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

I found a video on YouTube about the case of Corey Stingley, which is a case that we hear about all too often. The video was made by Vice News and the title of it is “Racial Injustice in Milwaukee: Crime and Punishment”. Corey Stingley was a 16-year-old star football athlete at his high school, but on December 14, 2012 everything changed. Corey had went to a little convenience store and tried to shoplift a couple of bottles of alcohol (Vice News, 2014). Corey had then grabbed something else and went up front to pay for it and handed the clerk his credit card. It was then that the cashier mentioned the alcohol in his backpack. The clerk told him to give back the alcohol or the police were going to be called, so Corey put his backpack up on the counter. At that point Corey has lunged over the counter to grab something, from the video, it looked like he took his credit card back, and tried to make a run for it. It was then that Corey was forcibly restrained by three customers (Vice News, 2014). He was held in a headlock for about ten minutes, and he had stopped breathing. This murder caused a massive uproar in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, demanding justice for Corey.

Months after Corey’s death took place, the District Attorney, John Chisholm, opened a secret investigation to decide whether the three men involved in Corey’s death would face criminal charges (Vice News, 2014). On January 9, 2014 Corey’s father, Craig Stingley, met with DA Chisholm to hear his decision, which was that the three men were not going to be charged (Vice News, 2014). In this video we hear testimonies of the three men who physically restrained Corey in the convenience store, Mario Lauman, Jesse Cole, and Robert Beringer (Vice News, 2014). In all three men’s accounts of the situation, no one had put Corey in a choke hold, but the surveillance video shows otherwise. The video shows that one of the men has Corey in a headlock, and the other two men wrestle him to the ground. They stay in this position until police and EMTs arrive about ten minutes later. One of the three men who restrained Corey (it doesn’t say which one) said that Corey had stopped struggling because he knew that he was caught and that he wasn’t going to be able to get away (Vice News, 2014). In reality, Corey’s heart had stopped beating. Once paramedics arrived they started performing CPR on Corey, at which point they got his heart to start beating again (Vice News, 2014). Once at the hospital, it was found that Corey had severe brain damage from being deprived of oxygen for so long, and it had killed both hemispheres of his brain (Vice News, 2014). Two weeks later on December 29, Corey was pronounced dead. The medical examiner who performed Corey’s autopsy determined the cause of death to be anoxic encephalopathy (a lack of oxygen to the brain) due to asphyxia, physical restraint, and violent struggle with multiple persons (Vice News, 2014). His manner of death was ruled a homicide.

As mentioned earlier, none of the three men said that Corey was not put in a headlock at any point, but there are multiple witnesses that say different. The professionals know that Corey’s airway was blocked, but the man who supposedly had him in a chokehold says that he doesn’t know how that was possible (Vice News, 2014). The surveillance videos are at awkward angles, but it can be seen that there is an arm around Corey’s neck as he falls to the ground.

According to Corey’s middle school principal, the demographics of the town are changing because more Black people having been moving there. From 2000 to 2010 the White population in West Allis dropped from 94% to 87% (Vice News, 2014). A University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee professor, Joe Austin, states that West Allis is “a racist’s dream town”, and that there has always been massive racism within the town. Even with the abundance of racism, on January 17, a crowd gather outside of the DA’s office to protest his decision to not charge Mario Lauman, Jesse Cole, and Robert Beringer (Vice News, 2014).

Craig Stingley has appealed DA Chisholm’s decision to the Department of Justice and hopes to one day get justice for his son. Craig says that he plans on filing a civil lawsuit, which would only give Craig compensation for his loss (Vice News, 2014). Craig says in a soul-crushing quote, “I can never be compensated for my loss. My family can never be compensated for our loss. The only compensation that could ever do that is to have Corey back.” Corey Stingley is just one of hundreds of victims of racism. There is a statistic given from Davis’s (2018) book “Policing the Black Man”, and that is that black men are 21-times more likely to be killed by police than white men. Black men are also more likely to be arrested and have longer prison sentences than White men, even if everything about the crime is the same for a White offender and a Black offender. Even though Corey wasn’t a victim of police brutality, he was a victim of racism, and it cost him his life. Even though Corey wasn’t arrested, we can all guess that he would have been if things had not have escalated the way they did, even though he returned the alcohol. Racism is still an ongoing issue in America that needs to be put at the forefront of everyone’s agenda. It’s 2020. We should be able to live in a world without racism.

References

Davis, A. (2018). Policing the black man: Arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment. New York: Vintage Books.

Vice News. (2014, April 11). Racial injustice in Milwaukee: Crime and punishment [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyEVu8NSWcs

Morgan Shawver

Cole Montgomery

CRIM -410

Professor Engstrom

October 27, 2020

Tragic Choices.  (Separated: Children at the Border Documentary).

The PBS documentary  Separated: Children at the Border, was extremely significant especially in today’s day and age, with the current state of our country.  Throughout the United States of America’s history immigration has been important.  Many of our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents immigrated to this country for a better opportunity of life.  Essentially, the United States is a nation built by immigrants, and these people are a huge part of the country’s heart and soul.   We currently live in a world where our county is very divided for numerous reasons.  The issue of deportation remains a huge talking point for debate, and this documentary was very efficient in providing the information needed to understand the topic of illegal immigration.

This documentary in particular caught my eye, because I am currently reading “Detained and Deported by Margaret Regan”, for my book review for Criminology class.  Since I already have knowledge on the topic of illegal immigration in the United States, I was thoroughly interested in what this documentary had to offer.  The documentary explains in detail many instances of Hispanic illegal immigrants attempting to cross the border between the U.S. and Mexico.  In particular, many of these immigrants were attempting to cross the border because their family’s lives were in danger, and they were threatened with death by gang members.  Many people have no choice but to cross the border by jumping onto moving trains, or by paying coyotes or smugglers to help sneak them into the United States in trailers, or tractors.  The documentary explained that during the Obama Administration, there were far more illegal immigrants attempting to cross the border than ever before, because of the issue of violence and lack of safety throughout their countries.  President Obama was left with a tough decision, and that was to separate children from their families who were crossing the border, or to put these families into detention facilities.  Ultimately, these families were put into detention facilities, and it wasn’t until the Trump Administration when children were separated from their families at the border.  This caused outrage among both Republicans and Democrats as explained in the documentary.  The idea of separating children from their parents at the U.S. Mexico border was to keep illegal immigrants from attempting to come into the county illegally in the future.  In other words, it was a fear tactic.  After President Trump decided to not separate families at the U.S. Mexico border anymore, the damage was already done.  Many people were asking questions like, “What about the children who were already separated from their parents?”  or, “What will you do to reunite these families”?  I believe that something needs to be done in order to reverse the separation that has already occurred.  I believe that families that were separated should receive a reparation of $1000 per month.

The documentary describes the horrid conditions in detention centers which house illegal immigrants until their asylum cases are reviewed.  For example, fifteen-year-old Jocelyn explained how she was brought to an “Ice Box” in Texas while she was separated from her mother who was brought to Arizona.  Jocelyn stated that it was “very cold.”  (Marcela Gaviria 2018).  She was traumatized by this experience, and I could see how her mental health was strongly affected by this event.  Her mother described her as angry all the time as a result of this.  Detained and Deported, by Margaret Regan (2015),  also describes the horrid and gruesome experiences that illegal immigrants have when housed in detention centers.  For example, according to the author Regan, “The Estrella detention food was both skimpy and bad, and Mariana was hungry all the time”.  (Regan, 2015, p. 58).  According to the documentary, children as young as one year old, are thrown in cages separated from their parents, while their parents are in other cells.  I learned that the guards were often harsh and rude to the detainees as well.  One guard even told a detainee that they will never be legal.  This is truly disgusting and could be the result of Implicit Bias.  For example, In Professor Engstrom’s Criminology class, I took Implicit Bias tests myself.  (Project Implicit).  Implicit Biases are basically unconscious racial stereotypes.  In the case of this documentary, I truly believe that this applies to the guards of these detention centers and evidence of this could be their negative and aggressive behavior towards the illegal immigrants.

As you can see, this documentary covers a very important issue in our society today.  Many people argue that the only way to keep so many illegal immigrants from rushing into our country is to threaten them with family separation, while other people believe that there are other alternative and that this is far too harsh.  Hopefully, in the future there is a compromise and we find something that can be supported by all Americans.  In conclusion, Separated Children at the Border was a fantastic documentary, and it is very significant that you watch it.

References:

Take a Test. (2011). Harvard.Edu; Project Implicit. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

Marcela Gaviria (2018).  Separated: Children at the Border. FRONTLINE. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/separated-children-at-the-border/

Regan, M. (2015). Detained and Deported: Stories of Immigrant Families Under Fire. Beacon Press.

Cole Montgomery

CRIM -410

Professor Engstrom

October 2, 2020

A Teenage Nightmare (Stickup Kid Documentary).

The documentary, Stickup kid is extremely significant and sad.  The Documentary was produced by Caitlin McNally of PBS Frontline, and was released on December 17, 2020.  The heartbreaking story depicts the life of a juvenile male, Alonza Thomas, who served thirteen years in prison for armed robbery of a Fast Trip gas station.  The story behind this robbery is very interesting.  Just days before this incident Alonza had ran away from his mother and his home.  He met someone who offered to house him for a few days.  This unidentified person fed Alonza and took care of him as well.  As Alonza was ready to return back home just a few days after running away, the man who housed him threatened him at gunpoint.  Alonza explains how this man forced him to rob the gas station, and told him that if he did this he would receive some of the robbery money from him. Feeling helpless, Alonza decided to rob the store.  He ultimately failed and was taken down by the store clerks and was pinned down until the police came.  Just two weeks earlier, California passed a law making it easier to prosecute juveniles as adults.  Alonza’s case was the first case to be tried under this law, and ultimately he was sentenced to thirteen years in Adult Prison, Supermax Prison is Tehachapi California.

While viewing this article, I couldn’t help but feel completely sorry for Alonza.  Throughout our CRIM -410 course we have talked about how social status correlates with criminalization.  This applies to Alonza, because he was extremely poor.  His mother was working two jobs and was hardly home.  Earlier in the semester, I learned from The PBS race timeline for Whites, that “today the average white family has eight times more the wealth of the average nonwhite family.”  Having low socioeconomic status, and coming from a poor African American family definitely helped contribute to Alonza being in the situation that he was in.  While doing research this topic on the internet, I found that researchers have concluded that “the higher rates of crime found amongst young people from socio-economically disadvantaged families reflect a life course process in which adverse family, individual, school, and peer factors combine to increase individual susceptibility to crime.”  (Ferguson et al. 2004).  In Alonza’s case he was terrified and pressured into committing this crime by a criminal who attempted to take advantage of the young and developmentally delayed Alonza Thomas.

I believe that Alonza should not have been sent to Adult Prison for this crime.  He was charged with three counts of robbery in the second degree, one count for each person in the store at the time, the owner and two clerks, and one count of assault with a firearm.  The prosecutor in this case, Ed Jagels seemed far too harsh, and in my opinion, he may have had implicit bias towards Alonza.  Just recently in class, we took implicit bias tests, and did one of our class prep assignments on this.  Many people have unconscious implicit biases towards other races different from their own.  I feel that prosecutors should take into account all of the different situations surrounding each crime.  I believe that Alonza was used as an example being that he was the first juvenile locked up in adult prison under proposition twenty-one in California, and that he was pressured into committing this crime as noted earlier.

Alonza was not a threat to society and should have been tried as a juvenile.  In class we learned about decarceration.  This can be defined as “The reinvestment of the savings from fewer people incarcerated, into education, jobs, affordable housing, community strengthening, and everything/anything else that plugs the pipeline to prison.  Decarceation ends poverty instead of criminalizing the poor.”  (Edelman, 2017, p.158).  Given that Alonza was pressured and threatened into committing this crime, him and his poor family definitely could have greatly benefitted from this.

What I concluded from this documentary, was the fact that Alonza did not belong in Adult Prison.  California has since changed its rules regarding sentencing juveniles to Adult Prison, and over the past nine years twenty-four states have [assed laws to limit the placement of juveniles in adult jails and prisons.  Prison is supposed to rehabilitate people while also punishing people for the crimes that they have committed.  This does not apply to Alonza.  He was scared for life for the unimaginable thirteen years that he served in Adult Prison.  As a result of being sent to prison, Alonza developed chronic depression and anxiety, and is currently on multiple medications to get him through the day.  He is far from rehabilitated in my opinion, and if he was sent to juvenile prison I believe he would have been far better off both mentally and physically.

Overall, this was a dense documentary filled with plenty of information about the process.  I found it very tragic and terrible that this young man’s teenage and early adult years were filled with fear, depression, and frustration.  I really do hope that Alonza enjoys the rest of his life without fear and pain.  In conclusion, Stickup Kid was very significant and was truly eye-opening to me, and I would definitely recommend this documentary to anyone.

References

Fergusson, D., Swain-Campbell, N., & Horwood, J. (2004). How does childhood economic disadvantage lead to crime? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45(5), 956–966

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

Stickup Kid. (n.d.). FRONTLINE. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/stickup-kid/

To begin, since the beginning of time power and wealth have controlled society. Many theorists such as Max Weber and Karl Marx have tried to explain the connection between power and wealth. Karl Marx developed his theory of power by believing it has a connection to class domination. Marx believed that power is linked to class relations in economics and politics. With this being said, the higher up a person is in class the more power they can obtain. Typically, those with extreme wealth can control economics, politics, and others around them due to their ability to control. An individual’s power in society also links them to committing possible crimes such as embezzlement, fraud, or violent crimes like rape. Rape is common for all classes, rich or poor, yet for the poor, justice is less likely to be served due to the rich using their power to silence their victims or making charges disappear. Unfortunately, cases like these are common in today’s society.  

Crime in Connecticut: The Story of Alex Kelly is a film produced by J. Mayboom and released on May 16, 1999. It is  based on the true story of Alex Kelly. Alex Kelly was a senior in school when he raped Carrie Roberts. To silence Roberts, he threatened to kill her if she told, hence forcing her to keep quiet. After learning another female was raped by Alex, she built up the courage to press charges against him. His parents, believing their son is innocent, bailed him out of jail and helped him flee the country. Eventually, the cops were able to find him and rearrest Kelly. He faced a trial where the jury found him guilty. With the help of his successful parents, he fled the country and escaped his charges for many years, leaving Carrie in despair with no justice. This then also prevented her from moving on. The many effects that rape has on a victim is typically never-ending. 

Similar to Alex Kelly, Brock Turner was also a privileged school student who raped a female after a long night of partying. People v. Turner, March 30, 2016,  is the criminal case that convicted Turner of rape. Turner was sentenced to only six months in jail and three years of probation. Due to Turner’s connections to Stanford and being one of the best on their swim team the justice system did not view him as a rapist but instead as a young teenager making a bad decision. Turner’s connections and Kelly’s wealth both allowed them to escape their case in some formal way.

Power and wealth become connected as one in a sexual abuse case against O’Reilly in which he paid thirty-two million dollars to settle a sexual harassment accusation. According to nytimes.com, “Last January, six months after Fox News ousted its chairman amid a sexual harassment scandal, the network’s top-rated host at the time, Bill O’Reilly, struck a $32 million agreement with a longtime network analyst to settle new sexual harassment allegations, according to two people briefed on the matter — an extraordinarily large amount for such cases”. By this time, this was his sixth harassment settlement totaling forty-five million dollars to silence his rape victims. As one can see power and wealth have a way of relating to crime. Many who have power and wealth believe since they have powerful connections and are financially stable, they can do as they please. In some forms, those who have power and wealth benefit others which is also why the upper class can escape jail time when being faced with charges. For example, Brock Turner was an excellent swimmer which added value to Stanford’s swim team. Portrayal of Turner as a horrible person diminished the school’s swim team value. This desire to save face helped Brock Turner escape his short sentence. Unfortunately, situations like the rape victims of Kelly, Turner, and O’Reilly are reoccurrences and continue to show the class struggle. 

Next, despite crim 410 not discussing rape victims it still addresses the class struggle within society. Typically, power is achieved through wealth and the rape victims of Kelly, Turner, and O’Reilly show what happens when going against a powerful wealthy person. Justice at times is denied and not fully achieved. The wealthy get let off easy, disregarding how this affects the victim. Society shows that to achieve you have to be wealthy but to achieve and control you have to be wealthy and powerful. Class is portrayed as a social construct due to the control it has over society. The wealthy are powerful due to them having the financial ability to control what’s around them. In today’s time money rules the world and without it, others fall behind. Also, since money rules the world others would do whatever to receive it, legal or illegal. Sexually assaulting and raping people is another way for the rich to exhibit their power on others. They rape and then pay their victims off to silence them. In return, the victims take the money since they often need need it more than justice. The rich believe their money protects them from the justice system and this thought is proven to be true when the justice system lets them off easy. The class structure is what determines who has power and how high up a person is determines how much power that person has. Unfortunately, the class structure continues to shape society and determines who and who does not achieve ahead. 

In conclusion, the media covered throughout this paper proved my belief in the issues covered. I believe that the criminal justice system is corrupted and run by the wealthy. It constantly goes against the meaning of equality by letting the rich off and the poor suffer. America was built on equality, however, many times the justice system fails to provide fairness. Letting a white man off with only three months of jail time for rape is typical and not surprising. A man being able to silence his victim with a big pay-off is demeaning of a woman’s character. Finally, allowing a man to flee the country due to his parents having the financial means is another way the wealthy use their power. I would recommend this media source to others to get a better understanding of how society works and how the criminal justice system only benefits the rich. In the future it is expected for this unfortunate class struggle to continue. 

References:

“Vanity Fair Confidential” The Fugitive Son (TV Episode 2017). (2017, January 23). IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6461270/

Steel, E. (2017, October 22). Bill O’Reilly Settled New Harassment Claim, Then Fox Renewed His Contract. Https://Www.Nytimes.Com/#publisher. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/business/media/bill-oreilly-sexual-harassment.html

Brockes, E. (2019, September 26). Chanel Miller on why she refuses to be reduced to the “Brock Turner sexual assault victim.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/25/stanford-sexual-assault-victim-chanel-miller-interview

To reference the criminalization of poverty in the United States, I found a podcast called “Justice in America” where they explore this heartbreaking and infuriating topic. I listened to Episode 12: The Criminalization of Poverty. In this episode the two hosts, Josie Duffy Rice and Clint Smith, and their guest Sara Totonchi, look at cases in the country that involve poverty criminalization. They discuss the history of the Criminal Justice System imposing fines and fees to those who already cannot pay their rent, not to mention that some of those fines and fees are for absurd reasons. With the assistance of this episode and the class material, it is easy to see that poor people have a more difficult time in the Criminal Justice System, and it is harder for these people to make their way out. This class has opened my eyes to the aspects that need to be improved in the Criminal Justice System, and this podcast episode expands on that. In the beginning of the episode and the lecture, a Bryan Stevenson quote is used: “It is better to be rich and guilty, than it is to be poor and innocent,” (Stevenson as cited by Rice & Smith, 2019), and “The opposite of poverty is not wealth, it is justice,” (Stevenson as cited by Engstrom, 2020). The whole episode is based around the fact that wealthier people have the advantage of money, and they can pay their way out of jail.

There are multiple cases that Rice and Smith talked about in the episode. Tom Barret was a homeless man that stole a can of beer from a store. He was arrested and offered a court-appointed attorney, but he could not pay the $50 for it, so he went to court unrepresented. Tom ended up having to pay over $400 a month including a rental fee for his ankle monitor. Tom donated plasma to try and get the money to pay his fees, but he would only be paid about $35 each time he donated. Because he could not pay these fees, late fees were added on and soon Tom owed over $1,000, and he was sent to jail for not being able to pay (Rice & Smith, 2019). There is another case involving Janet Blair-Cato and her dogs. Janet had a handful of rescued dogs and she received a “barking ticket” because the dogs were barking too loudly. She then got fines for not having the proper vaccines or tags for her dogs. These fines topped with an unpaid parking ticket that she had, she owed thousands of dollars to the court. She got on a payment plan with the court but happened to miss one payment, and because of that a warrant was put out for her arrest. Her original “crimes” were not punishable by jail time, but because she missed the one payment she spent fifty-two days in jail (Rice & Smith, 2019).

Throughout history there have been laws put in place so discrimination will not be tolerated in the Criminal Justice System. In the 1960’s the Supreme Court ruled that one cannot be punished for their status or condition without them actually being guilty of a specific illegal act (Rice & Smith, 2019). Even though this rule is in place, it is essentially criminalizing people that are homeless. Throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s, there have been courtroom decisions that reinforced the idea of debtors’ prisons being unconstitutional (Rice & Smith, 2019). They are viewed as unconstitutional because they violate the equal protection clause, and they widen the gap between the two tiers of the Criminal Justice System.

With every year that passes, it seems as though more laws are passed that criminalize homelessness. In Colorado for example, seventy-six cities passed 351 ordinances that are targeted toward the homeless, such as sitting too long, sleeping outside, sharing food outside, and camping (Rice & Smith, 2019). Many cities also ban living in vehicles, restrict sleeping in public, and restrict sitting and lying down in public (National Law Center for Homelessness & Poverty, 2019). With the laws against homelessness, there are also more fees/fines being imposed on people for questionable reasons. Ferguson, Missouri made $2.6 million from fines, some from leaving trash cans out on the wrong day, walking in the roadway, and wearing saggy pants (Rice & Smith, 2019). Between 2010 and 2014, 48 states increased criminal and civil court fees. In Massachusetts, people are charged $275 to appeal a traffic ticket. In North Carolina, people must pay to have a jury trial even though that is one of the most basic constitutional rights that people have (Rice & Smith, 2019). There was a judge in Georgia that created an administrative fee of $750 for every person who came before him in court. There was also a judge who imposed a $150 fine on a victim of domestic abuse because she did not want to testify against her abuser in court (Rice & Smith, 2019). Fortunately, both of these judges have been removed from their position of power.

This podcast was very easy to listen to and understand, and it gives many more examples of irrational fines/fees that I could not have even imagined. This podcast helps to put some of these every-day situations into perspective, and how easy it can be to accumulate debt from the courts, especially if someone is of lower class. Everything that this podcast presented is factual so I think that it would be a great listen for anyone in this class, or anyone who wants to learn more about the true Criminal Justice System.

References

Rice, J. & Smith, C. (Host). (2019, January 23). Justice in America: The criminalization of poverty [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://theappeal.org/justice-in-america-the-criminalization-of-poverty/

Engstrom, R. (2020). Criminalization of homelessness [PowerPoint Slides]. Retrieved from https://d2l.iup.edu/d2l/le/content/2963644/viewContent/22757049/View

Morgan Shawver

The story that I chose to focus on is “The Kalief Browder Story” which is a documentary on Netflix produced by Shawn Carter, Nick Sandow, Julia Willoughby-Nason, Michael Gasparro, Chachi Senior, and directed by, Jenner Furst. (This film was also published September 15, 2017.) This film discusses does an amazing job of capturing the injustice, unfairness, and equality of the Criminal Justice System case of a young 16-year-old boy by the name of Kalief Browder who was arrested for allegedly stealing a backpack with valuables inside. He was going home from a party when there was a guy telling police that he has been rob of his little brother’s backpack by two black males, one being Kalif Browder. The police took him to the precinct, questioned him, and told him that “most likely he will be going home” but that is not what happened; he never went home. He spent three years in Rikers Island where he was beaten, mistreated, starved, deprived of showers, and most of all, mentally scarred. The key points, in this case, is that Kalief Browder knows that he was wrongfully accused by the NYPD, he was denied a fair and speedy trial, his family couldn’t make bail, and he was told that if he wants to get out he would need to take the plea deal -but he refused to take it, asserting his innocence. Kalif’s case kept getting swept under the rug. The state said that they weren’t ready for trial, they didn’t have a witness, the D.A. was on vacation, or the D.A is on another trail. Ultimately, Kalief ended up getting out but it was a rough and torturous path.

This film reveals the cruelty and corruption of the criminal justice system and why it needs form when it comes to fair and speedy trials, people in poverty, and the importance of an effective District Attorney. Kalief Browder spent over 1000 days in Rikers Island and more than 70 days in solitary confinement all because he could not afford it, he was indigent. His family’s backs were against the wall. When they found out that his bail was set at 10,000 and that with a bail bondsman, they needed $900 dollars, they could not pay it. The defense attorney in this case was very necessary and even though Kalief was provided one and entitled to one that did not mean that he was guaranteed an effective one. In the provided indigent defense which is public defense.  A public defense attorney’s role in the criminal justice system is to “challenge the reliability of the case, protect their client’s rights, and search for justice”. The concern with this is that because he could not afford an attorney, they provided him a demonstrably negligent one. The public district attorney had piles of cases just like Kalief Browder, almost 800 cases a day. It was hard for Kalief’s attorney(s) to keep up with all the cases. What made it even more difficult is that Kalief had little communication with him. “Whenever it came to court dates, his attorney would send the paper in the mail to his mom’s house knowing that he was in jail” (Carter, 2017)

The questions that are raised in this court is that if they even care about his case at all and the simple answer for that is “no”. Edelman (2017)  discusses how in court “the judge set bail at $3,000 because Browder was already on probation from a previous guilty plea to joyride in a stolen delivery truck” (pg. 45). He was offered plea deals on the backpack theft but did not want to accept them. Edelman (2017) also mentioned in the book that “despite a so-called speedy trial statute, was anything but speedy in the courts”(pg. 46) Speedy trails are different in a different area,s and in New York it wasn’t about the amount of time the court gave, it was about the amount of time the defense attorney needed and if they were ready but again because Kalief Browder was insufficient in providing him justice that becomes very difficult.

This case is important because this is a perfect example of how the Criminal Justice System is broken. Here we have a young boy who went into jail at 16 and came of jail at the age of 19-20 years of age. To add, this wasn’t just any jail this was Rikers Island, the jail that he in conclusion suffered from a mental illness, was beaten and extremely maltreated. It is very important for people to be informed about this case, to know that this can happen and how to handle it when it does happen. It was extremely unfair for Kalief or for any human being to get treated the way he was treated. You are taught to trust the system and it supposed to protect you and this did the total opposite. It is important that people know their rights and that people fight for their rights but it is also important to have a good legal system behind you to ensure that everything is going as they should Kalief Browder should not have been in that prison: He wasn’t supposed to be in solitary confinement, he was not supposed to be paranoid, he wasn’t supposed to commit suicide, he was not supposed to be swept under the rug. He deserved justice.

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

Video Link:

https://www.netflix.com/watch/80187052?trackId=13752289&tctx=0%2C0%2C438b77b200009a8deee2af3624f16f4a1b269846%3A014c3a83df14aa234ac05e3b0545658d1e116123%2C438b77b200009a8deee2af3624f16f4a1b269846%3A014c3a83df14aa234ac05e3b0545658d1e116123%2Cunknown%2C

The podcast that I listened to was Episode 5 of Broken Justice. This covered the major failings of the criminal justice system and more specifically the lack of good public defenders. Ricky Kidd was convicted due to a lack of effort on the behalf of his public lawyer. He told his defender that he knew who committed the murder and had multiple people claiming that he was nowhere near the crime scene. When he finally managed to get a retrial with a judge that would admit the older evidence, even more new information came to light. There was information that pointed towards the other three suspects that was kept from his initial lawyer by the prosecution and the only witness to place Ricky at the scene recanted his statement. Eventually, after weeks of waiting, Ricky was released as a free man with the judge ruling that the prosecution illegally withheld evidence and that he was innocent the entire time. Because Ricky and his family were so poor, they were unable to afford a good lawyer the first time around and it was only by luck that he managed to get the attention of a good lawyer that would help him fight to be free.

In Ricky’s case, I feel as though there was a combined fault between his defender, the prosecution, and the judge at his initial trial for how he was first sentenced. As we have gone over in class, public defenders typically are not able to do their job as well as hired lawyers can simply because there are too many cases for them to be working with, they are not paid enough, and they are unable to gather the most accurate data since they tend to be working on a time crunch (Edelman, 2017). With regards to Ricky’s defender, she was working on the assumption that he was innocent, and she believed him. If she had more time before the trial to get access to other evidence for his case, he most likely would have stood a better chance at going free. The prosecution’s withholding of evidence is another story, however as that was done deliberately and with the knowledge that they could potentially be sending an innocent man to jail. While the defense lawyer’s failings could be excused due to lack of knowledge and ability to help, the prosecution subverted the justice system. This subversion of the justice system to me is comparable to holding innocents in Ricker’s Island because they refused to plead guilty to charges when they were innocent (Edelman, 2017). The judge is one that honestly confuses me. If Ricky already had so much information admissible in court that would prove his innocence, then why was he convicted in the first place? Charging him with murder solely because a singular witness placed him at the crime scene does not seem like a valid reason to lock them up. The justice in that case was a matter of whose words held more weight and the old man who claimed he saw Ricky had words that held more weight than the two separate people Ricky got to testify for him.

This podcast gave me a greater insight into the problems that can occur with the criminal justice system, especially with the lawyers and court trials. Even with what we have been discussing in class I still considered all of this to be more of an abstract concept to me. However, listening to Ricky’s story as well as the documentary Defending Gideon, I feel as though I am getting a better understanding of just how badly someone’s life can go if they do not have a good lawyer to help them when they are accused of a crime. Edelman’s (2017) description of everything that occurred in Kalief Browder’s case proves it further as Kalief was trapped in Rikers Prison when he did not actually commit the crime for which he was accused. All of these cases really opened my eyes as these people never truly committed the crimes and all were unlawfully jailed. It is always said that so long as you keep out of trouble there is no need to worry about being arrested or going to jail, but these cases made me realize that is not true. What happened to one person could happen to anyone even if there is slight stigmas or biases attached to one group over another. All it takes is one instance where you are in the wrong place at the wrong time for you to be arrested or convicted for something you never even knew about.

Edelman, P. (2017). Not a Crime to Be Poor: The Criminalization of Poverty in America. New York, NY: The New Press.

The media that I chose to do was Under the bridge: Criminalization of Homelessness documentary. The documentary consists of homeless individuals telling their story on why they are homeless in Indianapolis. In Indianapolis, they have one of the biggest homeless camps and are reported all over the news. They tell stories of how many years per se they have been homeless. For the most part, some of these individuals have been homeless for some three-plus years. Most of the people that are homeless in this documentary are without housing because they have lost their jobs. During this stressful economic time, it is difficult for them to gain employment. Additionally, the individuals who have gone to jail for a certain length of time may lose their job and ultimately end up homeless. A good example is one individual featured in the documentary. This individual was in the army for an extended period and, due to current circumstances, he is now unemployed and therefore homeless. The sad truth is that once individuals are homeless, it is even more difficult to gain employment for reasons such as lack of cleanliness, gaps in employment history, etc. on the part of the individual. Instead, assumptions and judgments are passed and as a result, the individual remains unemployed and homeless. No consideration is given to the individual’s current situation. Ironically, a homeless man named Maurice was an African American male, again, due to his circumstances became homeless and graduated to becoming the mayor of the biggest homeless camps. Before becoming the Mayor, Maurice made several attempts to gain employment, and naturally, he was not successful. Maurice has been homeless for years and now he helps other homeless people and gathers them together. He is more of a go-to for those with similar situations. They are all trying to make a living off the homeless camps. The camps consist of different gender and race to include children as always blacks are the majority. The black community in Indianapolis does not have any opportunity there. For the most part, most of those that are homeless likely need supervision for one reason or another. Some of these individuals include those with disabilities, those with mental illness, etc. Sadly, individuals who happen to fall on bad times are then grouped together and, therefore, considered bad and dangerous.

A homeless person can go missing, and no one would know where they have gone or what has happened because they are forgotten about, or no one cares. The city of Indianapolis isn not helping the situation any better. Instead, the homeless are treated with no respect and are treated like criminals. Depending on where they may sleep for the night, they may or may not get arrested. There are shelters for people in Indianapolis, but they are faith-based. The homeless complain about how it is like jail, and it might be worse than jail. The shelter is called a wheeler and the individuals are required to meet certain requirements to be welcomed. Additionally, they can only sleep there for 10 days. The city does not pay or give the right attention to them to help them get off the streets. Instead, they close camps, forcing them out of the sites, having them move the camps from place to place. The camps are frowned upon, so they attempt to spread the homeless out rather than assist the individuals better their situation. Sadly, the most attention the homeless receive for the city includes being arrested for one reason or another. The city isn’t funding the homeless in any way. The city of Indianapolis is not making matters better for the homeless, only making it worse because they feel that people do not want to see homeless people. How they deal with that, they move homeless out of the places they were living at to keep their streets clean or homeless free. It’s a problem in other places for those who do sleep outside Indianapolis. They were kind of okay with them being able to sleep outside in tents, but they were being pushed away. There are at least 37% of cities that do not let the homeless people camp around city wide. If they do so they get arrested. The loafing around for the homeless had increased to 103% that had been probibited.

The city did not care to help the homeless. Instead, they wanted them out of the area so it could look clean. Indianapolis made matters worse for the homeless. The city is not sensitive to the feelings or situations of both the homeless and those individuals who wanted to lend a helping hand towards the homeless. The city frowned upon helping the homeless. The reason given was that it was dangerous to have children around homeless people even though the children’s parents allowed the situation. The citizens are helping more than the mayor. The city didn’t do enough to help the people, and the homeless have been pushed away. The homeless had to keep finding other camping grounds. Ultimately, especially being a person of color and given our current situation, it was very difficult to watch this documentary. I have empathy for all of those who shared their stories. It is sad to see such treatment of other humans. It is also discouraging to know that the city frowned upon any of the assistance in which wealthier individuals could have been offered to help those who could not help themself. Not everyone wants or enjoys being homeless and unemployed, and as a people, we should, at a minimum try to help when able. If we consider today and our current economic situation, any one of us could be in like Maurice.

References

National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. (2018, October). What is criminalization of homelessness? https://Nlchp.Org. https://nlchp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/criminalization-one-pager.pdf

Sawyer, D. (2017). Under The Bridge: The Criminalization of Homelessness. Retrieved October 10, 2020, from https://www.amazon.com/Under-Bridge-Criminalization-Homelessness-Sawyer/dp/B01M23XHLN

Jeffrey Poland

10/9/20

Dr. Engstrom

Race, Police, and the pandemic

I watched a documentary called Race, Police, and the Pandemic. This documentary explained some of the race relations between police and the black community today. The man speaking in the documentary talked about what effected the relations how the police are treated and how the community views the departments that guard their communities. How Covid, education, and even healthcare has been affecting how black people are treated in the community, and how in some ways we could fix these issues. One of the issues is how the communities and how blacks are treated could affect how they act and grow up in the community. The community is all built around institutions and this could influence how these young men and women are brought up. If they are brought up with a bad education system that does not care about them this could lead them down a dark path. In some of the places the man in the documentary speaking has visited he said that some of the protests were not about police as much. It was about the reform for the local schools and institutions that provide education, healthcare, and housing to the local people. The school’s go to thing for students that got in trouble was to just suspend them. “Jayden, an African American Junior in High School in Antioch, California, had been bullied since the fifth grade” (Edelman, pg. 117). Bullying in class could also lead to lash outs and aggressive behavior. This could lead to them not showing up to school and going out during the day when they should be in school and do things, they should not be doing instead of being in the classroom. The police in these protests were just one of the things they wanted a change to in the communities they lived in because it could be more than the police effecting the crime and actions of these young individuals.

The police could also have a big effect on the community and how they act and take up cases could also negatively affect police race relations. In the documentary they talked about a 17-year-old boy who was shot and killed by a police officer in Chicago, the boy’s name was Laquan McDonald. This boy was shot and killed a Chicago police officer while on duty. For a year there was an investigation and the police officers gave their statements and it seemed they were justified in the act. According to footage of the incident that came out a year later told a different story. The Police had lied about their statements about what had really happened during the incident and the administration and the police department tried to cover it up. This is the definition of a corrupt system of police and administration and it needs to be fixed. “There were more problems with the police union than the chief” (Race, Police, and the pandemic). Some might think the problem starts with the police chief about reform but it is not, it is usually the police union that has a push back with reform for corrupt departments. The police chief in Chicago wanted reform for for use of deadly force specifically after this shooting but there was push back from the Police union.

Fortunately, there has been instances where a police department has had a bounce from an incident and improved a lot. The Los Angeles Police department had an incident in the 90’s where one of the police beat a man and was caught on video. After this case there was a big reform in the department. The department did a consent decree which helped improve the institution in the following years. They got higher respect from the communities from the actions they took after the program was launched. When there was a call with a mentally ill person a social worker was sent out with the officer to the scene. This was done because the officer was not well equipped enough to handle it and a person who is trained in handling this can take down the situation a few notches better than an officer with a gun and handcuffs. This relates to today’s society where they want to “defund the police”. They mean send social workers into a scene rather than a police officer who is not well trained in handling mentally ill people like a social worker is.

I believe the more time we put into the communities with these issues has a chance to improve. If we can just fix the institutions that control these communities and improve the education, healthcare, housing, and especially the police department. Schools need to stop immediately sending kids on suspension if they do something wrong so they can do things they shouldn’t be doing in the streets. Extend healthcare out to those who need it and especially reform the departments. Send out social workers that can help the community and make a difference. All these things can come together and make a big change in something that has been going on for one hundred plus years.

References

Edelman, P. B. (2017). Not a crime to be poor: the criminalization of poverty in America. The New Press.

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtedrSReKFo

Homelessness around the world

The film I chose to watch for this media blog is called “Professor Green: Hidden and Homeless” the documentary took place in Manchester, the UK in 2016. Paul Mandersonor, who is also known as Professor Green, followed young homeless adults around to uncover the truth behind a young adult who has no place to call home. Within the United Kingdom, Manchester has seen a large rise in homelessness amongst people under the age of twenty-five. As discussed in class in the United States, there are over a half million people who go homeless on a single night. As, sixty-five percent of the homeless are in the shelters there are around 200,000 homeless people who are unsheltered on the streets, in cars, in abandoned buildings, etc. Almost half of the homeless at forty-seven percent are living in the state of California. other around 200, The breakdown of the traditional family structure is one of the main causes of youth homelessness.  As discussed in class, there can be many reasons why somebody could end up homeless for example, mental illness, substance abuse problems, histories of incarceration, low income, and lack of social connections could play a huge factor.

In the documentary, he interviewed a 20-year-old man named Luke, who has been living on the streets for five years on and off. Luke has been in and out of prison for five years and when he is not locked up, he is living in the streets. While locked up, Luke has been assaulted by his cellmate for example, he was cut by a knife, suffocated with a pillow, and raped. In class, we discussed how the homeless are punished because they are homeless. When they get out of prison, they have nowhere to go or income coming in. Edelman (2017) discusses how they punish the homeless for being poor. “The people locked up have always been disproportionately poor and of color and for the most part, their incarceration has ensured that they would stay poor for the rest of their lives (p.159).” The above quote shows how the system works against the poorer communities across the world. Our current systems are against the poorer community since it is extremely difficult to secure a job after being convicted of a crime. This promotes repeat offenders since many end up homeless after their first offense.

The documentary begins when Luke started getting into trouble at the age of 14 and started hanging out with 30-year-olds. That soon led him to try hard drugs with the help of peer pressure from his older friends so that he wanted to seem cool. As soon as he got hooked onto the drugs he began running away from home because he wanted to stay with his “second family”. At the age of 15, he officially ran away from home and began living with a drug dealer which led him to sell drugs himself. As his life is about to take another turn, Luke’s, housemate was arrested for selling hardcore drugs which left Luke on the streets. While on the streets, he faced prostitution, crime, and drugs. Drugs are a problem in the city as 80-90% of the city’s homeless are addicted to “spice”. This is a synthetic of cannabis that is cheap and legal. Living on the streets in Manchester does not mean you are counted as a homeless person. You have to be lying down to sleep to be a part of the unofficial statistics. However, in the United States, there are crime-free ordinances that push homeless people out of the city. Edelman (2017) documents, “Over the last decade, citywide bans on camping in public space have increased by 69 percent, on loitering, loafing, and vagrancy by 88 percent and on living in vehicles by 143 percent. No sleeping, no sitting, no eating in public spaces add these together and it’s clear that many cities just want homeless people to go away.” (p.149). Many proponents argue that the local government provides homeless shelters and food lines for the less fortunate. The counterpoint to this argument is that many of these government programs are overrun and thus only partly effective in making a difference. Local laws of banning sleeping outside and the banning of sleeping in your vehicle causes a stigma towards these specific communities, causing them to choose jail time instead of homelessness.

There are 38,500 homeless people are living in shelters and roaming around in Manchester. However, Luke was lucky enough to receive one of the shelter’s beds, as he is put into a six-month placement to help turn his life around and conquer his addiction. If caught bringing any drugs into the placement could resolve in getting kicked out. Luke could not realize a day without spice and, therefore, he left and hit the closest supermarket. Mandersoneer (2017) said in the documentary, “He went from being quite humble you know, nice person to just being an idiot” with just taking spice.”. Luke, as soon as he was kicked out of the shelter for having drugs and ended back in the street in a repeating cycle.

I chose this documentary because I think it is important to acknowledge and understand that homelessness is not just a United States problem, it’s a universal problem. This documentary shines a light on homelessness that is not counted as “homelessness” and are considered hidden. As it is focusing on people who are under the age of twenty-five. Before this documentary, I did not understand the severity of the problem across the world and the number of homeless people around my age.

References

Edelman, P. B. (2017). Not a crime to be poor: the criminalization of poverty in America. The New  Press.

Green, Professor, (2016). director. Professor Green: Hidden and Homeless,www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9HohQTwi6A.