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

The documentary I decided to watch was Flint’s Deadly Water, which fits in with the topic of class and crime. The documentary discusses the issues with Flint, Michigan’s water crisis and how it has led to an outbreak of a disease called Legionnaire’s. Legionnaire’s disease is a deadly form of pneumonia that was caused by waterborne bacteria that was growing in the water pipes for over a year before it was made known to the public and to the residents of Flint. This documentary also talks about how state and local government officials failed to stop this water crisis that caused a large number of casualties.
Flint, Michigan is home to about 96,000 people, with 53.7% of its residents being African American and about 40% of them being in poverty. The city of Flint itself was in poverty and considered to be one of the poorest cities in America, which is why the government officials of Flint decided to switch to a new water pipeline that was supposed to be cheaper, several million dollars cheaper. Flint originally got their water from a Detroit water supply, but officials decided to switch to temporarily getting their water from the Flint River while the new pipe was being built. They had to go back to using an old water treatment plan, however, the plan had not been used in almost half a century. Many people, including Matt McFarland and Mike Glasgow, had concerns about this new plan for the water, concluding that the water was not ready to be used and there was not enough staff to help ready the water, but officials overlooked their concern. Mike Glasgow even said that if the water plant were to open on schedule, it would be against his direction, but he never received a response to his suggestion. Within weeks of the opening of the water plant, residents began to send in reports of the water being brown and foul-smelling. By the end of 2014, there were 40 confirmed cases of Legionnaires’ disease, along with 3 confirmed deaths. A woman from the health department claimed that this deadly outbreak could not be from the water since the water was never tested. No government officials took this seriously, in fact, a letter was drafted to alert medical professionals about this disease, but the letter was never sent because the person in charge was absent that day. So, only 15 people were notified about the problem. Dr. Stout, Director of the Special Pathogens Lab, insisted that the CDC be contacted, but a letter sent to them stated that Flint did not need the CDC’s help and if they did, they would contact them. The CDC responded by saying that they saw an urgent need for an investigation since this was one of the largest outbreaks in years. However, once high levels of lead in the water were made public, the local and state officials had no choice but to confront this water problem. At this time, Todd Flood was brought in to do a criminal investigation on the water. Todd’s investigation was bringing forth evidence of misconduct and negligence, and that he believed that the government tried to cover up the water crisis. In fact, Frontline found dozens of other deaths due to Legionnaires’ disease, which was reported as death from pneumonia. After the investigation, the judge ordered Dr. Wells and Nick Lyon to stand trial, however, both appealed, which caused the trial to take even longer. When a new Attorney General was appointed, she appointed new prosecutors who dropped the charges against both Wells and Lyons. That is why I believe that no justice will be served in this case. There was no point to completely just throw the case out, especially with all the evidence that showed Lyon and Wells tried covering up the crisis. I believe they deserved to be charged with involuntary manslaughter.
A government-appointed civil rights commission in Michigan claimed that systemic racism played a major role in the Flint water crisis and that the emergency manager law is disproportionate and hurts people of color the most. I believe that the water crisis has been going on for so long because the majority of their residents were poor, African American families. If this water crisis happened in a rich, predominantly white neighborhood, the issue would have been fixed very quickly. The problem with this whole outbreak was the fact that the government officials knew that there was a Legionnaires’ outbreak, but instead of alerting the public, they decided to keep it quiet. If the government officials alerting their residents of this deadly disease, so many innocent lives could have been spared. Nick Lyon was so unbothered by this whole crisis that he said that people are going to die of something someday. That just shows how little care he had. Jasmine McBride was one of the people who contracted Legionnaires’ disease, and for a few years, she was surviving with this disease. Even though her lungs were failing, her heart was failing, she was on oxygen, and in need of a transplant, she was still fighting to stay alive. Unfortunately, her body was under so much stress that it caused her to have a cardiac arrest and die.
I think it is important to watch this documentary because it shows just how the government can betray its people, especially those of a lower class. This documentary has given me even more reason to believe that America does not care about people who do not have a high-class standing. Knowing that the government sat back and watched hundreds of people die, it is hard to believe that they actually care about their people.

References

Ellis, A., Ruble, K., Carah, J., Childress, S., & Koughan, F. (2019). Flint’s Deadly Water. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/flints-deadly-water/

anonymous

Eric Dawkins

Crim 410

Media Blog 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7sGCzwxFyc&t=1282s

Surviving the “Most Livable City”

Summary: To begin, the media production that I chose to observe was a documentary about homelessness and crime in Vancouver. A man by the name of Misha Kleider wanted to gain an understanding of just how difficult it was to live on the east side of Vancouver where homelessness and crime was extremely prevalent. To do this, he decided he would leave behind his normal life and become a homeless man himself for 30 days on the streets of Vancouver. The harsh reality he faced during this time was shocking. Before he even began, he was doing a report about the state of the east side of Vancouver after hearing that Vancouver was voted to be one of the most “livable” cities. During his filming, he had a bottle broken over his head and was bleeding. Some of the behaviors and actions of the homeless people he encountered portrayed just how hard it is to survive in this section of Vancouver. During this time, he saw people using drugs, stealing, and assaulting each other. Most of this was just survival behavior to get food or other life necessities.

The drug abuse was also evident in this documentary. The drug scene in Vancouver is notorious for being very open in plain sight, making it easier for junkies and others to purchase drugs. After staying the night with another homeless person, they gave him heroin as a thank you/goodbye gift for staying with them. He also decided to try crack as well, to get a better understanding of what the Vancouver homeless feel like on a day to day basis. In an effort to better his living situation, he had asked people where the closest shelters are. He was able to find one called “The Gathering Place.” Here he was given a shower, clothes as he began his time with just underwear at the beginning of December, and some food. He then found a place to sleep for a few days at another shelter. However, he decided after a few days to sleep on the streets, just like others who had overstayed their time in the shelters were forced to do. He did his best to try to find places that were covered and make the best of the situation. He typically slept in alleys or random abandoned storage structures until it got too gross and he had to find a new spot. In the alleys people would always take from each other or assault each other in order to get things such as food or drugs from people. Eventually, with just five days left, he decided he had had enough and quit. At this point he had looked and began behaving completely different than when he started. He was more on edge and aggressive. He was tired and fed up with the lifestyle he put himself in. This would be in part due to the drugs but mainly the changed mindset on how to survive.

Analysis: This documentary expands on the idea we talked about in class about how the system is unfair to those in poverty. There are very little options for them as far as food sources, they are forced to fight to survive which could very easily put them in trouble with the law. If that happens, as we have already talked about, they would be inevitably tossed into prison and put in even more financial debt due to the inability to have a lawyer, pay bail, or appease other court ordered tasks (Edelman, 2017).

The perspective presented in this production is that homeless people, in this case the ones in Vancouver, are constantly forced to fight to survive with the risk of being arrested and thrown into our criminal justice system always lingering in the back of their mind, when they are not high or drunk, of course. The portion of this film where he was trying to find a place where he could get food reminded me of the one reading that discussed prohibiting food sharing, ultimately limiting the food sources homeless people have even more (National Law Center of Homelessness & Poverty, 2019) . Unfortunately, this film did not propose any ideas for improving the life of homeless people or try to find a solution for reducing the number of homeless people or crime in general.

Personal Reflection: This video really opened my eyes as to how tough it can be to be homeless and exposed me to behaviors I never thought much about when thinking about how homeless people live their lives. One of the most eye-opening things I observed in this film was the fact that he had lived the life of a homeless person for just 25 days and was fed up and quit. That just makes me think about the people that have to live in that manner for essentially what could be the rest of their lives. I also think this video does a great job of showing why people in poverty have trouble getting out of it and finding a job and bettering themselves. I feel this way because it shows how low the part of the city is economically in the first place so that makes it even more difficult to find sources of money or work. Lastly, I would recommend this media source because I believe it accurately portrays how life is lived on the streets as a homeless person. It includes the dangers, difficulties, and obstacles these people face on a daily basis. It could also show people the reasons why people in poverty commit crimes, because they are compelled to in order to survive.

References

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

National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. (2019). Housing Not Handcuffs: Ending the Criminalization of Homelessness in U.S. Cities.

Eric Dawkins

The media I chose to watch was a documentary called The Line: Poverty in America. In this documentary they follow four people and they tell their stories and how they ended up being below the line. The key points I took away from watching this is that anyone can end up below the poverty line and all of the people discussed in this documentary did in different ways. Some people are born into poverty after generations of it and they continue to stay there, some people had high paying jobs, and anything can happen to cause you to lose that job and all sources of income causing them to fall below the poverty line. The documentary not only discussed how people fall into poverty, but they also discuss what comes of being in poverty. Many people lose all hope and cause them to fall into situations that would be considered out of character for them, like committing crimes.

This documentary put forth cases showing how one of the men had children who were on Medicaid and many of the people living in poverty presented in this video were living off of public benefits, including welfare, food stamps, unemployment and disability. Hearing their stories expands on what we have read and discussed in class. “No wonder we have 15 million people whose only income is from food stamps-which is just over $6,000 a year for a family of three, less than a third of the poverty line.” (Edelman, 2017, p. 96). This documentary helps put this quote to light, for these people that is their only source of income for their entire family, for an entire year, and it is well below the poverty line. I believe this documentary went along with everything we have discussed in class about poverty regarding how easy it is to get there and more importantly how difficult it is to escape it. One specific issue we talked about in class was unemployment which some people in the video relied on. “Unemployment insurance has always firmly been seen as assistance for the “deserving poor.” In today’s world, though, slashing the length and the amount of benefits is prevalent, along with other steps to keep the rolls down” (Edelman, 2017, p. 98). I think this is an important thing to understand and how many individuals do not make that much off of unemployment and a lot of the time the benefits run out and they are left with nothing yet again.

In the video they discuss how difficult it is to find a job to not only to support the individual but their families as well. I think it is important to understand that a great deal of people below the poverty line do not just sit around all day collecting benefits but many of them are actively looking for jobs which is a difficult thing to do if you have money and a degree, let alone people in poverty who do not have much experience or schooling to back them up, making it more difficult for them. “We urgently need to invent a new, decent system, one that is connected to the realities of the job market and how much it costs to live at even the most rudimentary level” (Edelman, 2017, p. 96).

As for solutions, I think it is important to realize that where someone lives, how many people they are supporting, how much help they can get from others is all very important to consider and be included with the benefits they receive. In the documentary these people had 3-4 kids and received such little support from benefits they had to choose what they absolutely needed for their children and that was all they could afford. The system needs to reevaluate their standards of what people receive and base it off of the cost of living in that particular area and possibly give them the resources and means to help them find a job.

The documentary added to my understanding of how difficult life is for people living below the poverty line and how little people think about them or do anything to help them in a reasonable way. I would recommend this documentary to others for the reason that I think it is important to realize the stigma around homeless people and people in poverty is not always accurate and I feel those stigmas are the reason they do not get much help. People believe that they put themselves into that situation and that they do not do anything to get themselves out of it but that is where people fail to realize how difficult it is to get out of poverty when the system seems to be working against them at every turn and making them seem like criminals who abuse their benefits. In the video they explain how hope is so important to help get them out of these situations and kids who grow up in poverty and have been below the line for generations lack hope because they feel that this is all the world has to give to them and that they do not deserve anything more, and when they have hope and resources to help them they can see that there is a way out.

References

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

Documentary Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHyNBGIFYl8

anonymous

This media blog post I watched was a documentary called “Under The Bridge: The Criminalization of Homelessness” and this documentary talks about the situation in a city of Indiana called Indianapolis. It was filmed during the summer of 2013 and showed a group of people that lived under a bridge on a street called Davidson Street. In this city homelessness is a big issue and it comes to a point where people have camp sites across the city. In one particular site, was a big site where everyone would go and people in the community would help bring food and do services for them to make sure they can still stand on their feet. This camp had church groups come in and do music shows and BBQ events for them. Some of the people that helped them became good friends with the homeless people. A person named Maurice Young was the founder of that camp and is still currently in charge of it. It also had amazing reputation and became one of the biggest camps. In the documentary it talks about how the police borough of Indianapolis made a separate department for homeless people and tried to help them out and try to keep them out of harm’s way. Throughout the documentary this department checked on them regularly and tried to make sure they know where all the camps are located. The conflict that occurred during the documentary was the camp lived under a train bridge and the company wanted to do a bridge cleaning and that meant that the people living in that camp needed to leave, but they didn’t want to leave so the people who were standing there after five days were arrested. The issue was that the company that owned the land right next to the bridge wanted to sell the land to make apartments but no one wanted to buy the land with the homeless people living right next to the property.
This documentary let some of the people talk about how they ended up being homeless and they talk how some people had substance abuse problems, mental issues, and low income. These corresponds to information that was given to us in class during the power point about “Criminalization of Homelessness”. From reading through the PowerPoint slides the one positive I realized Indianapolis was very supported of homeless people and tried to help. The reason why I said this is that in one of the slides claims that 72% of cities do not support camping in public and 51% cities do not support sleeping in public. The issue I do not get is why camping in some areas in the world is a crime. I can understand no camping on private property, but if its public I do not see anything wrong with it. Police in some cities will fine homeless people for camping or sleeping public areas.
After watching the documentary, I personally would recommend this to anyone interested in public issues. Even if you have no interest on this topic, I would recommend it just for the learning experience. I personally learned a lot from this documentary and watched the whole process on what some homeless people go through. I was very shocked to find out how nice some homeless people are and how well they got along with people that are not homeless. When seeing how some of those who helped became good friends with the homeless people it warmed my heart because I feel like the world just sees them as street dogs.
The main reason why I did my topic on homelessness is because when I got to India, homelessness is a big deal and it is a coincidence that a lot of homeless people in India live under bridges, and that this documentary talks about a specific camp under the bridge. When going through cities in India, a lot of homeless people will come up to your car and ask for money and will go to the extent of cleaning your car in traffic and then, immediately ask for a tip for cleaning. Homelessness in India is very welcomed in certain parts of India because where I live, homeless people are welcomed but I know in different parts the police over there do beat the homeless and no one can do anything about it. The India law enforcement is a very corrupt system, so they can mostly do what they want. I have known some family friends in India that have become homeless and they have told me that it is very difficult to get out of being homeless if you do not have a family or anyone to help you.

By: Lavkirit Gurm

After watching “Time: The Kalief Browder Story” it occurred to me that this man had endured a major case of injustice. Here is his story, on May 2^nd, 2010, Kalief and his friend were returning from a party when police stopped Kalief and began to frisk him. Upon the search the police asked an unfamiliar person to Kalief “if he was sure this guy robbed his brother”. Kalief was then taken to the precinct where he was questioned for hours. He was accused of stealing a backpack. Kalief declared his innocence and he was not going to budge one bit until he was released. The judge set a $3,000 bail on Kalief and sent him to Rikers Island where he would spend 3 years and a majority of that in solitary confinement.

During the duration of Kalief’s time spent on Rikers Island he was brutally beaten by fellow inmates and guards. They said he had been going through this kind of torture because he was not “getting with the program”, or in a lack of better words giving up his stuff. Kalief was bullied during his stay, he was moved around multiple times to different housing units. Finally, it came to the point where Kalief was placed in solitary for even more punishment. Over the course of his stay at Rikers, he had undergone many court dates. The problem is nothing was solved from these court appearances. The district attorney offered him a deal and Kalief, confident in his innocence, was not willing to accept it. The prosecution pushed off his case using the terrible excuses like “we are not ready” or “our witness has fled the country”. To make a long story short Kalief was denied his amendment right to a speedy trial. Of course, he was given a defense attorney, but like any public defender he was swamped with other cases. Kalief was stuck, and there was nothing him or his family could do. His family had tried at least as they found the money for the bond. By that point, however, the court said he violated his parole and would not release him. Kalief was being punished because he would not let the prosecution pin this crime on him. This is a classic case demonstrating how unjust our system really is.

We can see that Kalief was an indigent offender judging by the sheer fact that his family could not afford the $900 bond to release him from jail. Kalief is just one of the thousands that go through the exact situation. In the book Not a Crime to be Poor by Peter Edelman (2017)he states that “11.7 million people spend some amount of time in America’s county or city jails. Three fifths of them have not been found guilty of anything” (p. ?.). America has targeted cash bail onto the poor of America, placing them in jail for days, months, even years in Kalief’s case. What is the purpose? Ultimately cash bail is placed on offenders to ensure their return to court. When you pay that amount of money to the court, they usually return that after the trial has taken place. For indigent offenders though this can have a negative impact on them. In the end, this is not the only way that the justice system could ensure someone’s chances of coming back to court.

New York City decided they were going to change after the horrible incident Kalief Browder went through. “Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed in 2015 to spend $18 million to triple the number of defendants under pretrial supervision in the community” (Edelman, 2017, p. ?.). The City has pointed out that there is a better way to ensure someone’s return to court. The inability to pay could leave someone in a very vulnerable situation to admit to guilt for something they didn’t even do. In practice, the use of cash bail is more than just placing money on the person’s ability to return to court, the court use it as leverage. This may not be the instance of all offenders in the United States, but it sure does make one suspect of it when looking at a case like Kalief’s. It is a bullseye placed on the poverty of America, trying to “clean” up our cities to ensure the clean-up of crime. Instead of doing that it is ruining individual and family’s lives. Just because you place a bail on to someone does not mean you are keeping crime off the streets. In the end, it is just making matters worse. Eventually the Criminal Justice System will see the damage it has caused and bring reform to be a priority. They should see the stories like Kalief’s who lost his life due to one small sum of money. This is not to ensure the safety of Americans it’s an unjust attack on the poor, due to a messed-up system.

After watching this documentary on Kalief Browder’s story it has helped clarify the unjust that the poor community in this country has to go through. This documentary proves that the African American and low-income communities are being targeted by the Criminal Justice System. Kalief Browder’s story is a definite must-see moment in our countries history that should never forget. I would recommend this documentary to anyone for the sheer fact that Kalief Browder must be heard until reform takes place. His story is not the first and before reform takes place may very well not be the last. The question is when will we see a change?

-Josh Dauberman

References

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

Furst, J. (2017). Time the Kalief Browder story. ROC Nation, The Weinstein Company. https://www.netflix.com/title/80187052

The documentary I watched was Poverty, Politics and Profit which follows the stories of families hurt by poverty and a government that says they are helping but cannot seem to prove how. The documentary starts by following the section 8 vouchers. The section 8 vouchers are supposed to pay the difference between what a renter can actually pay and the price of rent itself. Unfortunately, for most of these renters who are eligible for section 8 on 1 out of every 4 households actually get it. You are able to see people running to the section 8 offices at full sprint in a desperate attempt to get one of the applications and hopefully be able to put a roof over their family’s heads. The vouchers are only good for 90 days which means these people need to try their hardest to find a place that will not only take them in but a place that also accepts the section 8 vouchers before they have to start the process all over again. Something really sad that comes up is the reaction of the community when they learn about low income housing moving to their neighborhood. Construction on a section 8 housing area was put to a stop because the city called a meeting and local residents complained that the new housing will create traffic, over crowding in schools, and some did not like the idea of having low income housing residents near them at all. These residents were completely ignoring the fact that these people may not have anywhere else to go. You also get to see how primarily low income housing residents are mainly African American and that seems to be the biggest issue with the community, they call the police on them and verbally assault them just for living in this area.

Next comes The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit which was a new way to allow public housing to be built, but it also introduced a new set of problems. The way this tax credit works is, the IRS gives a significant amount of tax credit to state government for state housing and then the local government splits these credits up to developers where then the developers will sell these credits to banks for cash and loans which thy then use to build the apartments. Since the tax payers are paying for most of it this means they are able to charge lower rent prices. The problem again arises where they still need to find locations for these apartments and there is always pushback from the local residents because they all assume that all people in low income housing are criminals and that they will destroy their town and their way of life. This eventually leads to the reason why low income housing developments are almost all located in unsafe areas. The people who were once opposed to the idea are now in full support because these apartments are no longer in their backyards. This is now causing lawsuits to form saying that the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit supports racial segregation, making it always seem like a lose-lose situation. Finally, when they were able to reach an agreement with the public and private sectors, everyone seemed happy but the amount of money being paid by the taxpayers did not line up with the amount of housing being produced.

With the amount of money being paid by the taxpayers and the amount of housing being created something just was not adding up. Over the last twenty years the amount of housing units has fallen from seventy thousand to fifty thousand while the taxpayers are paying more than 60% and that is after inflation. After making this discovery they reached out to people involved with the low-income housing tax credit, but no one would agree to any kind of interview. Millions of dollars were stolen from these projects by creating fake bank accounts and fake construction businesses. The developers of these low incoming housing units were stealing money from their own projects in order to build themselves bigger and nicer houses. To make matters even worse the leaders of these organizations were using the money they stole to build private villas in foreign countries and hiking up the rent to again fill their own pockets.

Poverty in America is a very serious issues and it is sad to see just how far people will go to avoid the issue. Everywhere from local residents voting to veto any chance for affordable housing in their neighborhood all the way to the developers who are responsible for creating low income housing apartments stealing money from these projects. Everyone deserves to have a home and a place they can be safe and if things keep going the way they are that will never become a reality.

-Anonymous

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/poverty-politics-and-profit/

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/

Title – Exposing Jeffrey Epstein’s international sex trafficking ring | 60 Minutes Australia

Producer – Thea Dikeos and Naomi Shivaraman

Date – November 10, 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQOOxOl9l80&t=1s

Brief summary of video – Video on the Epstein case and how he had an internal sex trafficking rings that took a long time to bring down. The video has victims’ stories where they tell you how they got involved in this event.

Jeffrey Epstein Rich Crimes

Summary

This YouTube video goes into one of the most well-known cases of the decade with what led to Jeffery Epstein’s death. The video describes the start of this whole case around 2008 but Epstein’s crimes probably started way before this going unnoticed by authorities. Epstein’s egregious crime was having a child sex trafficking ring around the world for the extremely wealthy. In this documentary it shows some of the victims that became adults and spoke out about what happened to them. This case involved as many as a hundred children from as young as age 12. This documentary is a perfect example to show how much of a problem discrimination is in the criminal justice. This documentary shows the inequality on the spectrum we do not talk about much which is how the super-rich can hide from trouble. The video shows how long officials have known about Epstein’s illegal activities and how long it took before any actions were taken against him. The documentary shows you the benefits Epstein had which helped him run from authorities and hide his crimes in plain sight.

Analyze

In class we mainly looked at how poverty can push people into prisons. For this media blog I wanted to look at the case of Jeffery Epstein and how because of his class he was able to get away with so much more than any normal person should be able to get away with. I would say this video helps confirm the fact that not everyone is treated equal in our country. In our class we discussed how the poor are taken advantage. Specifically in the video I remember them talking about how they paid an underage girl $200 for giving them a “massage” and this shows that they are trying to take advantage of the kids that have nowhere else to go that need money to live. This is just an example of how poor kids can be pushed to do things they normally would not. In Edelman’s (2017) book Not a Crime to be Poor it talked about how many innocent poor people are locked up just because they do not have money for bail, However, in the case of Epstein, when he was first arrested he was let out of jail 12 hours a day 7 days a week to work.  In addition, it took authorities 11 years for Epstein to get life in prison after they found out about what he was doing. This disparity in pretrial detention between those that have money and those that done seems massive. I find it interesting that you don’t see poor people getting let out to do work to pay fines, but Epstein gets to leave 12 hours a day for work. The biggest question that was presented in the video was near the end when it talked about Epstein’s death and how virtually none of these powerful people that were also apparently involved in this sex trafficking ring have been incarcerated yet. The question is: Why it is so hard to bring them to prison and hold powerful people accountable? In Epstein’s case it was a mixture of a great legal team and how he was able to hide his business on private islands, private jets, yachts, and his many houses across the world. On top of this Epstein always had blackmail over another person that was involved in this so other people in power would be afraid to do anything.

Personal Reflection and Rational

Implicit Bias is something we read about in Edelman (2017) not a crime to be poor and learned about online at (ProjectImplicit 2011). Implicit bias can be related to here, when most people think about crime they think of poor people but I think it is important to realize that people of every class and race commit crimes so we need to be aware that anyone can commit crime. This video made me think about if people in power should be held more responsible or have greater consequence for breaking the law. The most important thing that I learned from this video was how slow the court systems can be especially if you have good lawyers that know what they are doing. This can make this take a long time before real justice is served. I also thought the craziest part of the documentary is that when Epstein was in prison, he was under 24/7 surveillance with cameras on his room. The cameras malfunctioned and the guards did not see Epstein commit “suicide”. So, it is believed that other wealthy people killed Epstein so he would not talk about them. It will be interesting to see if anything comes about in case in the future since there is still a lot of unknown information to the public.  I think this video is great for anyone that wants to look how class and power can help people get away with crimes normal people cannot.

References

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

ProjectImplicit. (n.d.). Retrieved October 09, 2020, from https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

Matthew Berezansky

https://www.netflix.com/watch/81025116?trackId=14170289

This documentary series is called “Trial by media”. It can be viewed on Netflix. It explains how the media influences court cases and trials across America. The cases are mostly based on race, and the controversy and that surrounds these cases is usually covered nationwide. The third episode is titled “41 shots”, by Garret Bradley. and talks of the story of Amadou Diallo, a black street vendor living in the Bronx in New York in 1999. He was originally from Guinea, West Africa. He was the son of Kadiatou Diallo, who had him at the age of 16. They lived in Guinea, West Africa. Amadou aspired to obtain a computer degree in the U.S. So, his mother got him a visa to go to the U.S. America was hope for Amadou. Amadou was an immigrant and had not yet obtained citizenship. This is related to our current topic in class, how the justice system treats immigrants differently. In the 1990’s, there was a lot a racial tension in New York because of poor living situations, and the rising crime and murder rates as well. The mayor elections were occurring in 1993, and Mr. Dinkins defeated Mr. Giuliani, becoming New York’s first black mayor. While he was in office, crime went down, and murder/assaults went down. Many people praised him, but many resent him. Mr. Giuliani was very different, taking a more aggressive approach to crime. He won the reelection against Mr. Dinkins in 1994.

Mayor Giuliani had established the elite street crime unit, that was designed to reduce crime in neighborhoods. It was compromised of officers that wore plainclothes, riding in an unmarked car. The citizens complained about the police force, saying the harassment to minorities was unfair. This was a result of the history of violence in New York. Like Abner Louima was nearly killed two years earlier when beaten in the men’s room of a police station. In another case, Anthony Baez was killed by a cop, after being held in a choke hold when his football hit a police car. Diallo’s case was no different. On February 4^th, 1999, Diallo had just come back from a meal around 12:40 a.m. Then four officers in an unmarked car, drove up in plain clothes. Diallo was standing on the vestibule of his apartment on wheeler avenue. The officers asked to see his hands. The officers later stated that he matched the description of a serial killer from a year ago. Diallo proceeded to pull a black square, his wallet, out of his pocket. One or two of officers thought it was a gun and opened fire. They fired at Diallo a combined 41 shots, or 19 rounds. A door was behind Diallo and there were two walls beside him, so he had nowhere to go. He was hit 19 different times by the officers. Diallo was unarmed and committed no crime, which very much excluded the need to fire at him. This, along with the fact that he was black, outraged people. This raised many questions on how safe you were on your doorstep. The four officers involved in the incident were Richard Murphy, Sean Carroll, Kenneth Boss and Edward McMellon, all white officers.

This started many protests around the city. Led by Al Sharpton, a revered activist in the area that was the face of a movement for rights of minorities. Diallo’s mother, Kadiatou, came to the U.S. to find out what happened. She broke down when she went to his apartment. She had not seen him for two years. She was distraught because she knew Amadou could have no problems with police. She started speaking with Sharpton, going to rallies, sit-ins, and protesting about her son. She would not stay quiet regarding him.

When the officers realized they could be criminally responsible, they all obtained legal representation. The trial was originally set in the Bronx. The Attorneys for the officers said that jurors in the Bronx have prejudice towards cops, and this would compromise the jury pool. They suggested the venue be changed. The motion was approved. The change meant an entire new set of jurors. Going from 19% white in the Bronx, to 89% white in Albany, New York. The case was now decided by 6 white males, 2 white females, and 4 black females.  The trial itself was broadcast on live TV. They were witnesses brought in, and testimony was made. The big issue was how the defense was to justify 41 shots. All 4 officers took the stand. They said Amadou was tugging at something in his wallet. He pulled out a black square object, and they started firing. Carroll fired the first shot, and it led the other officers to fire. The officers put compassion and sorrow into the testimony.

The jury started deliberation for the case. The jury came back and acquitted the four officers of murder. The public was outraged because they were basically stating that Amadou caused his own death. The street crime unit was disbanded in 2002, following federal investigation, it was found the unit was involved in racial profiling. Mcmellon and Murphy joined the New York fire department. Carroll and Boss returned to the police department and are now retired. In 2004 Kadiatou Diallo settled a civil suit with New York City for 3 million dollars. Kadiatou started the Amadou Diallo Foundation, which provides supports and scholarships for students.  My understanding of how media works changed very much. They focus on the things they want us to focus on, like how the prosecution never called the mother to the stand.

References

Different rules for whites. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2020, from https://d2l.iup.edu/d2l/le/content/2963644/viewContent/22955062/View

Can prosecutors and public defenders team up to produce fairer justice. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2020, from https://d2l.iup.edu/d2l/le/content/2963644/viewContent/22757064/View

Trial By Media. (2020, May 11). Retrieved October 16, 2020, from https://www.netflix.com/watch/81025116?trackId=14170289

Anonymous

Can An Attorney Handle More Than 100 Cases At A Time? 

In this podcast episode Jeff Esparza is a public defender talking about his cases that he deals with day to day. He resides in Kansas City, Missouri where it has the busiest public defenders offices and the fifth highest murder rate in 2017. A sixty hour week for Jeff would be considered modest, and that just indicates how heavy his work load is when dealing with these cases. Jeff expresses his fear of letting things slip through the crack and may not be able to present all facts relevant to a case to help the defender. The reality is that there are too many clients and not enough attorneys. The slang term for public defenders is public pretender due to the fact that they may not contribute much to the case and or even help a defendant in their case. 

If you can’t afford an attorney one will be provided to you, which in some states may require a 12,000 $ income or less or in other states be double the amount of yearly income. That is a prerequisite you must qualify for in order to have an attorney provided to you. Kevin Shepherd is an example of the failed public defender system in which he waited several months in jail before ever meeting his public defender. He could not make bail, but also he did not have the money to afford a private lawyer to help diminish the bail amount. In doing so, Kevin was forced to sit in jail and wait for an attorney. Kevin was in jail for 2 months before Jeff was trying to examine his case, and was not able to be released from jail. It took 118 days for Kevin to be released from jail and to come out on the other side and have no job or home. Furthermore, Kevin later died from sickness when his case charges were dropped which would essentially seal the deal on that case. 

There is a national epidemic for underfunding public defenders, in which there are too many cases and unjust incarcerations occurring particularly with african americans. Guilty or innocent, still entitles a person to have the right to an attorney in which a case must go to trial. However, justice can not be served if the case is never attended too or lack of defenders available. In order to understand the huge weight a public defender must bear I will reference a reading to illustrate another point paramount to this discussion. Taken from chapter 2 in (Edelman, 2017), the situation described by the author in which a man named Thomas Harvey is interning at a public defender office showcases the reality of their job. Harvey explains how he has seen daily the african americans in orange jumpsuits appearing in court for minor misdemeanors and were treated as “not human beings”(Edelman, 2017). Harvey argues that the courts prey on black people and homeless people and is an example of systematic racism which needs to be abolished (Edelman, 2017). The solution he proposes is a full time professional court system in the region to fulfill the demand of cases awaiting a hearing. 

Public Defenders are what keep the poor and homeless from becoming nothing but a statistic in the criminal justice system. They are client centered, supposed to operate legally and effectively, and to defend those who are guilty to the very end. One might say that public defenders take all the work load and do everything, but when overburdened what happens? Facts slip through the cracks, people go to prison, people never leave jail, and other vicious scenarios may occur. In addition to this harsh reality, according to (Edelman, 2017) public defenders are the first line of defense in protecting low income people from expensive fines and fees. This indicates that at least public defenders try to help avert some injustices that the prosecution may throw at the defendant.  

I recommend listening to this podcast episode because of the way public defenders are portrayed. In some cases, the public defender is seen as a puppet or a pretender as some people may state. There seems to be a huge need for public defenders and almost a shortage of the quality kind of public defenders available to combat injustices to all kinds of people. Furthermore I encourage anyone to listen to this podcast if one wishes to expand on the type of reality some professionals experience in the realm of law. Media coverage and television shows have greatly influenced what we think happens in the criminal justice system in which I was once a part of that false notion. This podcast episode has really opened my eyes to the reality of not being able to serve justice properly in the court system. 

References 

Broken Justice. (2019, October 29). Retrieved October 09, 2020, from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/podcasts/broken-justice

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