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I'm sorry to be a curmudgeon but I don't like this guy at all. He wasted valuable city resources on an experiment the outcome of which he should have predicted

I'm sorry to be a curmudgeon but I don't like this guy at all. He wasted valuable city resources on an experiment the outcome of which he should have predicted, being a criminal attorney in Roxbury. Why were the police and the criminal justice officials apparently angry with him? Because while he was playing his little game, to "prove" that police profile people and to "prove" that getting arrested and jailed can be a violent and unfair experience, someone else was getting away with a purse snatching, or beating up an ex-girlfriend, or playing the knock-out game, or emptying a cash register. It's not so much that he prevented one of these other cases from being pursued, but that he seems so oblivious of the effects of his actions. Thus, it seems perfectly natural and reasonable for them to say, "OK, you make twice the salary we make yet you wanna be a petty criminal? Poof, you're a petty criminal. Enjoy sleeping in the bed you made, and here's hoping you will be permanently cured of f##king with us in the future, a##hole." The police are set upon from all sides. If they bend the rules, they are severely punished. If they don't bend the rules, and the rules don't always apply the way liberal suburban white folks might imagine they do on the street, then they get castigated for not "doing their job" i.e. catching the bad guys. At the end of the day, not catching the bad guys is the biggest sin in law enforcement, because it's the mission. If you fail the mission, you're facing demotion, punishment, deprivation of public support and sufficient budget, and the public will view you with contempt and disgust. I'm not justifying that that diabetic guy who wanted his sugar pills should be denied his pills. I'm not justifying that the police handle the lower socio-economic cases more brutally, giving them bruises and cuts that the suburban white boy somehow was spared. I'm not justifying racial profiling. Yet, to walk a mile in their shoes, both the police and the criminal justice system as a whole, is to see the world a little differently from the average Atlantic Monthly reader or Hacker News reader. Just my 2 cents.

drzaiusapelord 13y ago
>He wasted valuable city resources There's real civic value here that greatly trumps any sort of tax payer whining. Especially considering that internal anti-corruption mechanisms clearly aren't working and so many jurisdictions are hopelessly corrupt. We need more money spent on stuff like this and less "Police Department announces new SWAT military vehicles" whose maintenance and lifetime budget over whats essentially war machines in our neighborhoods greatly trumps what this man did. Also, he's white and educated and thus you're paying attention to him. See, its working.
brianlweiner 13y ago
Since when are police severely punished for bending the rules? Must be a different city than the ones I've lived in. And of course, police would NEVER prioritize enforcing petty laws at the expense of catching dangerous violent criminals. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/09/16/police-made-one-marijuana-arrest-every-42-seconds-in-2012 http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/09/16/police-made-o...
- blisterpeanuts 13y ago
  It's easier and safer to make your quota by arresting a pot smoker than an armed robber or a street gang member. At the end of the day, the police clock out and go home to families just like anyone else . They want to stay alive just like anyone else. If people think the police should be risking their lives more than they do, then let's pay them 4x what they get today -- I'm willing to pay higher taxes -- but let's not pay them a 5-figure salary and have unrealistic expectations of how far they should stretch. Then, too, there's the Giuliani tactic still being applied in a lot of places of arresting people for the tiniest offenses such as spitting or loitering, in order to clean up the streets and convey an impression that the police were in control. It worked in NYC, at least.
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    >They want to stay alive just like anyone else. Being a police officer is safer than being a cab driver, a house painter, or working in a convenience store. Might have to do with the gun, the stick, and the permission to use them.
DanBC 13y ago
> Because while he was playing his little game, to "prove" that police profile people and to "prove" that getting arrested and jailed can be a violent and unfair experience, someone else was getting away with a purse snatching, or beating up an ex-girlfriend, or playing the knock-out game, or emptying a cash register. You're missing the point that police profiling is already focusing attention on people not committing those crimes, or that plenty of people are getting away with the same behaviour but not facing any consequences for their actions. Police stop and search someone because that person is black - they're missing the real crook. Police don't take actions against white kids - they're missing real crooks. > I found myself spending most of my time prosecuting people of color for things we white kids did with impunity growing up in the suburbs. As our office handed down arrest records and probation terms for riding dirt bikes in the street, cutting through a neighbor’s yard, hosting loud parties, fighting, or smoking weed – shenanigans that had rarely earned my own classmates anything more than raised eyebrows and scoldings Whether these crimes deserve any police attention is something that could be discussed, but surely we can agree that prosecuting black kids but not white kids is something that drives inequality in society?
- rayiner 13y ago
  > but surely we can agree that prosecuting black kids but not white kids is something that drives inequality in society? Only if we're punishing them under the same circumstances, which I don't agree is necessarily the case. I think we should punish someone who marks graffiti in order to mark gang territory or intimidate others more harshly than someone who does it as a prank.
  - nitrogen 13y ago
    > Only if we're punishing them under the same circumstances, which I don't agree is necessarily the case. I think we should punish someone who marks graffiti in order to mark gang territory or intimidate others more harshly than someone who does it as a prank. This feels like it should make sense, but I think misses the forest for the trees. It's an example what I'd refer to as first-order thinking, or looking only at the immediate situation. We need to be striving for higher order thinking. That is, we need to be looking at follow-on effects, which I'll analogize to looking at the second and later derivatives of a function, or looking at other elements in an interconnected feedback system (in the control theory sense).
themodelplumber 13y ago
Other groups of people who are "set upon from all sides": The poor, members of minority groups, politicians, attorneys...well actually this list keeps on going.
jheriko 13y ago
I was going to make a similar comment, you hit the nail of my opinion smack on the head. The only thing I'll disagree with is this: > I'm not justifying racial profiling. As an arab who has come across the 'wrong' side of this at airports and train stations more than once, I completely support racial profiling. Ignoring good data because its politically inconvenient is ridiculous imo. However what is described in the article is not racial profiling - its violent racism, and there is a very big difference. By all means search me, question me, hassle me for my race - but don't go beating me up for it.
- smtddr 13y ago
  This is a terrible way to think and only furthers racism in the world. You need to have more self-respect for yourself, and expect it more from others than what you're implying in this comment. I, as a black man, do not welcome being hassled for my race. That "good data" you're talking about is corrupt because they focus on black people while non-blacks get away. We already know there are things made illegal for the purpose of oppressing brown people(see why weed is illegal), we already know the police are watching black people more than other races. We know the justice-system is not exactly balanced in terms of race, so I see your "good data" as heavily bias data designed to make one reach the conclusion the data-gathers want you to conclude. Furthering racism, furthering unfair jailing, furthering lining the pockets of those who benefit from jails being full, war-on-drugs, and starting wars. You should probably watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQnxnYEVp4U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQnxnYEVp4U
  - jheriko 13y ago
    > That "good data" you're talking about is corrupt because they focus on black people while non-blacks get away. I never really thought about the sampling bias that way... I'm sure there is racism as well - it is a big problem - but race is a real thing, I don't think we can pretend everyone is equal either. Certainly nobody should be underprivileged, but I still think discrimination is healthy.
- refurb 13y ago
  I had a similar conversation before about profiling and I have to agree. I'm a male, 18-35 yrs old. If I go to the airport and they stop me, but let a 70 yr old Grandmother by because I look like the bigger threat, then I think they are doing their job.
shittyanalogy 13y ago
You're arguments are so poorly constructed that they don't deserve a thoughtful response.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
DannyBee 13y ago
"The police are set upon from all sides. If they bend the rules, they are severely punished." I'm sorry, when have the police been severely punished for bending the rules? Examples abound in the other direction, but generally they aren't even fired, let alone prosecuted, for "bending the rules".
- ensignavenger 13y ago
  Exactly my thoughts when I read that. The police, prosecutors, government officials at all levels get away with "bending" the rules all the time. In fact, they can out right break the rules and rarely get punished, and often are praised. Example- in Missouri, the state constitution requires that ALL proceeds that come to government officials from asset forfeiture go to a fund for the public schools. Yet, routinely I see news articles praising county Sheriffs for using the proceeds from asset forfeitures to buy bullet-proof vests and other stuff.
PythonicAlpha 13y ago
Given, the police men are doing there jobs. Given, they have bad circumstances and are making the best out of it. Given, that many people want to serve the public .... BUT: I think, this testimony is important, because it shows, how crooked the whole legislative system in the US stinks. It not only verifies the things we see in better documentaries, but shows, that the system is totally corrupt. It shows, what happens, when race and wealth have become the main decision factor in a system that claims to give even rights to anybody. In my opinion, this man was punished in this disproportional way, not because he deliberately did a crime or wasted state money (what a ridiculous argument!), but because he uncovered a corrupt system.
supersystem 13y ago
It has nothing to do with games or wasting resources, it has to do with dissent. Authorities doesn't like when you challenge their righteousness. In dictatorships you're arrested by the secret police, accused of immoral acts, tortured, made to confess and made an example of anyway. In the US you're arrested by the intelligence unit, accused of "related" charges, thrown in custody for 34 hours, made to accept a plea bargain and made an example of anyway. Disfavor, smear, pressure, self-incriminate and then abuse. Same pattern.
gnaritas 13y ago
The apologist is strong in you. > If they bend the rules, they are severely punished. No they aren't, they get paid vacation days until another cop lies and says they're innocent under a so called investigation. They should be fired when found to break the law; they should be investigated by outside agencies rather than internal investigations. You can't enforce the law justly if you can't even follow the law. > If they don't bend the rules, and the rules don't always apply the way liberal suburban white folks might imagine they do on the street, then they get castigated for not "doing their job" i.e. catching the bad guys. At the end of the day, not catching the bad guys is the biggest sin in law enforcement, because it's the mission. The mission is enforcing the law, not catching the bad guys. More importantly it's not up to police to determine who the bad guys are nor should it be. The rules do always apply and there's no justification whatsoever for breaking them. Better criminals go free than innocent people be harassed by police who think they're on an episode of 24. > If you fail the mission, you're facing demotion, punishment, deprivation of public support and sufficient budget, and the public will view you with contempt and disgust. False conclusion from a faulty idea of what the mission should be. And I have walked a mile in their shoes because I'm an ex-cop. Just my more informed 2 cents.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  "Paid vacation days" is easy to demonize, but 1) we don't want to take away people's livelihood before making sure there is a problem, and 2) we don't want potentially corrupt officers with their hands on policework. Not saying it's ideal, but it's a response to two real pressures.
  - gnaritas 13y ago
    That's why you stick them on a desk, or guarding a prisoner, or doing something unrelated to and away from the public while under investigation. They could still be doing something useful rather than getting a vacation whenever there's a complaint against them. The military doesn't give you time off for this stuff, they just change your job until the shit's figured out and the same should apply to civilians who work on my tax dime.
  - 13y ago
michaelt 13y ago
He wasted valuable city resources on an experiment the outcome of which he should have predicted, being a criminal attorney in Roxbury. See, I think the opposite - how can upstanding members of society like me claim to hold an informed opinion about the justice system when the closest I've ever come is watching the TV show 'Prison Break'? You don't learn to program by watching a movie - you learn by trying it, getting hands-on experience. You don't learn to dance or do sports by reading a book - you learn by getting up and moving, getting hands-on experience. You don't become a judge without seeing the inside of a courtroom. You don't become a poet or a film maker or a musician without trying it. You don't qualify as surgeon without hands on experience or qualify as a pilot without hands on experience or train as a mechanic by watching 'the fast and the furious'. In all these areas, we acknowledge that fiction and second hand reports aren't a substitute for first-hand experience. So how can you and I claim to know anything about the justice system if we have no first hand experience? Don't all of us who care about law and order have a responsibility to inform ourselves about how the system works, as the author of this article has done?
- dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  But if we were to follow your position to its logical conclusion, we'd all be running around committing misdemeanors. What will we do if we are curious about homicide investigations.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    Sometimes we have to accept tradeoffs. Having a journalist do something and help inform us seems like a quite reasonable tradeoff.
AngrySkillzz 13y ago
There is literally no such thing as "bad guys."
- midas007 13y ago
  People that see the world in only black and white believe those that are "bad" deserve legal punishment and extra-legal abuse.
tokenadult 13y ago
Yes, I am a lawyer. I have to respectfully disagree with you. The story kindly submitted here is fascinating reading, and I'm glad the author did his experiment. I've long thought (perhaps because I had interpreting work before I attended law school that brought me inside courtrooms and jails and prisons as a visitor) that everyone who works in the criminal justice system needs to see the system as suspects and convicted offenders see it, at least briefly. Some of our imagination about the system is dispelled if we experience the facts. I agree with your suggestion that members of the general public should also become more aware of the working conditions of the police. Many police departments in the United States allow members of the general public to go on a "ride-along" in a police car on patrol (that usually involves signing release forms and promises not to misbehave while on the ride-along) and that too is a good learning experience. Basically, it's good for everyone to understand better how the other half lives.
njharman 13y ago
You did not read the same article as I. Or, rather, you read the same article with a filter of bias, bigotry, and media fueled fear. To wit, you believe they are "purse snatching, or beating up an ex-girlfriend, or playing the knock-out game, or emptying a cash register" and you comically believe police are severely punished for bending the rules.
Cadsby 13y ago
>Because while he was playing his little game, to "prove" that police profile people I infer from your belittling description of his activities as his "little game" and putting "prove" in skeptical quotes that you don't see the value in this particular piece of journalism and aren't swayed by the evidence presented therein. So while I doubt you can swayed otherwise, I will say that I did find it to be valuable and his experience adds another anecdote on the collective pile of evidence that the cops and prosecutors treat brown and black people vastly different for comparable infractions of the law. And both as a native New Yorker, and moreover as a citizen of the United States, I think this is a very big problems worth paying attention to. >I'm not justifying that that diabetic guy who wanted his sugar pills should be denied his pills. I'm not justifying that the police handle the lower socio-economic cases more brutally, giving them bruises and cuts that the suburban white boy somehow was spared. I'm not justifying racial profiling. Yeah, but you kind of are; in your very next paragraph in fact. > Yet, to walk a mile in their shoes, both the police and the criminal justice system as a whole, is to see the world a little differently from the average Atlantic Monthly reader or Hacker News reader. We really need to get over the cops-jobs-are-so-dangerous-we-can't-question-anything-they-do mantra. The statistics show, in fact, it isn't nearly as dangerous as they'd like us to believe, and even if it were, it still wouldn't justify the kind of double standards the article was shining a spotlight on. And for those that, quite frankly, don't really care one way of the other about racial profiling (I imagine because it won't ever affect them), I'd argue that everyone should care when the justice system clearly retaliates against a citizen for exposing problems in it's institutions. It shouldn't be okay for a judge to hand down a harsher than normal punishment because screw you for embarrassing/pissing us off.
- blisterpeanuts 13y ago
  >It shouldn't be okay for a judge to hand down a harsher than normal punishment because screw you for embarrassing/pissing us off. I think you missed my meaning. Cops, prosecutors, and judges are only human and they're going to react emotionally because that's what we humans are, hormonal emotional creatures. In the case of the OP, he deliberately set out to test the system by committing a misdemeanor to see what they would do. It was so out of context for a white male in a nice suit to be doing graffiti that the first responders couldn't believe their eyes. They literally just tried to wave him off. Shouldn't have, but did. I imagine that you or I would have reacted similarly in those circumstances -- or are you perfectly rational in all your decisionmaking and split-second reactions? Highly doubtful. I don't think it was embarrassment that he had exposed racism or profiling behavior or whatever he was obviously digging for. It was just that he was "one of them" and had betrayed their trust. They gave him the benefit of the doubt that he was not actually behaving like a 19-year-old gang banger, when in fact that was precisely what he was doing. Thus, they ultimately had to book him, take him downtown, fingerprint him, write up the charges etc. By the way, that's work. Lots of paperwork. And knowing that he's a criminal lawyer, they probably had to be extra fastidious -- the slightest little mistake or omission and for all they knew he was going to taking them to court. I think it's perfectly natural that they reacted angrily to this guy, and threw the book at him, because it was as if he was trying to provoke an angry reaction. Thus as I said, he made his bed and now must sleep in it. If you want to term this "retaliation", I suppose technically you're right, but your characterization disregards the fact that they're human, with human emotions. I think one of the great mistakes people make when debating the flaws of the justice system is to assume that its people are somehow on a higher ethical pedestal than the rest of society, that somehow they should and must behave more correctly. Unfortunately, they don't, and so it's easy to find biases and injustices in the system.
Cadsby 13y ago
>Because while he was playing his little game, to "prove" that police profile people I infer from your belittling description of his activities as his "little game" and putting "prove" in skeptical quotes that you don't see the value in this particular piece of journalism and aren't swayed by the evidence presented therein. So while I doubt you can swayed otherwise, I will say that I did find it to be valuable and his experience adds another anecdote on the collective pile of evidence that the cops and prosecutors treat brown and black people vastly different for comparable infractions of the law. And both as a native New Yorker, and moreover as a citizen of the United States, I think this is a very big problems worth paying attention to. >I'm not justifying that that diabetic guy who wanted his sugar pills should be denied his pills. I'm not justifying that the police handle the lower socio-economic cases more brutally, giving them bruises and cuts that the suburban white boy somehow was spared. I'm not justifying racial profiling. Yeah, but you kind of are; in your very next paragraph in fact. > Yet, to walk a mile in their shoes, both the police and the criminal justice system as a whole, is to see the world a little differently from the average Atlantic Monthly reader or Hacker News reader. We really need to get over the cops-jobs-are-so-dangerous-we-can't-question-anything-they-do mantra. The statistics show, in fact, it isn't nearly as dangerous as they'd like us to believe, and even if it were, it still wouldn't justify the kind of double standards the article was shining a spotlight on. And for those that, quite frankly, don't really care one way of the other about racial profiling (I imagine because it won't ever affect them), I'd argue that everyone should care when the justice system clearly retaliates against a citizen for exposing problems in it's institutions. It shouldn't be okay for a judge to hand down a harsher than normal punishment because screw you for embarrassing/pissing us off.
tptacek 13y ago
I agree with what you have to say about the police. Not only that, but people forget that most of the people police come into professional contact with are, in fact, criminals. Quite a lot of informal but institutionalized racism results from taking people out of middle class neighborhoods and plunking them into the middle of very poor, broken, homogeneously black or hispanic neighborhoods, and then making them a magnet for every bad thing that happens in those neighborhoods. It should surprise nobody that people placed in that situation act the way they do. To me, that suggests that we need sweeping and creative reforms not merely to make the police more effective or impartial, but to actively combat the psychological effect that policing has on veteran officers. Instead, we seem to be pulling them off foot patrols and sticking them into cars to create rapid response forces. That may work as an emergency triage against violent crime outbreaks, but it exacerbates the damage the job does to the professionals who have to do it. On the other hand: 90% of what was upsetting about this article was the result of judges and the probation system. I have much less sympathy for a judge than I do for a police. Urban criminal judges are almost completely unaccountable. Chicago judges are elected, and each election cycle, papers and blogs run horror stories about incompetent judges who no rational elector could vote for. And every election cycle, the exact same slate of horrible judges gets reelected. A civic-minded hacker that wanted to improve the criminal justice process in the US could make a large dent in the problem by coming up with something that would help the electorate handle judicial elections. For virtually everyone living in a big city, judicial elections are entirely opaque; city papers don't even cover them.
- scotch_drinker 13y ago
  A little late to the party but the irony in your statement is that those people who the police are regularly in contact with were likely in regular contact with criminals themselves, often not of their own free will. Imagine a young man who grows up in the projects. The men he is in regular contact with are likely criminals, at least a large percentage of them. This would have the same psychological effect that policing has on veteran officers. If we need sweeping and creative reforms for police, we certainly need it for the poor minority kids who are destined to become the next generation of criminals those same police are going to have regular contact with. We hold police to a higher standard because they are THE POLICE. They have take a job and a sworn oath to uphold the law. Yes they are human. Yes it is a largely difficult and thankless job. But under no circumstance does that obviate the fact that they chose to be officers. People born into the projects had no similar choice. I have sympathy for the police and the situations they find themselves in but the fact remains that they are sworn to uphold the law regardless of the humans they have been in regular contact with.
amorphid 13y ago
I agree that he sucked up resources, including what could have been my tax dollars if this happened near me. Still, I'm finding myself entertained by the story. If he'd asked to subsidize the cost of his whacky experiment, I'd have chipped in a few bucks.
erikpukinskis 13y ago
> He wasted valuable city resources I don't think it was a waste, I think the information we all have received is more valuable to New York than the resources used to prosecute him. I think prosecuting acts of civil disobedience is an extraordinarily important and valuable function that the city performs. Dollars spent as intended.
ThomPete 13y ago
Who do you think waste most money? The author of this article or the police department for wasting taxpayers money incarcerating people left and right, giving the sentences way out of proportion with what they did and so on.
robocat 13y ago
>He wasted valuable city resources He provided a priceless civic service, that had significant personal and presumably financial costs to himself. He is heroic.
guelo 13y ago
Your comment doesn't make any sense. The whole point of this story is about how cops waste enormous amounts of time profiling, harassing and arresting people of color.
jernfrost 13y ago
I find your priorities peculiar. This guys so called "waste of valuable city resources" was very well spent. He unconvered how enormous resources are being spent prosecuting and pestering people who are not really criminals and the cruelty of the system. You really think exposing this and getting attention brought to this problem is not worth the resources of processing one guy for spraying grafitti?
- dannypgh 13y ago
  Something has to be obscured for it to be "uncovered" -- the unfairness and disparities in the justice system is common knowledge to anyone who has had to live it (and that's a lot of us), to anyone who has bothered to ask someone who has lived it about it, or to anyone who has looked into any sort of comprehensive scholarly analysis of it. I have "been through the system" and it wasn't by choice, nor did it result in any charges being filed. Some people view that as luck, but given how common that outcome is, the real injustice is that I was ever arrested to begin with. I'm not complaining about the author's use of public resources - the public resources were wasted by the police, not the author. But I don't think we should pretend that the author discovered anything new. I do think his decisions were a little reckless - people can learn about the justice system without exposing themselves to it first-hand, and exposing yourself to it can be quite dangerous. Sure it's less dangerous if you're white, but police kill white people under suspicious circumstances too.
adamwong246 13y ago
First, fine, waste the resources. NYC deserves it. Second, the police deserve to be consequences for not succeeding in their work, as do we all. And they ought to punished punitively for betraying the publics trust.
caprad 13y ago
> someone else was getting away with a purse snatching, or beating up an ex-girlfriend, or playing the knock-out game, or emptying a cash register. It doesn't work this way, unless it he tried his experiment at the busiest time of the day, and even then it is not 100% sure. > The police are set upon from all sides. We all are, we can all take the easy route by bending the rules, and risk getting in trouble.
bambax 13y ago
> someone else was getting away with a purse snatching Oh... and that's bad because? Letting petty crimes go unpunished is way better for society than jailing every other black young male (as the US have elected as their policy). > At the end of the day, not catching the bad guys is the biggest sin in law enforcement There are no "bad guys". There is no "evil". There are just people trying to get by. > to see the world a little differently Look at the incarceration rates in the US; no other country jails (or has ever jailed) as many of its citizens as the US (NO OTHER COUNTRY, whether democratic, despotic or theocratic). So "the world" is more like what HN readers see than like what you think you see. I don't expect to convince you with just this little comment, but try and think about it. Try to argue that bad guys don't exist and see what arguments you come up with. (PS: In the 40+ years I've been on this planet, I've been robbed, mugged, assaulted -- twice in NYC; in retrospect, nothing that was super-life threatening, but it sure felt real enough at the time.)
- dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  Petty crime? Many on HN seem to be a-ok with crime for sone reason ... maybe not many victims here? No bad guys? You've got to be horribly naive.
scotty79 13y ago
> Thus, it seems perfectly natural and reasonable for them to say, "OK, you make twice the salary we make yet you wanna be a petty criminal? Poof, you're a petty criminal. Enjoy sleeping in the bed you made, and here's hoping you will be permanently cured of f##king with us in the future, a##hole." Is petty vengeance a natural and reasonable reaction you expect and accept from the people that have power over you and almost everybody else?
Delfino 13y ago
It's hard for me to be sympathetic at all toward police, it's a known bias of mine. I grew up very poor in bad neighborhoods and it felt very much like living in a police state. Once, as a kid (maybe 11 or 12 years old) I was taken in for questioning for drawing with chalk in my own driveway. I have many other anecdotes about being discriminated against, witnessing brutality, etc... Growing up, I learned not to even bother going to the police when you needed them, they were unhelpful and usually treated us as suspects without cause (Maybe their own prejudices, given they may be based on their own personal experiences). But after getting a CS degree, making money and moving to better parts of town it's like I live in an entirely different country where police treat people like human beings. It isn't surprising those environments produce more criminals, it's a vicious cycle, something has to change. Given my background, my candid, unfiltered thoughts after reading your comment were, "Fuck them [the police], I'm glad he wasted their resources to help expose some of their bullshit so they can't be as busy making other people's lives miserable." Obviously posting that candid response would've been unhelpful for discourse but thought it was worth sharing if I provided a backdrop for my thoughts.
Guvante 13y ago
> He wasted valuable city resources He should have been booked immediately, followed by being given the standard fare for the crime. Potentially upgraded due to having being pompous initially. He can't be blamed for the fact that they turned it into a full trial (they only offered him jail time for a non-violent crime), nor for the parole time (the duration was way above what is normal), nor for the polices' time (he literally walked into the precinct and then they decided to drive him around town). > someone else was getting away with a purse snatching, or beating up an ex-girlfriend, or playing the knock-out game, or emptying a cash register He walked into a precinct, who inside of a precinct is out stopping these things? They could have offered him a year parole and 10 days community service and he would have taken it, being orders worse than the usual penalty. > Enjoy sleeping in the bed you made He didn't actually complain about his situation, he complained about those around him. The guy wanting sugar pills, the guys being cramped with another cell available, the beating up suspects. He did a minor complaint about being driven around town to make it seem like they did their job, but that was more related to the absurdity than his time. > If they bend the rules, they are severely punished. Protect the Blue doesn't exist in your world? I will not claim that officer's aren't held to a higher standard, but there is plenty of evidence that police standards could be higher given their position of power. > At the end of the day, not catching the bad guys is the biggest sin in law enforcement This needs to change. 100% coverage is not obtainable nor a lofty goal. Coverage as good as reasonable standards for everyone involved is what we want. > Yet, to walk a mile in their shoes, both the police and the criminal justice system as a whole, is to see the world a little differently from the average Atlantic Monthly reader or Hacker News reader. Isn't that the entire point of this article? Whether you agree with him or not, that is what he is achieving here.
- aetherson 13y ago
  Guvante's reply is really important, because many people who are disagreeing with blisterpeanuts are none the less taking for granted that "he wasted valuable city resources" and so forth. And the point is, he didn't. He turned himself in. He was willing to accept standard no-trial sentencing. He paid a larger-than-typical fine to compensate the city for the expense of dealing with his graffiti. The city wasted its own resources trying to teach this guy a lesson for disrespecting their authority.
parasitius 13y ago
Right because no government agency should ever be audited by anyone and we should just accept as an article of faith that everything big brother does is in our interest, ESPECIALLY if it is the NSA etc
ballard 13y ago
Any attempt to show the priviledged how unfair others are treated and how broken is the justice system will only lead to denial, anger, accusations and rationalizations from the priviledged.
killertypo 13y ago
whoa you believe the knockout game is real? ouch. http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/montgomery.asp http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/montgomery.asp
- dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  Have you actually read your own link?
PhasmaFelis 13y ago
> The police are set upon from all sides. If they bend the rules, they are severely punished. Are they? I see a lot more police-brutality videos than I do reports of police being punished for brutality.
iguana 13y ago
Incredibly disappointed that this is the first comment. I honestly expected more from HN readers. The justice system is so disgustingly broke that we absolutely need dedicated, level-headed people to do these types of "social hacks" to prove it. It takes willful acts of civil disobedience to create real change, to bring awareness in a way that's difficult to ignore. Catching the bad guy is not the only thing that matters in law enforcement, but sadly that's what the militarization of police forces is creating: a system where the ends justify the means. You would not be so dismissive if you were the habitual target of police laziness. It takes a lot of work to catch the bad guys without breaking the rules.
- lukeschlather 13y ago
  Frankly I think you're being less level headed than the comment you're replying to. The justice system is flawed, but you're presenting a very simplistic view that doesn't do a lot to help correct it. The OP and the comment you're replying to, on the other hand, are both part of a successful conversation. We can't fix the system if we start from the assumption that the people running the system are basically criminal because they're doing their jobs the way they've always been done. Demonizing people who are, for the most part, trying to do the right thing with limited resources doesn't help them do their job better, and it doesn't help us talk about how we can change the system to be better. Dialing down the militarization of the police force isn't a matter of humanizing the criminals - we have to humanize the police as well. Calling the police lazy and disgusting dehumanizes them and reinforces the idea of police as shock troops.
- dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  What's a social hack?
NamTaf 13y ago
Bullshit. The whole process this guy went through to report on the state of affairs is valuable because it puts the depth of reality on what is otherwise a known but relatively abstract situation. We all know that the judicial system is unfair in an abstract sense, but without seeing actual, real-life examples it does not get driven home nearly as strongly. This article has good parallels with the NYT reporters who feigned being asylum seekers to travel to Australia by boat and document the horrible treatment experienced at all stages by those who take this journey [1]. I could easily imagine you arguing that these NYT reporters were terrible because they could have been on board a boat that sank and caused search and rescue people to go out and waste their time trying to find them. Equally, I could imagine you arguing that they denied a few genuine asylum seekers the room on a boat and therefore they're still stuck in a dangerous situation. However, that's completely missing the point. The point is that without people undertaking these experiences and documenting them, the harsh reality of the situation is never quite realised. You don't end up humanising the debate around how these situations are handled, so people show less empathy towards the situation. This is a terrible situation to be in, because we then forget that we're dealing with actual human beings and not just nameless, inert objects. In the case of the judicial system, it's one thing to know that the system mistreats and punishes people but it's another thing to actually hear the stories about the diabetic being denied proper medical treatment because of some power-tripping guard. That's why you had to go out of your way to clarify that you weren't justifying their ill treatment of him - it was humanised and put into real-world context. In the case of the asylum seeker report, it's pretty widely known that they experience harrowing conditions and receive pretty repulsive treatment by the various governments in an effort to deter their coming to Australia. But without actually hearing the stories of the hopeful children excited about the journey as they kill time in a refugee safehouse playing in the pool with literal spare parts of broken equipment as toys, or the blind hope of the guy wanting to make a better future for his kids whilst simultaneously denying to himself that he won't just be chucked in a jail on a third world island, you don't experience the same empathy for their situation. It's a direct counter to the rhetoric used to de-humanise the whole situation. In the case of asylum seekers, they go from being 'asylum seekers' to 'boat people' because the thought of turning away people fleeing some war-torn hellhole to find a better life is harder than turning away a few people who decide one day to hop on a boat to 'jump the queue'. The re-humanising of the whole argument through actual stories and events is the strongest way to put some emphathy back in to the argument and highlight that we are in fact dealing with other human beings, capable of thinking for themselves and having their own families and loved ones. In the case of the judicial system, it's that these people are criminals who exist in some isolated void without family or former childhoods or any of that and simply must be dealt with so that they can't commit another crime, rather than humans with a story and a life larger than the crime they allegedly committed. Hell, the author himself said that when he was practicing, he always assumed he was trying actual guilty criminals and that once they'd been dealt with, it was all over. It was only afterwards that he started wondering about the broader implications of what he was doing. So because of that, I completely reject your statement that it's a waste of resources and time to undertake these sorts of investigations. Does it divert theoretical resources away from the ideal task that those resources would be addressing? Sure. But it's an extremely valuable use of those resources to highlight the broader issues at play and put some human empathy, so often sorely missing, back in to the debate. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/magazine/the-impossible-refugee-boat-lift-to-christmas-island.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/magazine/the-impossible-re...
PavlovsCat 13y ago
> If they bend the rules, they are severely punished. Huh. Ever heard of the "Blue Shield"? Check out the "bad cop no donut" subreddit sometimes. There's some petty stuff posted on there, but also quite enough to make the hair on the neck of any thinking, feeling person stand up.
joe_the_user 13y ago
Did you read the article at all? As an ex-prosecutor, the guy clearly knew nothing about the justice system, sure. The author begins with a litany of ways that unneeded, necessary prosecutions work to injure the neighborhoods of people of color based on his own years of experience on the job. The point is that a lot of the average activity of the police is counter-productive. If this guy preempted the cops from, say, arresting a black convenience store clerk from "trespassing" at his own store, he's hardly derailing crucial activity. http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/21/3769823/in-miami-gardens-store-video-catches.html http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/21/3769823/in-miami-garde...
mark-r 13y ago
And would you berate Edward Snowden for the "valuable government resources" that surely have been spent on his behalf? Somebody has to be willing to document the abuses of our system, and I'm glad he did it. Treating an entire group of individuals as criminals is bound to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Between confirmation bias and people living up to expectations you are guaranteed to see what you expected to see. To believe in the rule of law you must believe the law is fair, and large numbers of people see every day that it is not.
beedogs 13y ago
> Why were the police and the criminal justice officials apparently angry with him? Because while he was playing his little game, to "prove" that police profile people and to "prove" that getting arrested and jailed can be a violent and unfair experience, someone else was getting away with a purse snatching, or beating up an ex-girlfriend, or playing the knock-out game, or emptying a cash register. All of those things would've happened anyway. Every single one of them. If you read the story (did you?) you'd see that the cops routinely ignored him to chase after darker-skinned "criminals" instead, anyway.
fit2rule 13y ago
>He wasted valuable city resources on an experiment the outcome of which he should have predicted, being a criminal attorney in Roxbury. Its not a waste of time if he's a report, reporting on a social condition that requires attention - and that is exactly what this is all about. The fact is that there is a police state industry in the USA and any light being shone on it is positive.
alan_cx 13y ago
"He wasted valuable city resources on an experiment the outcome of which he should have predicted, being a criminal attorney in Roxbury." No. He used city resources to audit a city activity buy running an experiment to prove a hypothesis. This "should of predicted" point is bullshit. Its like those people who say, "So what about NSA spying, we (smart arses) knew all along". Well, no they didn't. The thought they knew, but they did not know until it was proved with the Snowden leaks. Like wise this prediction you expected this person to make. To many people think they know things then really they dont, they just believe them, and they cant know anything until its proved. This guy proved it. OK, my use of the word "prove" is probably going a little too far, but you get my drift. He has at least added to a body of evidence. Which is a damn good use of city money. As for the reaction of the authorities, well that is a disgrace. Presumably this guy is a local tax payer, and there for paying for these authorities. He has every right to discover if he and his fellow tax payers are getting value for money.
goldvine 13y ago
Yea, let's never question authority/malpractice/racial profiling, because it may mean someone gets away with a petty crime. That's super logical...
darkarmani 13y ago
> He wasted valuable city resources on an experiment the outcome of which he should have predicted, being a criminal attorney in Roxbury. I'm not sure he is the one that wasted resources though. Wasn't he about to plea bargain before they decided to "make an example of him" at the expense of wasted resources? They could have fined him to easily cover those "wasted resources." It really revealed that personal vendettas are easily carried out by DAs, police, and judges when it comes to sentencing and treatment. > The police are set upon from all sides. If they bend the rules, they are severely punished. If they don't bend the rules, and the rules don't always apply the way liberal suburban white folks might imagine they do on the street, then they get castigated for not "doing their job" i.e. catching the bad guys...the public will view you with contempt and disgust. It's hard to have sympathy when your excuse is that you're worried about being seen with contempt and disgust, so you have to strive to ruin lives as much as possible. > here's hoping you will be permanently cured of f##king with us in the future, a##hole." So they want to be viewed with contempt and disgust or not? That is a pretty disgusting view.
ElDiablo666 13y ago
That's not why this guy is an asshole. This guy is an asshole because that story doesn't need him to tell it; there are all the people who are actually oppressed by the terror system, some of whom he met. Tell their story. Help them tell it if no one takes it seriously. This guy is just like the author of "Black Like Me": completely unnecessary and insulting to the folks who actually suffer the tyranny of a system that's designed to hold them down. Also, you are too sympathetic to the thugs who enforce the tyranny.

drzaiusapelord 13y ago

>He wasted valuable city resources There's real civic value here that greatly trumps any sort of tax payer whining. Especially considering that internal anti-corruption mechanisms clearly aren't working and so many jurisdictions are hopelessly corrupt. We need more money spent on stuff like this and less "Police Department announces new SWAT military vehicles" whose maintenance and lifetime budget over whats essentially war machines in our neighborhoods greatly trumps what this man did. Also, he's white and educated and thus you're paying attention to him. See, its working.

brianlweiner 13y ago

Since when are police severely punished for bending the rules? Must be a different city than the ones I've lived in. And of course, police would NEVER prioritize enforcing petty laws at the expense of catching dangerous violent criminals. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/09/16/police-made-one-marijuana-arrest-every-42-seconds-in-2012 http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/09/16/police-made-o...

blisterpeanuts 13y ago
It's easier and safer to make your quota by arresting a pot smoker than an armed robber or a street gang member. At the end of the day, the police clock out and go home to families just like anyone else . They want to stay alive just like anyone else. If people think the police should be risking their lives more than they do, then let's pay them 4x what they get today -- I'm willing to pay higher taxes -- but let's not pay them a 5-figure salary and have unrealistic expectations of how far they should stretch. Then, too, there's the Giuliani tactic still being applied in a lot of places of arresting people for the tiniest offenses such as spitting or loitering, in order to clean up the streets and convey an impression that the police were in control. It worked in NYC, at least.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  >They want to stay alive just like anyone else. Being a police officer is safer than being a cab driver, a house painter, or working in a convenience store. Might have to do with the gun, the stick, and the permission to use them.

DanBC 13y ago

> Because while he was playing his little game, to "prove" that police profile people and to "prove" that getting arrested and jailed can be a violent and unfair experience, someone else was getting away with a purse snatching, or beating up an ex-girlfriend, or playing the knock-out game, or emptying a cash register. You're missing the point that police profiling is already focusing attention on people not committing those crimes, or that plenty of people are getting away with the same behaviour but not facing any consequences for their actions. Police stop and search someone because that person is black - they're missing the real crook. Police don't take actions against white kids - they're missing real crooks. > I found myself spending most of my time prosecuting people of color for things we white kids did with impunity growing up in the suburbs. As our office handed down arrest records and probation terms for riding dirt bikes in the street, cutting through a neighbor’s yard, hosting loud parties, fighting, or smoking weed – shenanigans that had rarely earned my own classmates anything more than raised eyebrows and scoldings Whether these crimes deserve any police attention is something that could be discussed, but surely we can agree that prosecuting black kids but not white kids is something that drives inequality in society?

rayiner 13y ago
> but surely we can agree that prosecuting black kids but not white kids is something that drives inequality in society? Only if we're punishing them under the same circumstances, which I don't agree is necessarily the case. I think we should punish someone who marks graffiti in order to mark gang territory or intimidate others more harshly than someone who does it as a prank.
- nitrogen 13y ago
  > Only if we're punishing them under the same circumstances, which I don't agree is necessarily the case. I think we should punish someone who marks graffiti in order to mark gang territory or intimidate others more harshly than someone who does it as a prank. This feels like it should make sense, but I think misses the forest for the trees. It's an example what I'd refer to as first-order thinking, or looking only at the immediate situation. We need to be striving for higher order thinking. That is, we need to be looking at follow-on effects, which I'll analogize to looking at the second and later derivatives of a function, or looking at other elements in an interconnected feedback system (in the control theory sense).

themodelplumber 13y ago

Other groups of people who are "set upon from all sides": The poor, members of minority groups, politicians, attorneys...well actually this list keeps on going.

jheriko 13y ago

I was going to make a similar comment, you hit the nail of my opinion smack on the head. The only thing I'll disagree with is this: > I'm not justifying racial profiling. As an arab who has come across the 'wrong' side of this at airports and train stations more than once, I completely support racial profiling. Ignoring good data because its politically inconvenient is ridiculous imo. However what is described in the article is not racial profiling - its violent racism, and there is a very big difference. By all means search me, question me, hassle me for my race - but don't go beating me up for it.

smtddr 13y ago
This is a terrible way to think and only furthers racism in the world. You need to have more self-respect for yourself, and expect it more from others than what you're implying in this comment. I, as a black man, do not welcome being hassled for my race. That "good data" you're talking about is corrupt because they focus on black people while non-blacks get away. We already know there are things made illegal for the purpose of oppressing brown people(see why weed is illegal), we already know the police are watching black people more than other races. We know the justice-system is not exactly balanced in terms of race, so I see your "good data" as heavily bias data designed to make one reach the conclusion the data-gathers want you to conclude. Furthering racism, furthering unfair jailing, furthering lining the pockets of those who benefit from jails being full, war-on-drugs, and starting wars. You should probably watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQnxnYEVp4U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQnxnYEVp4U
- jheriko 13y ago
  > That "good data" you're talking about is corrupt because they focus on black people while non-blacks get away. I never really thought about the sampling bias that way... I'm sure there is racism as well - it is a big problem - but race is a real thing, I don't think we can pretend everyone is equal either. Certainly nobody should be underprivileged, but I still think discrimination is healthy.
refurb 13y ago
I had a similar conversation before about profiling and I have to agree. I'm a male, 18-35 yrs old. If I go to the airport and they stop me, but let a 70 yr old Grandmother by because I look like the bigger threat, then I think they are doing their job.

shittyanalogy 13y ago

You're arguments are so poorly constructed that they don't deserve a thoughtful response.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

DannyBee 13y ago

"The police are set upon from all sides. If they bend the rules, they are severely punished." I'm sorry, when have the police been severely punished for bending the rules? Examples abound in the other direction, but generally they aren't even fired, let alone prosecuted, for "bending the rules".

ensignavenger 13y ago
Exactly my thoughts when I read that. The police, prosecutors, government officials at all levels get away with "bending" the rules all the time. In fact, they can out right break the rules and rarely get punished, and often are praised. Example- in Missouri, the state constitution requires that ALL proceeds that come to government officials from asset forfeiture go to a fund for the public schools. Yet, routinely I see news articles praising county Sheriffs for using the proceeds from asset forfeitures to buy bullet-proof vests and other stuff.

PythonicAlpha 13y ago

Given, the police men are doing there jobs. Given, they have bad circumstances and are making the best out of it. Given, that many people want to serve the public .... BUT: I think, this testimony is important, because it shows, how crooked the whole legislative system in the US stinks. It not only verifies the things we see in better documentaries, but shows, that the system is totally corrupt. It shows, what happens, when race and wealth have become the main decision factor in a system that claims to give even rights to anybody. In my opinion, this man was punished in this disproportional way, not because he deliberately did a crime or wasted state money (what a ridiculous argument!), but because he uncovered a corrupt system.

supersystem 13y ago

It has nothing to do with games or wasting resources, it has to do with dissent. Authorities doesn't like when you challenge their righteousness. In dictatorships you're arrested by the secret police, accused of immoral acts, tortured, made to confess and made an example of anyway. In the US you're arrested by the intelligence unit, accused of "related" charges, thrown in custody for 34 hours, made to accept a plea bargain and made an example of anyway. Disfavor, smear, pressure, self-incriminate and then abuse. Same pattern.

gnaritas 13y ago

The apologist is strong in you. > If they bend the rules, they are severely punished. No they aren't, they get paid vacation days until another cop lies and says they're innocent under a so called investigation. They should be fired when found to break the law; they should be investigated by outside agencies rather than internal investigations. You can't enforce the law justly if you can't even follow the law. > If they don't bend the rules, and the rules don't always apply the way liberal suburban white folks might imagine they do on the street, then they get castigated for not "doing their job" i.e. catching the bad guys. At the end of the day, not catching the bad guys is the biggest sin in law enforcement, because it's the mission. The mission is enforcing the law, not catching the bad guys. More importantly it's not up to police to determine who the bad guys are nor should it be. The rules do always apply and there's no justification whatsoever for breaking them. Better criminals go free than innocent people be harassed by police who think they're on an episode of 24. > If you fail the mission, you're facing demotion, punishment, deprivation of public support and sufficient budget, and the public will view you with contempt and disgust. False conclusion from a faulty idea of what the mission should be. And I have walked a mile in their shoes because I'm an ex-cop. Just my more informed 2 cents.

dllthomas 13y ago
"Paid vacation days" is easy to demonize, but 1) we don't want to take away people's livelihood before making sure there is a problem, and 2) we don't want potentially corrupt officers with their hands on policework. Not saying it's ideal, but it's a response to two real pressures.
- gnaritas 13y ago
  That's why you stick them on a desk, or guarding a prisoner, or doing something unrelated to and away from the public while under investigation. They could still be doing something useful rather than getting a vacation whenever there's a complaint against them. The military doesn't give you time off for this stuff, they just change your job until the shit's figured out and the same should apply to civilians who work on my tax dime.
- 13y ago

michaelt 13y ago

He wasted valuable city resources on an experiment the outcome of which he should have predicted, being a criminal attorney in Roxbury. See, I think the opposite - how can upstanding members of society like me claim to hold an informed opinion about the justice system when the closest I've ever come is watching the TV show 'Prison Break'? You don't learn to program by watching a movie - you learn by trying it, getting hands-on experience. You don't learn to dance or do sports by reading a book - you learn by getting up and moving, getting hands-on experience. You don't become a judge without seeing the inside of a courtroom. You don't become a poet or a film maker or a musician without trying it. You don't qualify as surgeon without hands on experience or qualify as a pilot without hands on experience or train as a mechanic by watching 'the fast and the furious'. In all these areas, we acknowledge that fiction and second hand reports aren't a substitute for first-hand experience. So how can you and I claim to know anything about the justice system if we have no first hand experience? Don't all of us who care about law and order have a responsibility to inform ourselves about how the system works, as the author of this article has done?

dinkumthinkum 13y ago
But if we were to follow your position to its logical conclusion, we'd all be running around committing misdemeanors. What will we do if we are curious about homicide investigations.
- vidarh 13y ago
  Sometimes we have to accept tradeoffs. Having a journalist do something and help inform us seems like a quite reasonable tradeoff.

AngrySkillzz 13y ago

There is literally no such thing as "bad guys."

midas007 13y ago
People that see the world in only black and white believe those that are "bad" deserve legal punishment and extra-legal abuse.

tokenadult 13y ago

Yes, I am a lawyer. I have to respectfully disagree with you. The story kindly submitted here is fascinating reading, and I'm glad the author did his experiment. I've long thought (perhaps because I had interpreting work before I attended law school that brought me inside courtrooms and jails and prisons as a visitor) that everyone who works in the criminal justice system needs to see the system as suspects and convicted offenders see it, at least briefly. Some of our imagination about the system is dispelled if we experience the facts. I agree with your suggestion that members of the general public should also become more aware of the working conditions of the police. Many police departments in the United States allow members of the general public to go on a "ride-along" in a police car on patrol (that usually involves signing release forms and promises not to misbehave while on the ride-along) and that too is a good learning experience. Basically, it's good for everyone to understand better how the other half lives.

njharman 13y ago

You did not read the same article as I. Or, rather, you read the same article with a filter of bias, bigotry, and media fueled fear. To wit, you believe they are "purse snatching, or beating up an ex-girlfriend, or playing the knock-out game, or emptying a cash register" and you comically believe police are severely punished for bending the rules.

Cadsby 13y ago

>Because while he was playing his little game, to "prove" that police profile people I infer from your belittling description of his activities as his "little game" and putting "prove" in skeptical quotes that you don't see the value in this particular piece of journalism and aren't swayed by the evidence presented therein. So while I doubt you can swayed otherwise, I will say that I did find it to be valuable and his experience adds another anecdote on the collective pile of evidence that the cops and prosecutors treat brown and black people vastly different for comparable infractions of the law. And both as a native New Yorker, and moreover as a citizen of the United States, I think this is a very big problems worth paying attention to. >I'm not justifying that that diabetic guy who wanted his sugar pills should be denied his pills. I'm not justifying that the police handle the lower socio-economic cases more brutally, giving them bruises and cuts that the suburban white boy somehow was spared. I'm not justifying racial profiling. Yeah, but you kind of are; in your very next paragraph in fact. > Yet, to walk a mile in their shoes, both the police and the criminal justice system as a whole, is to see the world a little differently from the average Atlantic Monthly reader or Hacker News reader. We really need to get over the cops-jobs-are-so-dangerous-we-can't-question-anything-they-do mantra. The statistics show, in fact, it isn't nearly as dangerous as they'd like us to believe, and even if it were, it still wouldn't justify the kind of double standards the article was shining a spotlight on. And for those that, quite frankly, don't really care one way of the other about racial profiling (I imagine because it won't ever affect them), I'd argue that everyone should care when the justice system clearly retaliates against a citizen for exposing problems in it's institutions. It shouldn't be okay for a judge to hand down a harsher than normal punishment because screw you for embarrassing/pissing us off.

blisterpeanuts 13y ago
>It shouldn't be okay for a judge to hand down a harsher than normal punishment because screw you for embarrassing/pissing us off. I think you missed my meaning. Cops, prosecutors, and judges are only human and they're going to react emotionally because that's what we humans are, hormonal emotional creatures. In the case of the OP, he deliberately set out to test the system by committing a misdemeanor to see what they would do. It was so out of context for a white male in a nice suit to be doing graffiti that the first responders couldn't believe their eyes. They literally just tried to wave him off. Shouldn't have, but did. I imagine that you or I would have reacted similarly in those circumstances -- or are you perfectly rational in all your decisionmaking and split-second reactions? Highly doubtful. I don't think it was embarrassment that he had exposed racism or profiling behavior or whatever he was obviously digging for. It was just that he was "one of them" and had betrayed their trust. They gave him the benefit of the doubt that he was not actually behaving like a 19-year-old gang banger, when in fact that was precisely what he was doing. Thus, they ultimately had to book him, take him downtown, fingerprint him, write up the charges etc. By the way, that's work. Lots of paperwork. And knowing that he's a criminal lawyer, they probably had to be extra fastidious -- the slightest little mistake or omission and for all they knew he was going to taking them to court. I think it's perfectly natural that they reacted angrily to this guy, and threw the book at him, because it was as if he was trying to provoke an angry reaction. Thus as I said, he made his bed and now must sleep in it. If you want to term this "retaliation", I suppose technically you're right, but your characterization disregards the fact that they're human, with human emotions. I think one of the great mistakes people make when debating the flaws of the justice system is to assume that its people are somehow on a higher ethical pedestal than the rest of society, that somehow they should and must behave more correctly. Unfortunately, they don't, and so it's easy to find biases and injustices in the system.

Cadsby 13y ago

tptacek 13y ago

I agree with what you have to say about the police. Not only that, but people forget that most of the people police come into professional contact with are, in fact, criminals. Quite a lot of informal but institutionalized racism results from taking people out of middle class neighborhoods and plunking them into the middle of very poor, broken, homogeneously black or hispanic neighborhoods, and then making them a magnet for every bad thing that happens in those neighborhoods. It should surprise nobody that people placed in that situation act the way they do. To me, that suggests that we need sweeping and creative reforms not merely to make the police more effective or impartial, but to actively combat the psychological effect that policing has on veteran officers. Instead, we seem to be pulling them off foot patrols and sticking them into cars to create rapid response forces. That may work as an emergency triage against violent crime outbreaks, but it exacerbates the damage the job does to the professionals who have to do it. On the other hand: 90% of what was upsetting about this article was the result of judges and the probation system. I have much less sympathy for a judge than I do for a police. Urban criminal judges are almost completely unaccountable. Chicago judges are elected, and each election cycle, papers and blogs run horror stories about incompetent judges who no rational elector could vote for. And every election cycle, the exact same slate of horrible judges gets reelected. A civic-minded hacker that wanted to improve the criminal justice process in the US could make a large dent in the problem by coming up with something that would help the electorate handle judicial elections. For virtually everyone living in a big city, judicial elections are entirely opaque; city papers don't even cover them.

scotch_drinker 13y ago
A little late to the party but the irony in your statement is that those people who the police are regularly in contact with were likely in regular contact with criminals themselves, often not of their own free will. Imagine a young man who grows up in the projects. The men he is in regular contact with are likely criminals, at least a large percentage of them. This would have the same psychological effect that policing has on veteran officers. If we need sweeping and creative reforms for police, we certainly need it for the poor minority kids who are destined to become the next generation of criminals those same police are going to have regular contact with. We hold police to a higher standard because they are THE POLICE. They have take a job and a sworn oath to uphold the law. Yes they are human. Yes it is a largely difficult and thankless job. But under no circumstance does that obviate the fact that they chose to be officers. People born into the projects had no similar choice. I have sympathy for the police and the situations they find themselves in but the fact remains that they are sworn to uphold the law regardless of the humans they have been in regular contact with.

amorphid 13y ago

I agree that he sucked up resources, including what could have been my tax dollars if this happened near me. Still, I'm finding myself entertained by the story. If he'd asked to subsidize the cost of his whacky experiment, I'd have chipped in a few bucks.

erikpukinskis 13y ago

> He wasted valuable city resources I don't think it was a waste, I think the information we all have received is more valuable to New York than the resources used to prosecute him. I think prosecuting acts of civil disobedience is an extraordinarily important and valuable function that the city performs. Dollars spent as intended.

ThomPete 13y ago

Who do you think waste most money? The author of this article or the police department for wasting taxpayers money incarcerating people left and right, giving the sentences way out of proportion with what they did and so on.

robocat 13y ago

>He wasted valuable city resources He provided a priceless civic service, that had significant personal and presumably financial costs to himself. He is heroic.

guelo 13y ago

Your comment doesn't make any sense. The whole point of this story is about how cops waste enormous amounts of time profiling, harassing and arresting people of color.

jernfrost 13y ago

I find your priorities peculiar. This guys so called "waste of valuable city resources" was very well spent. He unconvered how enormous resources are being spent prosecuting and pestering people who are not really criminals and the cruelty of the system. You really think exposing this and getting attention brought to this problem is not worth the resources of processing one guy for spraying grafitti?

dannypgh 13y ago
Something has to be obscured for it to be "uncovered" -- the unfairness and disparities in the justice system is common knowledge to anyone who has had to live it (and that's a lot of us), to anyone who has bothered to ask someone who has lived it about it, or to anyone who has looked into any sort of comprehensive scholarly analysis of it. I have "been through the system" and it wasn't by choice, nor did it result in any charges being filed. Some people view that as luck, but given how common that outcome is, the real injustice is that I was ever arrested to begin with. I'm not complaining about the author's use of public resources - the public resources were wasted by the police, not the author. But I don't think we should pretend that the author discovered anything new. I do think his decisions were a little reckless - people can learn about the justice system without exposing themselves to it first-hand, and exposing yourself to it can be quite dangerous. Sure it's less dangerous if you're white, but police kill white people under suspicious circumstances too.

adamwong246 13y ago

First, fine, waste the resources. NYC deserves it. Second, the police deserve to be consequences for not succeeding in their work, as do we all. And they ought to punished punitively for betraying the publics trust.

caprad 13y ago

> someone else was getting away with a purse snatching, or beating up an ex-girlfriend, or playing the knock-out game, or emptying a cash register. It doesn't work this way, unless it he tried his experiment at the busiest time of the day, and even then it is not 100% sure. > The police are set upon from all sides. We all are, we can all take the easy route by bending the rules, and risk getting in trouble.

bambax 13y ago

> someone else was getting away with a purse snatching Oh... and that's bad because? Letting petty crimes go unpunished is way better for society than jailing every other black young male (as the US have elected as their policy). > At the end of the day, not catching the bad guys is the biggest sin in law enforcement There are no "bad guys". There is no "evil". There are just people trying to get by. > to see the world a little differently Look at the incarceration rates in the US; no other country jails (or has ever jailed) as many of its citizens as the US (NO OTHER COUNTRY, whether democratic, despotic or theocratic). So "the world" is more like what HN readers see than like what you think you see. I don't expect to convince you with just this little comment, but try and think about it. Try to argue that bad guys don't exist and see what arguments you come up with. (PS: In the 40+ years I've been on this planet, I've been robbed, mugged, assaulted -- twice in NYC; in retrospect, nothing that was super-life threatening, but it sure felt real enough at the time.)

dinkumthinkum 13y ago
Petty crime? Many on HN seem to be a-ok with crime for sone reason ... maybe not many victims here? No bad guys? You've got to be horribly naive.

scotty79 13y ago

> Thus, it seems perfectly natural and reasonable for them to say, "OK, you make twice the salary we make yet you wanna be a petty criminal? Poof, you're a petty criminal. Enjoy sleeping in the bed you made, and here's hoping you will be permanently cured of f##king with us in the future, a##hole." Is petty vengeance a natural and reasonable reaction you expect and accept from the people that have power over you and almost everybody else?

Delfino 13y ago

It's hard for me to be sympathetic at all toward police, it's a known bias of mine. I grew up very poor in bad neighborhoods and it felt very much like living in a police state. Once, as a kid (maybe 11 or 12 years old) I was taken in for questioning for drawing with chalk in my own driveway. I have many other anecdotes about being discriminated against, witnessing brutality, etc... Growing up, I learned not to even bother going to the police when you needed them, they were unhelpful and usually treated us as suspects without cause (Maybe their own prejudices, given they may be based on their own personal experiences). But after getting a CS degree, making money and moving to better parts of town it's like I live in an entirely different country where police treat people like human beings. It isn't surprising those environments produce more criminals, it's a vicious cycle, something has to change. Given my background, my candid, unfiltered thoughts after reading your comment were, "Fuck them [the police], I'm glad he wasted their resources to help expose some of their bullshit so they can't be as busy making other people's lives miserable." Obviously posting that candid response would've been unhelpful for discourse but thought it was worth sharing if I provided a backdrop for my thoughts.

Guvante 13y ago

> He wasted valuable city resources He should have been booked immediately, followed by being given the standard fare for the crime. Potentially upgraded due to having being pompous initially. He can't be blamed for the fact that they turned it into a full trial (they only offered him jail time for a non-violent crime), nor for the parole time (the duration was way above what is normal), nor for the polices' time (he literally walked into the precinct and then they decided to drive him around town). > someone else was getting away with a purse snatching, or beating up an ex-girlfriend, or playing the knock-out game, or emptying a cash register He walked into a precinct, who inside of a precinct is out stopping these things? They could have offered him a year parole and 10 days community service and he would have taken it, being orders worse than the usual penalty. > Enjoy sleeping in the bed you made He didn't actually complain about his situation, he complained about those around him. The guy wanting sugar pills, the guys being cramped with another cell available, the beating up suspects. He did a minor complaint about being driven around town to make it seem like they did their job, but that was more related to the absurdity than his time. > If they bend the rules, they are severely punished. Protect the Blue doesn't exist in your world? I will not claim that officer's aren't held to a higher standard, but there is plenty of evidence that police standards could be higher given their position of power. > At the end of the day, not catching the bad guys is the biggest sin in law enforcement This needs to change. 100% coverage is not obtainable nor a lofty goal. Coverage as good as reasonable standards for everyone involved is what we want. > Yet, to walk a mile in their shoes, both the police and the criminal justice system as a whole, is to see the world a little differently from the average Atlantic Monthly reader or Hacker News reader. Isn't that the entire point of this article? Whether you agree with him or not, that is what he is achieving here.

aetherson 13y ago
Guvante's reply is really important, because many people who are disagreeing with blisterpeanuts are none the less taking for granted that "he wasted valuable city resources" and so forth. And the point is, he didn't. He turned himself in. He was willing to accept standard no-trial sentencing. He paid a larger-than-typical fine to compensate the city for the expense of dealing with his graffiti. The city wasted its own resources trying to teach this guy a lesson for disrespecting their authority.

parasitius 13y ago

Right because no government agency should ever be audited by anyone and we should just accept as an article of faith that everything big brother does is in our interest, ESPECIALLY if it is the NSA etc

ballard 13y ago

Any attempt to show the priviledged how unfair others are treated and how broken is the justice system will only lead to denial, anger, accusations and rationalizations from the priviledged.

killertypo 13y ago

whoa you believe the knockout game is real? ouch. http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/montgomery.asp http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/montgomery.asp

dinkumthinkum 13y ago
Have you actually read your own link?

PhasmaFelis 13y ago

> The police are set upon from all sides. If they bend the rules, they are severely punished. Are they? I see a lot more police-brutality videos than I do reports of police being punished for brutality.

iguana 13y ago

Incredibly disappointed that this is the first comment. I honestly expected more from HN readers. The justice system is so disgustingly broke that we absolutely need dedicated, level-headed people to do these types of "social hacks" to prove it. It takes willful acts of civil disobedience to create real change, to bring awareness in a way that's difficult to ignore. Catching the bad guy is not the only thing that matters in law enforcement, but sadly that's what the militarization of police forces is creating: a system where the ends justify the means. You would not be so dismissive if you were the habitual target of police laziness. It takes a lot of work to catch the bad guys without breaking the rules.

lukeschlather 13y ago
Frankly I think you're being less level headed than the comment you're replying to. The justice system is flawed, but you're presenting a very simplistic view that doesn't do a lot to help correct it. The OP and the comment you're replying to, on the other hand, are both part of a successful conversation. We can't fix the system if we start from the assumption that the people running the system are basically criminal because they're doing their jobs the way they've always been done. Demonizing people who are, for the most part, trying to do the right thing with limited resources doesn't help them do their job better, and it doesn't help us talk about how we can change the system to be better. Dialing down the militarization of the police force isn't a matter of humanizing the criminals - we have to humanize the police as well. Calling the police lazy and disgusting dehumanizes them and reinforces the idea of police as shock troops.
dinkumthinkum 13y ago
What's a social hack?

NamTaf 13y ago

Bullshit. The whole process this guy went through to report on the state of affairs is valuable because it puts the depth of reality on what is otherwise a known but relatively abstract situation. We all know that the judicial system is unfair in an abstract sense, but without seeing actual, real-life examples it does not get driven home nearly as strongly. This article has good parallels with the NYT reporters who feigned being asylum seekers to travel to Australia by boat and document the horrible treatment experienced at all stages by those who take this journey [1]. I could easily imagine you arguing that these NYT reporters were terrible because they could have been on board a boat that sank and caused search and rescue people to go out and waste their time trying to find them. Equally, I could imagine you arguing that they denied a few genuine asylum seekers the room on a boat and therefore they're still stuck in a dangerous situation. However, that's completely missing the point. The point is that without people undertaking these experiences and documenting them, the harsh reality of the situation is never quite realised. You don't end up humanising the debate around how these situations are handled, so people show less empathy towards the situation. This is a terrible situation to be in, because we then forget that we're dealing with actual human beings and not just nameless, inert objects. In the case of the judicial system, it's one thing to know that the system mistreats and punishes people but it's another thing to actually hear the stories about the diabetic being denied proper medical treatment because of some power-tripping guard. That's why you had to go out of your way to clarify that you weren't justifying their ill treatment of him - it was humanised and put into real-world context. In the case of the asylum seeker report, it's pretty widely known that they experience harrowing conditions and receive pretty repulsive treatment by the various governments in an effort to deter their coming to Australia. But without actually hearing the stories of the hopeful children excited about the journey as they kill time in a refugee safehouse playing in the pool with literal spare parts of broken equipment as toys, or the blind hope of the guy wanting to make a better future for his kids whilst simultaneously denying to himself that he won't just be chucked in a jail on a third world island, you don't experience the same empathy for their situation. It's a direct counter to the rhetoric used to de-humanise the whole situation. In the case of asylum seekers, they go from being 'asylum seekers' to 'boat people' because the thought of turning away people fleeing some war-torn hellhole to find a better life is harder than turning away a few people who decide one day to hop on a boat to 'jump the queue'. The re-humanising of the whole argument through actual stories and events is the strongest way to put some emphathy back in to the argument and highlight that we are in fact dealing with other human beings, capable of thinking for themselves and having their own families and loved ones. In the case of the judicial system, it's that these people are criminals who exist in some isolated void without family or former childhoods or any of that and simply must be dealt with so that they can't commit another crime, rather than humans with a story and a life larger than the crime they allegedly committed. Hell, the author himself said that when he was practicing, he always assumed he was trying actual guilty criminals and that once they'd been dealt with, it was all over. It was only afterwards that he started wondering about the broader implications of what he was doing. So because of that, I completely reject your statement that it's a waste of resources and time to undertake these sorts of investigations. Does it divert theoretical resources away from the ideal task that those resources would be addressing? Sure. But it's an extremely valuable use of those resources to highlight the broader issues at play and put some human empathy, so often sorely missing, back in to the debate. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/magazine/the-impossible-refugee-boat-lift-to-christmas-island.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/magazine/the-impossible-re...

PavlovsCat 13y ago

> If they bend the rules, they are severely punished. Huh. Ever heard of the "Blue Shield"? Check out the "bad cop no donut" subreddit sometimes. There's some petty stuff posted on there, but also quite enough to make the hair on the neck of any thinking, feeling person stand up.

joe_the_user 13y ago

Did you read the article at all? As an ex-prosecutor, the guy clearly knew nothing about the justice system, sure. The author begins with a litany of ways that unneeded, necessary prosecutions work to injure the neighborhoods of people of color based on his own years of experience on the job. The point is that a lot of the average activity of the police is counter-productive. If this guy preempted the cops from, say, arresting a black convenience store clerk from "trespassing" at his own store, he's hardly derailing crucial activity. http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/21/3769823/in-miami-gardens-store-video-catches.html http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/21/3769823/in-miami-garde...

mark-r 13y ago

And would you berate Edward Snowden for the "valuable government resources" that surely have been spent on his behalf? Somebody has to be willing to document the abuses of our system, and I'm glad he did it. Treating an entire group of individuals as criminals is bound to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Between confirmation bias and people living up to expectations you are guaranteed to see what you expected to see. To believe in the rule of law you must believe the law is fair, and large numbers of people see every day that it is not.

beedogs 13y ago

> Why were the police and the criminal justice officials apparently angry with him? Because while he was playing his little game, to "prove" that police profile people and to "prove" that getting arrested and jailed can be a violent and unfair experience, someone else was getting away with a purse snatching, or beating up an ex-girlfriend, or playing the knock-out game, or emptying a cash register. All of those things would've happened anyway. Every single one of them. If you read the story (did you?) you'd see that the cops routinely ignored him to chase after darker-skinned "criminals" instead, anyway.

fit2rule 13y ago

>He wasted valuable city resources on an experiment the outcome of which he should have predicted, being a criminal attorney in Roxbury. Its not a waste of time if he's a report, reporting on a social condition that requires attention - and that is exactly what this is all about. The fact is that there is a police state industry in the USA and any light being shone on it is positive.

alan_cx 13y ago

"He wasted valuable city resources on an experiment the outcome of which he should have predicted, being a criminal attorney in Roxbury." No. He used city resources to audit a city activity buy running an experiment to prove a hypothesis. This "should of predicted" point is bullshit. Its like those people who say, "So what about NSA spying, we (smart arses) knew all along". Well, no they didn't. The thought they knew, but they did not know until it was proved with the Snowden leaks. Like wise this prediction you expected this person to make. To many people think they know things then really they dont, they just believe them, and they cant know anything until its proved. This guy proved it. OK, my use of the word "prove" is probably going a little too far, but you get my drift. He has at least added to a body of evidence. Which is a damn good use of city money. As for the reaction of the authorities, well that is a disgrace. Presumably this guy is a local tax payer, and there for paying for these authorities. He has every right to discover if he and his fellow tax payers are getting value for money.

goldvine 13y ago

Yea, let's never question authority/malpractice/racial profiling, because it may mean someone gets away with a petty crime. That's super logical...

darkarmani 13y ago

> He wasted valuable city resources on an experiment the outcome of which he should have predicted, being a criminal attorney in Roxbury. I'm not sure he is the one that wasted resources though. Wasn't he about to plea bargain before they decided to "make an example of him" at the expense of wasted resources? They could have fined him to easily cover those "wasted resources." It really revealed that personal vendettas are easily carried out by DAs, police, and judges when it comes to sentencing and treatment. > The police are set upon from all sides. If they bend the rules, they are severely punished. If they don't bend the rules, and the rules don't always apply the way liberal suburban white folks might imagine they do on the street, then they get castigated for not "doing their job" i.e. catching the bad guys...the public will view you with contempt and disgust. It's hard to have sympathy when your excuse is that you're worried about being seen with contempt and disgust, so you have to strive to ruin lives as much as possible. > here's hoping you will be permanently cured of f##king with us in the future, a##hole." So they want to be viewed with contempt and disgust or not? That is a pretty disgusting view.

ElDiablo666 13y ago

That's not why this guy is an asshole. This guy is an asshole because that story doesn't need him to tell it; there are all the people who are actually oppressed by the terror system, some of whom he met. Tell their story. Help them tell it if no one takes it seriously. This guy is just like the author of "Black Like Me": completely unnecessary and insulting to the folks who actually suffer the tyranny of a system that's designed to hold them down. Also, you are too sympathetic to the thugs who enforce the tyranny.