By: Andres Diaz
Captain Eric Upson, Operations Division Commander of the Berkeley Police Department, mentioned in class that there are conflicting ideals towards the function of the police department. He stated, “the business owners of Berkeley want us to prevent the homeless people from loitering in front of their stores, while the political figures such as the mayor want our number one priority to be crime prevention. The patrolling and regulating of people smoking weed is at the bottom of our priority list.” Consequently, the police officers of Berkeley are torn apart by the number of assignments and obligations that are needed to be fulfilled by the different members of the city of Berkeley. The inability to address the priorities of public law enforcement in a small city like Berkeley become more complex in a metropolitan city such as Los Angeles where the issue of fiscal constraints becomes a problem.
In the article that I read in the Los Angeles Times, thousands of sex offenders and child molesters have begun to remove their GPS monitoring devices and some have recently been charged with new crimes such as manslaughter or kidnapping. The offenders have found a way to disable the tracking devices and due to the over capacity in the jails, the likelihood of them serving time in the jail is slim. Under Governor Jerry Brown’s “realignment” program, jails have been forced to reduce the overcrowding in the state prisons. As a result, sex offenders and parole violators are being released within days of violating their probation. Some state prisons have even refused to accept these menaces to society. “Rithy Man, a convicted child stalker, was arrested three times in two months after skipping parole and was freed almost immediately each time. After his third release, his GPS alarm went off and vanished. The next day, he turned up in a Stockton living room where a 15-year-old girl was asleep on the couch. The girl told police she awoke to find a stranger staring at her and that he asked ‘Wanna date?’ before leaving the home. He went twice more that week and menaced the girl and her 13-year-old sister before authorities recaptured him in a local park.”
State prisons are following the courts’ orders by releasing some of its inmates due to a maximum capacity, and jails are dismissing sex offenders who have violated their probation within days. So whose job is it to protect the members of society? The public law enforcement is constrained by opposing interests that are ultimately beyond their control.
You raise an important question regarding whose job it is to protect society, especially when public law enforcement is constrained by resources and may be unable to provide basic protection, or even answer to all calls within their department. This can give rise to the scope and power of private law enforcement; seeking other means for protection when that afforded by public law enforcement does not suffice.
ReplyDeleteChristina A. Henriquez
I agree that many of the local police departments feel conflicting pressures from different groups of people, making it difficult for them to know and decide where to focus their time and resources. However, your point seems to be putting the blame more on the issue of mass incarceration that we are facing in America today. The need to release so many offenders that maybe shouldn't be, due to maximum capacity in prisons, is a huge problem but it doesn't seem to be the fault of local police. However, back to your point, this issue does seem to inhibit the police from efficiently protecting the members of society, considering as soon as they arrest someone, he is right back out on the streets a few days later.
ReplyDeleteI see this article as an example of how modern surveillance is not some all-seeing monolithic force able to track everything we do, a point captured in the idea of the surveillant assemblage discussed by Gilliom and Monahan. Similar to the recipient resistance of welfare recipients, the people in this article are engaging in their own form of resistance against surveillance. Unfortunately, these people are often criminals who disarm their tracking devices to commit more crimes. This raises the question of what is the point of such advanced surveillance to track convicted criminals if little will be done when they commit more crimes? If the capacity of our criminal justice system is insufficient to deal with these criminals, then should more money be going to reforming that system before we develop surveillance capacities even more?
ReplyDeleteCarly Wasserman
This article was quite an interesting read. It highlights the various purposes surveillance may serve: to control, gather information, and even protect society. However, it also illustrates the many shortcomings of surveillance. Theoretically, GPS tracking devices serve as a form of protection, keeping sexual offenders out of school zones and high risk areas, by notifying public law enforcement every time criminals enter these areas. However, this article shows how little protection these devices actually provide. Perpetrators simply remove their GPS tracking devices to avoid detection and overburdened law enforcement agencies are unable to address this problem, usually arresting the perpetrator after he or she has committed another crime. Mass incarceration is also not the answer. Society does not have the resources to imprison every offender and alternatives such as GPS tracking devices ultimately lead back to incarceration. Similar to banishment, these solutions do not address any of the underlying issues or factors causing crime. Rather than waste financial resources on prisons, society should invest in solutions that either reduce crime or reform repeat offenders.
ReplyDeleteNice post Andres. It is really alarming to know that state prisons are releasing such inmates back into society without seeming to take the consequences into consideration. Although it is well known that our state prisons have deplorable conditions and are extremely overcrowded, the way the state government is going about this is all wrong in my view. Why not release non-violent offenders, such as those with minor drug convictions, or those with convictions that harmed no other person but themselves? Instead of releasing violent offenders and those who harass children, put the drug offenders on probation with monitoring devices. I'm not too sure what to say about this all, but do find it very disconcerting. There needs to be a large shift in the way our legal system goes about these type of things. Building more prisons is obviously not the answer. Whether it be a sociological, legal, philosophical, whatever you want to name it, the type of approach that we take toward this "epidemic" must be swift and well-rounded, so we don't encounter this issue again.
ReplyDeleteLike Professor has mentioned, police departments are consistently in the media and face the most scrutiny. As a result, police departments try to satisfy the concerns of everyone in the community. Usually these concerns conflict with each other, so I can understand the increased complexity in a huge city like Los Angeles.
ReplyDeleteSince the criminal system has to allocate such a small amount of resources, local police departments do need to prioritize their calls and the situations they choose to deal with. Similarly, state prisons need to prioritize the offenders who pose as huge risks to society. It is very frightening to think of dangerous convicts being free on the streets while people who smoked weed or caught loitering fill up the prisons. I think that better communication between segments of the criminal system and perhaps a centralization of the criminal system would decrease the number of dangerous persons who are free.
-Tiffani Toy
Law enforcement agencies are unhappy with realignment, no doubt. I do worry about the sensationalism of these claims in the media about the damage of this new policy. Certainly this entry suggests that who is getting out and how they continue to be monitored is an important question for both policy and research. This entry does cut across issues of law enforcement and of surveillance. Professor Musheno
ReplyDeleteWhile the GPS tracking devices and ankle bracelets may provide a temporary relief for the lack of space in prisons, with the technology advancing, the criminals are able to get around to these monitoring devices. Limited space in the prisons and means of punishment for the criminals should bring attention to the allocation of resources in the government -- perhaps in a different light, it may be a time to come up with a new solution to these growing problems.
ReplyDeleteJackie Ji Park
I think there is a huge need to prioritize which offenders should stay in prison and which offenders should be monitored by GPS tracking devices. Although publishing stories like this may lead the public to worry, it can also help the community to work together and harder to ’police’ to protect everyone because the public law enforcement cannot catch criminals such as these sex offenders without the help of the community.
ReplyDeleteEdwina Yuan
I agree with you that the public law enforcement is constrained by opposing interests that they cannot necessarily control, but I definitely feel like mass incarceration is the major problem behind inhibiting policy and catering to local interests. Our inability to admit people to prison due to overcrowded prisons really forces us to think about who deserves to be there. Sex offenders and violent offenders who exhibit recidivism should definitely be dealt with to protect the community, but I am not sure if jail is really the best way to get them (or any other offenders) to reform in the first place. If we really want to protect our community, looking at lack of prison space and police involvement is important but so is working on changing - and not just permanently removing - those we see as threatening.
ReplyDeleteAnita Wu
As some of the other comments have stated, I think this is more indicative of issues in regards to the mass incarceration going on in California -- due in a large part to the "war on drugs" and the "three strikes rule" that slap (what essentially amounts to) low-level offenders with severe jail sentencing. So, as I see it, this is more of a problem relevant to state policy and out of police hands.
ReplyDeleteIt's also interesting to note that the Supreme Court has recently ruled that police have no constitutional duty to protect individuals. It was more of a legal response to a problem with suing/liability, but I figured it was worth mentioning.
- Donald Chan
In my opinion the priorities that the police should have is the maintenance of law and order to all the members of the society. This means the law and act within the confines of the law to avoid the influence of other members in the community who have different interests in term of law enforcement, which affects order and peace, and weaken the police ability in maintaining order should guide them.
ReplyDelete-Sehun Lee
It definitely is unfortunate that police officers have to prioritize who gets assistance and for what issues. Also, that there are opposing views that the police have to side with one way or another. For instance, how Andres mentions the homeless and crime suppression dilemma. Transitioning to the sex offenders and parole offenders, it is alarming that this is occurring. Like others have previously stated, I feel that this is a problem with mass incarceration within California. This has always been something that has troubled me because so much money goes into prisons, yet there still are so many cuts to education. I feel this is where community policing might help because as part of a community, I would be concerned knowing that sex offenders and parole violators can be freed so easily. I am sure that the community where these young girls are from were pretty upset. This is an issue that definitely needs more attention.
ReplyDelete-Genesis M. Garcia
I think regarding this issue, it is the state legislature's job to protect society. It seems that the police are doing their jobs by capturing these dangerous people only to have them released once more. If California keeps releasing individuals who have clearly not been reformed and who will continue to commit crimes, it only makes it harder for police because they will have to track them down and arrest them once more. Overcrowding in prisons is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed but I believe it is one that only the state can correct and until then the police must continue to do their best to ensure public safety.
ReplyDelete-Katie Wellman
I do believe that this issue is far more reaching than simply the inability for corrections department to hold repeat offenders. I think that the process of jail is suppose to offer some rehabilitative process. But instead the parole officers think that the bracelet is going to offer some sort of rehabilitative process by feeling that they are under constant supervision (maybe internalizing the gaze?). A quick side point, I always have to doubt the dedication to success when people are expected to provide the same results with a fiscal squeeze on their operations.
ReplyDelete-Joel Pititto
Interesting article! If the local law enforcement is at a struggle and they have their hands tied about where their priorities/resources need to be, then maybe this is where the community needs to get involved and do night watches/community members patrolling the neighborhoods? Although it should be up to the police to protect the safety of citizens and not make citizens rely on themselves.
ReplyDelete-Laci Patiga
this is pretty frightening! Although the jails are crowded right now, I do not think they should let people back on the streets who are harmful to society. Violent crimes should not be taken lightly. I think people who are in jail for drug possessions or selling (although could still be violent), should be let out before people who are sex offenders. It is more likely people who sell drugs are only doing it to make money, not to harm people
ReplyDeleteJessica Crume
I think this is one of many ways that our society is flawed in trying to reduce crime. While some criminals are held for decades without end, others are let free immediately. Surveillance should control, gather information, and protect society, but sometimes it fails. That is the inherent nature of technology and even people. In search for perfection/flawless execution, we've therefore looked for more ways to police and surveil, and that is why we're becoming such a surveillance based society. However, all of the factors opposing each other makes it hard to achieve any goal because government simply can't fix everything, we lack the resources. On the other hand, I think we have some problems to fix with jails (mass incarceration), economically and morally speaking. Perhaps we need to rehabilitate criminals so that we can let some of them out to create space. When a person commits a crime at age 30, 30 years later they're 60, and clearly not the same person they were anymore.
ReplyDeleteHeidi Cheung