efficient, due process is constant and so forth. I had obviously subscribed to the popular belief in the “greatness” these systems. However, in light of recent academic and professional activities (internships with Thomas and at Vera), I am forced to withdraw this admiration, though not in totality. Having spent about two years here, I am able to recognize a parallel between the justice systems in both countries: Justice is all but for the wealthy and privileged.
Leena’s rage at the unjust police policies aimed at preventing terrorism forces me to recall the notion that the end justifies the means. Here, the end is the prevention of terror and the means are the discriminatory practices. In reality, it appears that the means have become ends in themselves: a creation and subjugation of an “other.” In closing, I think it would be interesting for Professor Stein to talk about her “Nothing works!” approach to the prevention of criminal behavior as it relates to Leena’s questions.
Coming from a household where many of my family members were in the law enforcement industry, I was biased to thinking only the best of the system; that is before I ran into troubles with law enforcement myself. I simply was not aware of the problematic practices of law enforcement before the experience was humanized for me. Being stopped and questioned before it was popularized by the media in 2008, I understand how issues confronting those of Arab, Muslim, and South Asian populations can be swept under the rug as the NYPD get away with enforcing the law unjustly. For this reason, I feel like our trip taken to the Manhattan Criminal Court should be seen by more people in New York City. If enough people for example saw the case of the man who may now have a criminal record for life for simply jumping a turn style on the way to a job interview, then protest of the sheer disgust by enough citizens would bring media attention. Instead we as a society wait until someone loses their life senselessly before we act as Michael Giovanni alluded to in the conclusion of the tour.
Simonne wisely brought up the question to Mr. Giovanni that Pappy posed to us as to what he would do with a large sum of money for social reform. His answer was very interesting to me as he said that he would hire more dedicated lawyers with a Malcolm X mind state of advocacy. This meant that the fight against injustice for a defendant would go as far as getting the defender arrested with them. I am actually in support of this intensity and determination towards an unjust system that would allow the lawyers, whom may not have a criminal record, to humanize the situation of their clients in a real way.
Thank you Leena for your great post!
I have to say, the question of where to draw the line in terms of intrusive police tactics is one I have difficulty answering. I find myself torn thinking about this. First I would like to say I am going to be speaking exclusively on the idea of entrapment, but not on the issue raised on drone strikes, as I feel it is unfair to group drone strikes with entrapment in this conversation. Although each method targets specific populations, these two tactics seek to do very different things and I therefore do not believe they should be grouped together as if they were the same.
When I think about the entrapment tactics used against “suspected terrorists” in this country, I can’t help but be against them. One way people try and justify these methods is by arguing that if an undercover police officer can incite an individual to engage, or agree to engage, in terrorism, who is to say that an actual terrorist organization cannot or will not do the same? The problem with this justification is that it supports the criminalization of an individual for having the potential, or willingness, to commit a crime. If we begin to criminalize by this standard, we should all be locked up, since we all have the same capacity to commit crimes.
The reason why I am torn is because, when considering the link Leena provides on pedophilia, I cannot help but feel the opposite. Although it would depend on how this method of flushing out pedophiles was exactly implemented, from my understanding, it seems as though these individuals were not so much coerced to commit their crimes, as they were simply given an opportunity to commit one. I feel this is a fine line, but I do believe it exists. In the case of the link on pedophilia, it seems as though the individuals they caught were actively seeking to engage in their crime, while in the case of many anti-terrorism programs, undercover police officers aggressively try and coerce otherwise innocent people into committing, or agreeing to commit, acts of terrorism. Defining when police tactics cross the line, and identifying this line is truly difficult, but as can be drawn from my comment above, I believe in order to begin answering these questions we must first have a strong understanding of both the way these anti-terrorism/pedophile programs are implemented, and the specific goals of the person “weeding out” the criminals; there is a fine line between creating a criminal, and identifying one, and this is an important concept to keep in mind when discussing this issue.
Wonderful post Leena. it is very difficult to say whether the end justifies the means as James mentioned. It is a very tough call as to when it is or is not justified. If the means is purely monitoring suspects, then I think it's ok. But specific groups should not be targeted because of the stigma attached with the group. A person or group should only be monitored if there are justifiable grounds. Entrapment should never be acceptable nor justifiable.
There must be a way to fix the system, I just don't know how. Change begins with the individual. If all are not truly committed to justice and equality for all, then there will be true reform. There are those who commit some really heinous crimes and they may be cold and have no remorse, but that does not mean that everyone who commits a crime or is accused of one should be treated the same. Each person should be treated humanely. Again, for true reform to take place, it begins with the individual and a genuine interest in making the difference. No matter how radical someone is, if the people controlling the system, i.e. making policies etc, are not radical for true reform, we will be spinning around in circles going nowhere. I wish we could take a wrecking ball to the entire system and start from scratch will genuine people in place to get it right the first time. But, since that is impossible, strategic placement of committed individuals is necessary (although it might also be difficult). I am not sure if that will address the problem there will always be opposition. It seems as though people with the heart for reform do not possess the financial resources, or even clout, to effect the change and those with the clout and resources are not committed to true reform.
Thanks for the amazing post Leena! You hit the nail right on the head!
So much of what Mr. Giovanni said during the tour also resonated with me because I too held those same beliefs before coming to CJA. During my time as an interviewer, however, I began to realize that much of the ideological baggage I brought with me, much of it similar to what Mr. Giovanni spoke about, is not as extreme as I believed.
In my experience as both an intern and an employee of CJA, about half of the cases are dismissed at arraignment. Half! The rest are either ROR'ed or given bail. And most of those given bail have extensive records.
I am not saying the system is perfect, not by any means, but it isn't created in a back room by "the man" to bring people down. In fact, I recently learned that when someone is found guilty of a felony which requires a lengthy prison term, he is briefly detained so the judge can make a determination on an appropriate sentence. And before the sentence is given, an extensive study is conducted by the NYC probation office to aid the judge in reaching the decision. Now there is some speculation on exactly how much this study influences the judge's decision, but this element is still there. If this was a system designed to keep us down, why would such safety nets exists?
Hey everyone,
Thanks for your thoughtful responses!
Michael, I definitely agree that entrapment and the use o drones should not be categorized in the way you say. However, I do believe that both these efforts are tactics used to eradicate "evil" crimes. Because of the nature of the crimes they address, they are not disputed, regardless of the human rights violations and civil rights abuses they employ. As Professor Reitz said, in times of war or fear, we allow the use of tactics that we would otherwise find unacceptable.
Professor Reitz, i think that is a great point. These tactics are accepted largely because political rhetoric becomes fear-mongering. Fear is a powerful tool of control.
So many terrific comments, especially as I really see each of you trying to grow this conversation whether it is Jaraed's critique of American history from a personal perspective ("I was that young man") or Michael's insistence that we preserve nuanced distinctions when talking about large, complex subjects. Simonne is thinking "wrecking ball" and Anthony is saying that he sees safety nets and human decision-making amidst the sometimes unjust operations of the system. Such a variety of (well-expressed!) viewpoints shows that you all are really thinking about things that have no easy answers.
As Dickens is on the docket this week, I just wanted to speak to Simonne's great phrase "the heart for reform." Dickens was a tremendous social reformer as well as a novelist often chided by reviewers (then and now) for being too sentimental. Indeed many scholars of Dickens feel that his trenchant, vivid writing about social problems (from sanitary reform to homelessness to poverty to prostitution) is less powerful because rather than practical solutions (policy, politics) he often made it about a "heart for reform." This resonates with Thomas Giovanni's point about HUMANizing the system, remembering that someone caught up in it, regardless of what he/she did, is human. Does this feel like a sentimental cop out in 2013 -- or is the idea about a "heart for reform" a pretty radical idea? (The English teacher in me also notes the tension between "reform" and "wrecking ball" in Simonne's post, but we can discuss later!!)
Thank you all for your insightful posts! Professor Reitz, your first post (yet again) high lights the importance of language in today's social justice world. Of course, declaring war on poverty, drugs, terrorism and so on so forth allows for relevant actors to act in socially acceptable ways, which may have otherwise been frowned upon. I firmly believe the playing field is expanded with more rules being disregarded during times of war than in times of peace. The war on terror (domestic and abroad), for instance, has opened the gate the committing of countless human rights violations (i.e. the right to be free of torture, the right to be free from hunger, etc.). Another example can be found in the United States' use of enemy combatant, which has successfully placed (otherwise known as) prisoners of war outside of the Geneva Convention's protection.
Furthermore, I recently had the privilege of gathering relevant research for a homicide case in Florida. The defendant, an immigrant of Guatemalan decent, found himself a victim (in my opinion) of the unjust criminal justice system many are wrongfully proud of. Upon reading the transcript of the interrogation, I was in disbelief. As students, we are taught about how the CJ system works and yet are rarely exposed to the reality of it all. I am hopeful in that we will continue to question the system and not be so willing to accept it as is.
Leena, thank you for an amazing post! While reading your post and all of the replies our fellow Verons have contributed, I couldn't help but think about the episode in Law & Order: SVU wherein Stabler had to pretend to be a sex offender in order to coerce another man who had been charged into committing another crime. This act of entrapment rubs me the wrong way. While it may be framed as a practice that doesn't so much "create" criminals and instead only provides an "opportunity" in which they would have committed the acts anyway (so by having law enforcement present, we're *saving* the public!). It's a self-fulfilling prophecy! Just like with the stop-and-frisks, we justified stopping, frisking and arresting young Black men because out of however many people were stopped, we were able to take a handful of "criminals" to jail, and thus, this system MUST be working!
Likewise, just as Professor Reitz emphasized on the language in which we frame certain practices (especially when framing it as a "war" of some kind) we justify actions taken that we wouldn't necessarily condone in any other circumstance. This is often the case when trying to justify actions taken abroad-- like our presence in the Middle East. When these actions are framed as a preventative measure or as a "war" on those who don't adopt a Westernized way of BEING, we are able to see everyone else as "savages" and our system as being one of the best in the world. We are not encouraged to think critically or analytically about our systems because comparatively we've "got it better".
I recently had a discussion with a man who stopped me on the street in order to have me donate to a cause that is supposed to empower girls around the country, and he brought up Malala. I have an issue (a HUGE issue) with how our media has portrayed Malala. Yes, under the circumstances, she is an incredibly brave girl, but what our media and public fail to understand is that by using her as a spokesperson of sorts, we are hurting the other girls in her hometown in that the Taliban has begun to target these girls as an act of retaliation. But because we frame our actions in a positive regard, no one takes a second glance at the negative implications our "positive" actions may have.
Leena, this has been one of the richest blogs yet. Thanks for the kickoff. I wanted to comment, and also to answer James, by deconstructing the overly broad term "crime". Obviously, there are too many types of crime (and criminals) to suggest a single remedy. Yet, it seems to me that our current system conflates potsmoker, pedophile, shoplifter, gang member, etc.- everyone except large scale white collar criminals-into a single category to which we grossly overreact. We need some clarity in definition before responding.
Crimes that have not been committed (entrapment)
In the right set of circumstances anyone will willingly commit some kind of crime but, when we discuss entrapment, that is not even the salient point. If I proposition an FBI agent who is pretending to be a 14 year old girl seeking sex over the internet, technically, no crime has been committed. If I "buy" drugs from a police officer who is not actually selling them, no crime has been committed. (I am not even certain under which legal principle folks are being arrested. Maybe one of you pre-law students can find out.) While engaging with "pretend" criminals may prove that intent to commit a crime exists, we generally do not punish mens rea (guilty mind) without actus reus, the guilty act. We require both because, while lots of people fantasize doing bad things, few go on to do them. Does the wanna be terrorist have the ability, intelligence, contact list, or motivation to actually procure a bomb, let's say, without the police delivering one on a silver platter to his or her door? You know, an astoundingly high percentage of male college students say in anonymous surveys that they would commit rape if they could get away with it. Should we arrest them all? No, because relatively few go on to sexually assault women. Entrapment really only proves a thought crime has been committed but it leads to preventative arrest and detention. Why is that allowed?
People who commit violent crimes
Prisons were built for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was to protect law abiding citizens from violence. Much research suggests that prisons have failed to do this, in many cases exacerbating criminal activity. James Gilligan, who I have mentioned before in our blog, specializes in the meta analysis of the effect of incapacitation on public safety. He finds that tax payers are ill served by climbing incarceration rates and instead benefit-as do the violent perpetrators themselves-from a variety of unconventional and underutilized programs that provide therapy and education. He advocates for "anti prisons: locked, secure residential colleges, therapeutic communities, and centers for human development" (Gilligan & Lee, 2006, p. 1). Gilligan's data suggest that this would lower recidivism rates and be cheaper to administrate than our current system.
People who commit non violent crimes
Now we can talk about Professor Stein's "Do Nothing Program to Stop Crime". First, we should stop criminalizing non violent crimes. As a few of you pointed out, punishing turnstile jumping seems Draconian. Arrests for minor crimes became a part of the "broken windows" strategy to fight crime, much touted in the political world but not empirically sound when one takes into consideration how many new criminals are created through the method (see Bernard E. Harcourt's Illusion of Order: The False Promise of Broken Windows Policing). Most misdemeanor crimes don't deserve a system response at all. Those that do, because they reflect chronic behaviors, may need to be dealt with in a treatment setting. Everyone should get the same advantage that those with education and money get... the option to make a whole bunch of mistakes before the "game over" light blinks.
Do you think it might be the case that a certain proportion of low-income, racialized youth are redundant in an economy in which the surplus of potential labor is beyond what is needed for the reserve army of labor?
If so, what does a society that hosts such an economy "do" with all the surplus?
I'm not being mean by asking these questions. I'm looking at the enormous "problems" of the criminal justice system that we have seen first-hand with our eyes (in its current racist form; in its current enormity) from the perspective of "capital" in which the main objective is to accumulate more capital.
From capital's perspective, does the criminal justice system work in exactly the way it is intended??
Moreover, if this "perspective" actually dominates the main action, how do we "fix" the criminal justice system? What do we need to do if we want to put (all of) humanity first, as a priority?
Thank you Leena for the eye opening post. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the case of the African American male who has jumped the MTA to get to his interview on time with only $1.80 in his pocket.
Institutional racism has been created within the construction of America’s society. Through the seemingly legal actions of these institutions, the effects of this form of racism continue to act as a permeate cause of poverty. One of the most important criteria in the status of poverty among individuals, often concludes the wealth of opportunities and resources available to people. Whether this locality relates to one’s job, housing, or other aspects, geographic variance particularly contributes to the continuation of poverty. In the sectors of criminal justice, education, and urban planning, the location of the prisons, the inner city schools, and the layout of homes/projects and jobs create a web of inequality between minorities and the white, wealthy class. The obvious, minor, and even ignorant proceedings of institutions in these sectors further reproduce poverty along racial lines; create situations in which minorities are set at a significant disadvantage in society.
Going to leave this here as I think this relates to what we're speaking about and it was an interesting Op-Doc in NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/opinion/true-believers-in-justice.html?_r=0
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