Comments on: Criminal Injustice Systems at Home and Abroad http://www.fragmentaryevidence.com/2009/01/27/criminal-injustice-systems-at-home-and-abroad/ Sun, 05 Feb 2012 06:18:18 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: ruth gutmann http://www.fragmentaryevidence.com/2009/01/27/criminal-injustice-systems-at-home-and-abroad/#comment-254 ruth gutmann Sun, 22 Feb 2009 19:27:14 +0000 http://www.fragmentaryevidence.com/?p=187#comment-254 The distrust of the police and the police's attitude toward the inhabitants of poor neighborhoods have been ubiquitous in the US for decades. Bill Clinton made some progress by funding of 100,000 additional policemen for neighborhood policing for the states. Bush discontinued it, but I think Obama or his people were talking of reviving the allocation. Read today's Times editorial (2-22). The Latinos are now the real whipping boys, and they fill our prisons in numbers that are way disproportionate to their percentage in the population. This is made infinitely worse by the immigration problem, regardless of whether they are here legally or not. (The Pew Center is a good place to look for a range of sociological and political information.) The distrust of the police and the police’s attitude toward the inhabitants of poor neighborhoods have been ubiquitous in the US for decades. Bill Clinton made some progress by funding of 100,000 additional policemen for neighborhood policing for the states. Bush discontinued it, but I think Obama or his people were talking of reviving the allocation.

Read today’s Times editorial (2-22). The Latinos are now the real whipping boys, and they fill our prisons in numbers that are way disproportionate to their percentage in the population. This is made infinitely worse by the immigration problem, regardless of whether they are here legally or not.

(The Pew Center is a good place to look for a range of sociological and political information.)

]]> By: dc http://www.fragmentaryevidence.com/2009/01/27/criminal-injustice-systems-at-home-and-abroad/#comment-105 dc Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:23:24 +0000 http://www.fragmentaryevidence.com/?p=187#comment-105 eric: Right, beat cops on BART wouldn't make much sense, and probably wouldn't have changed the outcome of the New Year's Eve incident. I tried to be somewhat careful to avoid saying that having more beat cops would make a measurable difference in any specific incident -- you'd probably be hard pressed to be able to show specific cause and effect in particular cases -- but I'm pretty confident that in the aggregate, that kind of "community policing" would make a real difference in the tenor of cop-civilian interactions, and would lead to measurable differences in overall crime rates, willingness of witnesses to cooperate with police investigations, numbers of police brutality incidents, etc. If I had any knack for finding relevant studies, maybe I could even find some to shed some light on the question! eric: Right, beat cops on BART wouldn’t make much sense, and probably wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the New Year’s Eve incident. I tried to be somewhat careful to avoid saying that having more beat cops would make a measurable difference in any specific incident — you’d probably be hard pressed to be able to show specific cause and effect in particular cases — but I’m pretty confident that in the aggregate, that kind of “community policing” would make a real difference in the tenor of cop-civilian interactions, and would lead to measurable differences in overall crime rates, willingness of witnesses to cooperate with police investigations, numbers of police brutality incidents, etc. If I had any knack for finding relevant studies, maybe I could even find some to shed some light on the question!

]]> By: eric http://www.fragmentaryevidence.com/2009/01/27/criminal-injustice-systems-at-home-and-abroad/#comment-103 eric Wed, 28 Jan 2009 01:24:27 +0000 http://www.fragmentaryevidence.com/?p=187#comment-103 Interesting statistics and thoughts. Beat cops must be a million times better than cops in their cars. But beat cops on BART won't do much, since BART isn't a neighborhood where the cops could get to know Oscar Grant and learn to treat him like a human being. I bet the biggest factor in whether poor people trust cops is how much distance there is between rich and poor. More inequality, more distrust. The best thing we could do in this misguided country is to reduce that inequality. Universal health care, a higher minimum wage, higher taxes on the rich: that's my unoriginal plan, not only for reducing distrust of cops, but also for improving our schools, improving our health indicators, reducing violence and crime, and improving our foreign policy (we won't be as likely to go to war abroad if we're more equal at home). Interesting statistics and thoughts. Beat cops must be a million times better than cops in their cars. But beat cops on BART won’t do much, since BART isn’t a neighborhood where the cops could get to know Oscar Grant and learn to treat him like a human being. I bet the biggest factor in whether poor people trust cops is how much distance there is between rich and poor. More inequality, more distrust. The best thing we could do in this misguided country is to reduce that inequality. Universal health care, a higher minimum wage, higher taxes on the rich: that’s my unoriginal plan, not only for reducing distrust of cops, but also for improving our schools, improving our health indicators, reducing violence and crime, and improving our foreign policy (we won’t be as likely to go to war abroad if we’re more equal at home).

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