Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Crime in the Media Fall 2020

https://www.netflix.com/title/80200549

The Netflix documentary, “When They See Us”, is a clear example of how class, race, poverty, and crime affect the decision making of the criminal justice system. This is based on a true story told by the men who were called “The Central Park Five”. There was a crime committed against a female jogger. She was raped and beaten and left for dead in Central Park in New York. During this time, there were many teenage boys running around the park at night and majority of them were African American. When the lady was found and reported this attack to the police, she claimed the man who attacked her was black. The police then decided to round up every single African American boy who ran around that park that night and bring them in for questioning. There were extreme amounts of coercion, abuse from police and interrogators, and a lot of the boys were underage, and therefore needed to have a parent present which none of them did. At the end of interrogations, there were five boys, the youngest thirteen, who were all charged with attempted murder and rape. None of them were wealthy so they had public defenders, a divorce lawyer, and friends represent them. They all were found guilty and sentenced to juvenile detention except one. The last boy was 16, and, thereby classified as an adult, He was sentenced to 14 years in adult prison. That boy, named Korey was not even in the initial pool of suspects, he was just there with his friend who had been asked to come down to the station. Since he was 16, however, they used this as a good reason to also charge him. After years of claiming being imprisoned while claiming his innocence, another male claimed he was the one who did it. This all happened because the victim stated there was a black male present, and they were determined to get the black kids off the streets.

This documentary covers quite a few topics we have discussed in class. We have talked a lot about race and crime, and how more African Americans are arrested and incarcerated, and how the majority of those inmates come from low income class families and have no chance of obtaining proper legal representation (Edelman, 2017). Just like in this documentary; one of the kids hired a retired divorce lawyer to help represent him. That lawyer does not really know how to handle an attempted murder and rape charge, but that was all the family could afford. If they were all able to get decent lawyers who wanted to help as best, they could, they might have received lesser sentences or maybe even been proven innocent.

When watching this documentary about five innocent African American teenagers get sentenced to juvenile detention and prison for a crime, they did not commit makes you want to cry. I in fact did cry probably the whole time I watched this. These kids were good kids. Yes, they were not wealthy and yes, they were around the park that night, but that did not give those investigators and prosecutors the right to lie to them, made false promise them, and use the color of their skin against them. This case taught me that you basically need to be rich to get out of trouble and this was the prime example of that. When all of them were being questioned, the interrogators used them against each other and made them say the other one did it. One of the boys was thirteen and he said he admitted to raping her, and same with the 16-year-old. Their names are Korey Wise, who was the 16 year old sentenced to prison for admitting he raped and beat the jogger, Kevin Richardson was 13 years old who admitted he was there and also raped her,  then there were Raymond Santana, Yusef Salaam, and Antron McCray who all three said they were there and participated in the rape and beating of the jogger.

Inequality and discrimination were spread out all throughout this series. First of all, there was not a single white kid interviewed. There were white kids running around the park as well. The victim who was knocked out said it was a black kid who attacked her, and then changed her story and said that there were five individuals who attacked and raped her. That was not the case. Also, the lead investigator of sex crimes called them “turds” and start to put the pieces together on her own terms because she heard that also that night, a few of the boys got into a fight with another group of boys and the police were called that was her ticket in to making this about multiple suspects, not just one. Their prejudice is simply surrounded in every assumption, a tacit agreement among all the white adults that the boys are the obvious suspects, that they “must” have done it. They never fully come out as racist, but their words and actions showed throughout the series.

All in all, this series exemplifies true issues in our justice system from the lack of money that leads to insufficient lawyers and mothers unable to visit their sons incarcerated in distant places, the effects of systemic racism but the effects of all sorts of exclusion on people with their backgrounds, and the hopelessness in the face of a police officer that doesn’t look like you or care about you. For these reasons, I feel that this series on Netflix is very informative because it shows the issues concerning not being wealthy and going to jail. These children were victims of a corrupt system and have no means of help when it came to legal representation because of how little money they had. Watching this really opened my eyes when it came to our criminal justice system and really informed me of how you don’t go to jail if your rich. After these kids got out of prison and juvenile detention, they had to start over basically, and since they were convicted felons, they could not obtain a job or anything to help them get back on track. They also had to register as sex offenders and to me that is also what happens when you get sent to jail. You get out but with no hope of reform. All in all, this is a show that is based on a true story, and how these kids just got sent into a sink hole with no help getting back to the top.

References

Edelman, P. B. (2019). Not a crime to be poor: the criminalization of poverty in America. The New Press.

DuVernay A. (Executive Producer/Director). (2019). When They See Us [Miniseries] Netflix https://www.netflix.com/