Procedural Justice

By: Andre La Brec

In their study titled, “Procedural Justice and Order Maintenance Policing: A Study of Inner City Young Men’s Perceptions of Police Legitimacy”, Gau and Brunson emphasize the importance that procedural justice plays in garnering police legitimacy amongst the community.  One of the main functions of the police is order maintenance and crime reduction.  Those goals have been increasingly observed in correlation with the implementation of hard line tactics such as aggressive use of stop-and-frisk searches in cities like New York.  Stop-and-frisks entail the ability of police to stop, question, and ask to pat down the outer layer of clothing of an individual they have a “reasonable suspicion” of being involved in illicit activity.  This practice has been criticized for giving police and enormous amount of discretion in who they decide to conduct a stop-and-frisk on, opening the door to a reliance on racial stereotypes in determining who will be searched and who will not.  Indeed, a disproportionate amount of those stopped since the increased use of stop-and-frisks have been on young African-American and Latino men.  What’s more is that most of these searches turn up nothing of criminal significance.    

The temptation for police departments like NYC’s may be to continue with the aggressive, raced based implementation of stop-and-frisks, forgoing public criticisms and considerations of equal protection in exchange for continued results.  Yet this strategy may only be playing the short game, and may lead to a detrimental decrease in the perceived legitimacy of the police within the community.  On Monday, a lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, on behalf of four young men of color who claim they were wrongfully subjected to stop-and-frisks, began trial proceedings challenging the practice of stop-and-frisks in NYC.  The argument is that while the practice itself may be legal, it is illegally and unconstitutionally being applied on the basis of race (USA TODAY).  This lawsuit is being granted class action status, which means that the disproportionate number of young men of color that have been subjected to the aggressive stop-and-frisks policy of the NYPD may now potentially take part in the complaint.  Whether the case is successful, it represents an effort by some in the community to openly challenge the legitimacy of the NYPD, or at least, some of their policing practices.  This effort is likely to gain more and more participants given the recent history of criticism against the practice within the boroughs in which it has been implemented.  It provides support for the argument laid out by Gau and Brunson. 

According to Gau and Brunson, citizens value the professionalism of their police, and they feel better about interactions with the criminal justice system when they believe that police are treating them fairly and with respect.  When people believe the police are engaging in unfair practices, the community can express diminished trust and support for the police.  A situation now exists in NYC where the police department, the institution that should represent the enforcement of law, is ironically being accused by members of the community for breaking the law.  In retrospect, it may have been more advantageous for the NYPD to not have overlooked the racist implementation of their aggressive stop-and-frisk policy, because now they faced with a fairly certain hit to the legitimacy of a practice that at least has the potential to be a very useful tactic. In turn, this could likely impede its legitimate implementation in the future.  Whatever happens in the future, the case represents the culmination of years of community frustration with the police as well as the manifestation of Gau and Brunson’s suggestion that police departments be cautious of not only what policies they implement, but of exactly how they go about implementing them. 

Police Drones and Surveillance

By: Andrew Knapp

All throughout the history of the United States, there have always been issues with surveillance, policing, and a person's right to privacy.  With policing and surveillance comes the question of whether citizens' privacy and civil rights are being broken or threatened in any way. The newest threat to this privacy paradigm is the insertion of unmanned police drones to monitor citizen's actions throughout a city. According to Steve Watson at Infowars.com, the city of Seattle has put into place the use of a surveillance drone with infrared cameras to look over and protect the city from crimes or other forms of risky behavior.  Seattle is one of the first law enforcement agencies to be granted the use of surveillance drones by the United States government but has consequently faced the issues of citizens' privacy rights.

In this article, Watson claims that with the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration in 2012, " up to 30,000 spy drones could be flying in U.S. skies by 2020." Along with this, surveillance drones equipped with tear gas and rubber bullets are soon to be in the skies as well.  Surveillance blimps have also been tested for law enforcement agencies. Watson writes of a blimp the size of football field overlooking a city in New Jersey that was able to check for "suspicious activity", and to "monitor insurgents from above.” 

The use of surveillance drones and blimps can be a new and useful way of suppressing crime or eliminated it all together. With the possibility of police drones always being an "eye" in the sky, there could be a panopticon affect to the public. If police drones are constantly watching the actions of the people, there could be a positive affect on the amount of property crimes committed, however we know that surveillance does not have an affect on physical or emotionally driven crimes. It is obvious that the use of police surveillance drones could be useful to suppressing some forms of crime, however, there is the issue of the value of privacy and how far surveillance can go.

With any form of surveillance comes the question of how to balance keeping people safe and not invading the privacy of the public. How can the constant surveillance of people throughout a city without their knowing not be an invasion of privacy? Is the invasion of privacy worth it? 

Fixing Brazil's Broken Windows

By Janat Kiwanuka

This Latin American country has been in the spotlight a lot recently; recognised as one of the top emerging economies of the decade and welcoming millions of football fans in 2014 for the World Cup as well as hosting the 2016 Olympics, the positive attention Brazil has received is a far cry from the dark shadow it has emerged from.

Despite its new developments we must not forget that Brazil had largely been consumed by its prolific illegal drug trade, gang activity and notoriously corrupt police force who famously abandoned the favelas allowing violence to cultivate in these communities.

However, with all eyes next year firmly fixed on Brazil the government has come down hard on crime in the favelas, using the military and stating that they are “rescuing the people”.

Tactics being used in the “Pacification project” directly call to broken windows, the hard style of community policing we have reviewed in class on several occasions. Soldiers have analysed areas of high criminal activity and have come bursting through favela after favela, making their presence known and enforcing every minor infraction.The biggest move was clearing out the Complexo do Alemão in 2010, “responsible for receiving and distributing 90% of the drugs in Rio de Janeiro”. They have sent a clear message with the forceful hand of the law that drug-gang related activity is no longer welcome in Brazil.

The Brazilian police force lost its legitimacy a long time ago after deeming the favelas a 'no go area' and thus allowed crime to flourish. In addition to that, on the rare occasions it did attempt to enforce the law, shoot outs with the local gangs often resulted in the death of more civilians than actual criminals.

One citizen interviewed by the BBC explained that the “people who live in the favela cannot say anything”. What do the law enforcers do without the support of the community? Will this new method of policing be effective enough to make those who have lived the past few decades in fear cooperate with the police? The government has brought in the military to deal with the 'pacification' of these communities so perhaps this will counter some of the distrust between the community and law enforcement.

Critics say this style of policing will not overcome problems in these areas of Brazil as they do not address the underlying issues and will just make the crime resurface in other areas. It is obvious that the only reason why the strong hand of the law has come down now is because the government does not want Brazil to have the same reputation when competing on the global market and be considered a leading economy not tainted by corruption and cocaine. Particularly when we consider the fact that main favelas being targeted are the ones within close proximity to areas of tourism and high income, will cracks begin to appear in these newly fixed windows once the football fans, Usain Bolt and his fellow athletes have disappeared? Only time will tell.

Surveillance and Community-Oriented Policing in Tackling Juvenile Violent Crime

By: Anton Kienast

          A recent New York Times article entitled To Stem Juvenile Robberies, Police Trail Youths Before the Crime, Wendy Ruderman described New York Police Department’s new approach to mitigating future crimes of juvenile delinquents who have committed robbery.  The Juvenile Robbery Intervention Program, J-RIP, actively monitors juvenile robbers through their social media profiles on Facebook and Twitter, even “staging interventions and force-feeding outreach”.  J-RIP employs a fairly aggressive surveillance strategy by creating fake profiles on social media websites to “friend” juveniles who are suspected of being at risk for committing future crimes. 

The Intelligence Division also determines the street name and gang affiliation of each teenager under surveillance, creating a binder of photos collected from Facebook and arrest photos of their fellow gang members.  Equipped with this information, J-RIP officers aim to alienate these teenagers from their unwholesome associates by dropping in at their school and home, and driving up to them while “shouting out friendly hellos, in front of their friends”.

Additionally, officers attempt to gain the trust of each teenager’s family by offering practical assistance such as rides to doctor appointments, filling out forms for social services, and even giving gifts to their younger siblings.  The program builds upon Operation Ceasefire, successfully implemented in Boston and later in other cities, but “has a different and more narrow focus”, that being juvenile offenders who commit crimes outside of their neighborhood boundaries.  The program enjoyed success during its onset in Brownsville, where only 14 of the 106 teenagers under J-RIP’s watch were arrested for a new robbery in 2007, leading to its expansion into East Harlem.

The Juvenile Robbery Intervention Program as presented in the New York Times Article appears to blend an aggressive surveillance program with community-oriented policing.  The teenagers under surveillance have their every move monitored in an effort to prevent future crime.  Additionally, with knowledge of their whereabouts and circle of associates, officers routinely confront these juveniles in front of their peers to dissuade them from engaging in problematic behavior.  Lieutenant Glassberg, who was asked to help start the program, remarked that he “saw an opportunity to break the trajectory of those born into poverty and neglect”. 

Such an approach is markedly different from how the majority of police departments around the nation contend with juvenile crime.  Rather than abandon them to the pitfalls of their social environment, J-RIP officers take a personal interest in juvenile offenders as individuals, rather than simply labeling them as criminals and allowing the juvenile or criminal justice system to sweep them up.  Breaking the “trajectory of those born into poverty and neglect” resonates with the idea of reconstituting neighborhoods, as opposed to removing the undesirable or unsightly members of those communities.  Tackling the underlying social problems of problematic behavior may not be the mainstream tactic of dealing with crime, but it certainly is a refreshing departure from merely dealing with the criminal act when it has already been committed.

Oakland PD

By: Aya Kanda

On January 23, 2013, the Oakland City Council approved the hiring of William Bratton - also known as “super cop” – 7 to 1 after nine hours of debate.  He will be working with Robert Wasserman, a former Houston Police chief and deputy commissioner of the U.N. International police task force, under the Strategic Policy Partnership. He is a police consultant who worked as the chief of the NYPD and the LAPD and is known for his aggressive policing tactics. The stir of controversy stems from this very aspect because of his reliance on stop and frisk procedures where a police officer may stop and search an individual that he or she suspects is involved in criminal behavior. If the officer has reason to believe the person is dangerous, the officer may also pat the person down for weapons at his or her discretion. In addition to his hire, the city council also approved three more measures: the hire of 20 police technicians, 10 Alameda County sheriff’s deputies and a supervisor to patrol Oakland twice a week, and a new police academy to train more officers.

Those opposing the $250,000 contract are residents of Oakland who claim that his tactics are overly aggressive and will inevitably lead to racial profiling. A provision was made to make sure that none of the policing strategies will permit racial profiling, but residents are skeptical and scared. 29-year-old Jessica Hollie, a woman of Creole and Japanese background, said that she cried the day she found out that she was pregnant with a boy out of fear for how he would be treated by the local police department as he grows up. However, due to the 131 murders in 2012 and with Oakland having the highest crime rate in the state, many supported this hire except for Councilwoman Desley Brooks who stated, "I am deeply concerned that we are feeding into the politics of fear and playing on people's emotions on crime. It makes it seem like if we don't pass this contract tonight that nothing gets done." She voices the popular concern of those opposing Bratton’s hire by warning that there are other ways to curb the violence, but many supporters are weary of the crime and just want to see something done.

The supporters of Bratton, such as Pastor David Kitely and his congregation emphasize Bratton’s role as police commissioner for the NYPD from 1994-1996 during the decline in crime in New York. They also argue that when he was the police chief of LAPD from 2002-2009, crime rates dropped as well, along with an improvement in police-community relations. Even with these statistics, community members are concerned that the strategies Bratton employs may decrease crime, but without fixing the underlying problems of crime such as access to better social services and education.

This article is directly related to the presentation we had from the Oakland PD because Captain Figueroa stated that stop and frisk is not held up as a strategy in Oakland due to the ambiguousness around it. However, with this new strategy to curb crime, it will most likely be exercised by the discretion of Bratton, Wasserman, and the Oakland PD. On the contrary, Wasserman promised that their plan would also include town hall forums and a closer relationship with the Oakland residents to promote community solidarity and voice to the matter. We see here the hybrid style of policing which utilizes reliance the community’s opinions and insight as well as more aggressive strategies. 

For further reading on the first meeting (3/6), please visit this link. 

School Surveillance

By: Yo Kamiya

In Gilliom and Monohan’s Supervision, the authors discuss how surveillance practices are increasingly being used in many dimensions of our lives. Defined as any form of “monitoring people in order to regulate or govern their behavior,” surveillance practices have permeated throughout all facets of our society as a means of efficient data accumulation and governance.

In recent news, a San Antonio school district has attempted to tackle issues regarding truancy by requiring students to wear identification cards imbedded with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tracking devices. In addition to the 290 surveillance cameras belonging to the school district, the “tags produce a radio signal that is tied to the students’ Social Security numbers, allowing the wearer's precise movements to be constantly monitored.” However, in contrast to the original mission of preventing truancy and keeping kids on campus, the school suspended students who refused to wear their ID cards. According to school administration, the goal of the “Student Locater Program” was not only to keep students from cutting class, but also to raise revenue. Although the implementation of the system cost a substantial amount of resources, it will allow the school to increase attendance numbers and qualify for a government grant of $1.7 million. By “using the devices to account for the students' whereabouts on campus, whether in class or not, school administrators can ‘count’ students as being ‘in school’ and thereby qualify for up to $1.7 million in funding from the state government”. Naturally, this created uproar against the schools implementation of RFID devices and raised the question of whether or not such practices are actually being enforced for the benefit and safety of students or the desire of school administration and an expanding surveillance industry to make a quick buck at the expense of student privacy.

One can argue that the accumulated funds will benefit students by enabling the school to improve the quality of education. However, it is clear in the suspension of students who resist surveillance that the administration is not very concerned with student access to quality academic resources.  Instead, the event seems to be an example of corporate and academic institutions attempting to make a profit under the guise of student safety and anti-truancy measures.

Although this sort of profit driven behavior can be expected from the corporation developing such surveillance technology, it is a bit surprising to see such cooperation from the school district.  Instead of showing the concern for student privacy, “school officials have actually gone so far as to offer gift cards, pizza parties and raffle prizes to classes with the highest ID badge participation rates”. The contrast between the rewarding of students who participate in the school profit driven program and the exclusion of those who do not makes one question what the mission of academic institutions really is.

Internet Eyes

By: Cameron Ghazzagh

In October, a newly formed U.K. company came out with a novel and practical idea for commercial surveillance: Take the live feeds from store security cameras around London and stream them online, then pay people from anywhere in the world to monitor the live video for shoplifting. The site is interneteyes.co.uk, and they are attempting to address the following issue that faces most UK storeowners: Although nearly all retail stores have security cameras to record theft, too often the footage is seen after the crime has been committed, and the chances of apprehending the thief drop dramatically.

For a monthly fee, Internet Eyes hosts and transmits the video feed from store cameras to individuals around the world who have applied to become an auditor with the site. An auditor works as a kind of contract police, monitoring four different video streams at once, and, at first sign of suspicious behavior, clicks a “report” button on his or her screen. This immediately alerts the storeowner to the possible theft via text message, and even includes a snapshot of the suspect. Storeowners in the United States face similar issues with store theft, apprehension, and surveillance. Given this, I have several reasons for why this type of global, internet-based contract policing would be very effective in the context of the U.S. laws and types of surveillance we’ve discussed in class.

Based in Common Law, storeowners in the U.S. have the right to engage in merchant’s privilege if they suspect someone of shoplifting. The benefits of using Internet Eyes to apprehend shoplifters are twofold: Fewer losses for the storeowner due to theft, and less time and resources spent by law enforcement pursuing the thief post-incident. Over time, this type of surveillance would even act as deterrence for potential shoplifters, who would be under the constant possibility of being caught.    

Another benefit for storeowners comes from the global scale of Internet Eyes. By allowing anyone in the world to become an auditor, and by simultaneously giving them four different video streams to audit, the price for labor is driven down, which creates affordable contract policing for smaller shops. This innovative new form of commercial policing would offer storeowners in the U.S. an extremely effective tool in assisting with shoplifting, and also serves local law enforcement in catching shoplifters pre-theft.

Government Surveillance

By: Dega Gebre

The amount of government interest in our everyday lives is alarming. The methods of which are in use to monitor one’s every move is even more astonishing, especially when one takes into account the rate at which they do it. Unfortunately, you cannot take a restraining order out on the government as you could a stalker, and this lack of restraint exercised by the government is utterly despicable in my view. In this recent article I read, the FBI is urging companies such as Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google to not oppose a law that would require them to “build in back doors for government surveillance.” The legislative bill would require the firms to ensure that “their products are wiretap-friendly.” So, not only is the government already an extremely intrusive entity, bypassing the U.S. Constitution on a regular basis and infringing on our right to privacy in clandestine ways not known to the majority of the population, but they are now trying to make it U.S. law for large information corporations to make their systems wiretap-friendly; all to perpetuate this illegal accumulation of our private information.

To find this appalling would be an understatement, for not only are they illegally gathering our information, but they are now trying to make it a law for corporations to make it easier for them to conduct their illegal business. I usually don’t look at the government as a criminal entity, but I wouldn’t say it would be a stretch to label them as a group that engages in criminal activity, as defined by law.

The overarching umbrella for this class, up to this point so far, seems to be the government’s use of technology to monitor people’s every move. The world around us today is filled with cameras and various recording devices to monitor every move made by every person. This conglomeration of information is vast, ranging from internet surveillance to cameras in stores and to the swipe of your credit cards. All this information get’s recorded, stored, analyzed and dated. Super computer algorithms are currently being used to pretty much predict what you’ll do before you even do it. In a second article I read, I picked up on the fact that there is now a company that utilizes information from all surveillance cameras all around the U.S. This company is comprised of former officials from the C.I.A, NSA, FBI and other government surveillance agencies who all work together to analyze information available from surveillance cameras. By using facial recognition software, these officials tap into all cameras and monitor your every move. So whether you’re at a community park watching your child play, or shopping at a mall, or sitting on your laptop, just know that you are being watched.

Surveillance, as we know, has its pros and cons. 20 years ago, you could go about your day and perform your normal routine, without having to worry about your every move. Nowadays, you must watch your every move, for in the next 20 years, the proliferation of garnering data to monitor people is going to reach levels we never would have imagined. These two articles introduced me to a whole new perspective on surveillance. Not so much that surveillance is happening on an enormous scale, but rather the injustices that are being committed on an even larger scale. Why is it when the founder of Wikileaks releases information pertinent to our everyday lives for free, he gets thrown in jail, but Mark Zuckerberg collects our information, sometimes illegally, on a massive scale and sells it for profit, and wins Time’s Person of the Year award? Why has society allowed such and evolution to occur? This dichotomy that exists is eventually going to be the downfall of our nation. The destruction of the Constitution is so blatant, so obvious, that eventually we will be living in a police state

NSA Surveillance

By: Alexander Juha 

August 2012, flying back to San Francisco, from Beirut, Lebanon.  The expression of the immigration officer who processed my passport was not good.  After, I was searched and questioned.  The question that intrigued me the most “did you receive any special training while in Lebanon?” I did not need to ask for an explanation, I knew the answer.  Two weeks prior to this my friend posted a message on my Facebook that would not sit well with anyone, especially the United States government.

An important aspect we learned in class is the collection of information.  With the advancements in technology, information collection has become too easy.  Anything and everything we do is now recorded and evaluated.  One reason, a reason the government goes by, is trying to figure out if someone is friend or enemy.  After 9/11, the gloves were off and national intelligence agencies realized they were to blame, and that they should do something about it. Since then, intelligence agencies have come up with different methods for invading the lives of its citizens.  They were able to accomplish this through technology.  The book Supervision, talks about surveillance and how everything we do is tracked.  Gilliom and Monahan also make an argument that this change in surveillance is changing the capabilities of the government, and other groups with power.   With the adoption of new surveillance capabilities, the rule and guidelines that the government goes by are being stretched, torn, and even recreated.

In an article by wired magazine, author James Bamford, talks about the Utah Data Center.  The NSA in early 2011 began construction of this center, where all information can be stored and reviewed.  All information, emails, phone calls, Google searches purchases made by credit card and more, will be routed to this center.   According to the article, the purpose of this 2 billion dollar project is “ to intercept, decipher, analyze and store immense information of the world communication. Foreign and Domestic.”  This was built to help the intelligence community fight cyber security.  The intelligence community will also use this to fight terrorism.  The center will house super computers that are capable of cracking any code.  This includes information that has been encrypted by people for privacy protection.  These computers will look for keywords and patterns used in communication.  If a keyword is discovered that piece of information will be looked into, and its creator will be searched.  The center will be capable of storing all the information that anyone creates.  The intelligence community will essentially have a portfolio of everyone that uses communication.

This of course violates privacy, but the NSA and U.S government have found ways around that.  I believe systems like this will change the rules of society.  Since we live in a world of terrorism, our world of laws will change to fit the new world.  I also believe this new center, and other surveillance by the government, is used like the system of stop and frisk talked of in class.  The NSA will notice something about a person’s communication, that person gets flagged, and their profile searched. If it comes up clean they are forgotten, if not then more information will be collected of that person.  This is what happened to me, I was flagged, searched, and once they realized I was not a threat, they let me go.

Homeless People’s Bill of Rights

By: Catherine Hall

If you didn’t realize it while reading the “Banished” book, homeless people are disproportionately criminalized and negatively affected by our law enforcement and justice systems. 

In “Banished”, Beckett & Herbert discuss how people are given stay-away orders that demand they do not trespass into certain areas of a city, often disrupting their daily lives and their necessary activities. This tactic of dealing with unwanted people is not new, nor is it geographically restricted to the Pacific Northwest. One can draw the comparison between Seattle and its equally liberally-leaning California counterpart, Berkeley. Like Seattle, we here in the East Bay have struggled with our own anti-homeless laws, most poignantly Measure S (perhaps more commonly known as Sit/Lie). As Captain Upson said in his talk, Measure S was defeated in November - but let me qualify that by saying it was barely defeated, and with the probability of again being a bone of contention on our ballot next time around. The clash between Berkeley storeowners and the homeless population is intense and definitely not going away anytime soon. 

To be fair, I get it: seeing the visibly homeless makes you uncomfortable. It reminds you of all those frightening rumors your roommate told you about physical assaults perpetrated by the People’s Park community. It makes you clutch your purse a little tighter as you walk by, and hope that no one asks you for the change you might have at the bottom of your backpack. It brings out the inequalities that exist within our system, a system that has been proven to be exponentially more divided along class lines as time progresses. And honestly, no one likes the pungent stench of an unbathed body that has been victim to the natural elements for days without a shower or toilet. 

Stay-away orders and Sit/Lie laws are just two of the many ways local governments attempt to sweep people who are homeless out of their districts. Some cities have been known to provide one-way bus tickets out of town, and others prefer to make the social act of sharing food illegal. But all of these legal “solutions” are really just bandaids that move the untouchables to another location for another government to deal with. In no way do they get at the root causes of homelessness, consequently perpetuating the vicious cycle that a homeless person must face as they try to find a place to simply exist. 

“Why don’t they just go sleep in a shelter?” “Why don’t they go find a bathroom to use?” “Why don’t they go hang out at the shelter so they don’t have to sit on the sidewalks?” The answer is simple: the resources do not currently exist. Shelters do not provide enough beds to house every person who is homeless. And even if they did, many shelters have rules and regulations that restrict a person’s way of life, like mandatory get-out times and curfews which make it difficult to have your own schedule. Public bathrooms are few and far between, some even cost a few coins, and most storeowners often will not allow you to use the bathroom unless you buy something from them. Many shelters are not open during the day, for lack of funding or for other reasons, so clients are mandated to be somewhere else even if they have no place to go. A person must first be provided with the opportunity to legally participate in life-sustaining activities, like spending daytime or sleeping in a shelter or using a bathroom to relieve bodily functions, before they are criminalized for doing so. If not, their very existence is made illegal. 

To respond to all of this, the California Homeless Person’s Bill of Rights, or AB5, is a new piece of legislation that would protect people who are homeless from being unfairly discriminated against by our law enforcement and justice systems. The original authors, homelessness advocacy organizations like Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP) and Jericho, got their inspiration from Rhode Island, where a Homeless Bill of Rights was passed just this last summer. It is currently being backed by State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a democrat from San Francisco. 

A December 4^th article from the Berkeley Daily Planet, part of which I quote here, clearly describes the main points of AB5 - “The Act would guarantee homeless people freedom from discrimination in law enforcement, employment, housing and shelter, and public benefits. It protects people’s right to use public space, to keep personal property, and to engage in life-sustaining activities. It also guarantees people the right to counsel in any case where they’re being prosecuted.” Importantly, it would establish the need for public hygiene centers so that people could take care of business in a clean and private manner (one thing that I am skeptical about, though, is where funding for this project would come from, considering our debt-ridden state…). 

Currently, there are several debates surrounding a few key parts of the bill, two of which I include here because I find them to be the most important. In the most recent version of the bill that came back from Tom Ammiano's office, it is stipulated that local laws would supersede the Bill. So for example, if Measure S had passed in Berkeley, the passage of the Bill in its current form would still allow enforcement of no sitting and lying on the sidewalks. Obviously, this knocks out the teeth of the Bill and would most likely cause local municipalities to hurriedly create a myriad of local anti-homeless laws. Second, there is a very valid debate surrounding the fact that having a Bill of Rights for a specific category of our population is unfair and gives certain privileges and protections to those within that category. As an LA Times article asserts, it “essentially turns the homeless into a protected class”. That would be fair to say if people who are homeless were on an equal level to those who are housed - but they are not, and therefore their right to exist must be protected.

Deterring the Undeterrable: Targeting the Marginalized

By: Christina A. Henriquez

The policies of policing and surveilling the marginalized people discussed in Gilliom’s Overseers of the Poor and Beckett and Herbert’s Banished are depicted as policy failures. These policies fail in part because they aim at deterring the undeterrable. Deterrence depends on the idea that a rational actor calculates his costs and benefits of a certain action in order to decide whether he should take that action. Deterrence works by raising the expected costs of an action above the expected benefits. This can occur by either raising the costs of certain actions or increasing the likelihood of being caught and punished for doing those actions. But in order for deterrence to work there must be an alternative action, so when the cost of the undesirable action exceeds the cost of the alternative, the alternative will be taken. However, most of those who are banished or resort to welfare aid do not perceive they have a viable alternative.                                        

These deterrent policies have a minimal chance of working; they merely increase the costs of the only choice the marginalized have. Beckett and Herbert found the policy of banishment to be effective only in cases where people could avoid entering the restricted areas, when there was an alternative. However, both welfare recipients and the banished described their actions as necessary because they lacked an alternative. Welfare moms needed more money to survive on welfare because survival on welfare was impossible. The banished needed the crucial services provided by the restricted areas. They lacked an alternative; they perceived their only choice was violating the policies surveilling and policing them.

These deterrent policies were also ineffective because they aimed at some irrational actors, on whom deterrence would not work. Part of the population targeted widely by these banishment policies referred to by Beckett and Herbert are the mentally ill; which are, by definition, incapable of fully rational calculations. The U. S. Supreme Court applied this analysis  in recent cases regarding the death penalty for actors who are not considered to be fully rational. 

The U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down the death penalty in instances where it would not deter crime meriting capital punishment. In Roper v. Simmons (2005), the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the death penalty for juveniles as unconstitutional in part because deterrence could not be expected to work on juvenile offenders in the same way as it does on adults. Imposing the death penalty would be a cruel and unusual punishment because it would lack justification; it would be ineffective as a policy. Justice Kennedy, delivering the opinion of the Court, cites an amicus brief which provides evidence that juveniles often act irrationally because of their lessened mental capabilities. The Court views this decision as an extension of its 2002 ruling in Atkins v. Virginia where it revealed that executing the mentally ill is unconstitutional. The New York Times has an article describing both of these decisions. 

A new approach is needed to control unwanted behavior if the deterrent approach does not work. Beckett and Herbert suggest addressing the underlying issues causing the problems.

Unmanned Drones Flying Over Campus

By: Celene Garnica

In a recent article by Fox News, I was astonished to find that more and more higher education institutions such as Georgia Tech and Cornell University, to name just a couple, are and have been filing for permits to fly unmanned drones above school grounds with the Federal Aviation Administration.

The most amazing part about this story is that the reasons listed for flying the unmanned drones are mainly scientifically based. Over all, these institutions list reasons that sound as simple and innocent such as “to collect atmosphere and weather data”  however, to me, the possible ulterior motives are still lingering up in the air (pardon the pun.) According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) they had to file suit with the department of Transportation (DOT) demanding the data as to the real number of filings and the specific reasons listed for the filing of permits to fly the unmanned aircrafts. 

As we have learned in this class, we must strive to analyze and ultimately understand the real reasons and implications of such actions, especially if and when pubic funds are being utilized for such efforts. Another disturbing point this article claims is that most students of these institutions may not be aware of these fillings or the reasons rendered.

According to the same article, in 2012, 80 permits were filed with the Federal Aviation Administration. Amazingly enough, 34 of them were from higher education institutions.

As we have learned thus far, surveillance is now a big part of our society and our lives in this country. The question is: Where do we stop? As we have also learned from our reading materials such as the Gilliom and Monahan readings, to some, surveillance is not longer a luxury but also a necessity. And so it seems our higher learning institutions feel the same way.

Do You Trust The Police?

By: Genesis Garcia

Something that was discussed in the Zimring reading was an aggressive stop or Terry stop. These types of stops are supposed to be proactive and are supposed to be targeted towards individuals who look suspicious or threatening. However, the problem with this is that the main targets are young men who are mainly Black and Latino. It is critiqued as a way of racially profiling someone. It is also critiqued as being unfair and prejudiced.

In the article, The Impact of Stop and Frisk Policies Upon Police Legitimacy, by Tom Tyler and Jeffrey Fagan, it is shown that stop and frisks that are done “wrongly” actually hurt the police force instead of benefitting them. It is understandable why police would want to stop someone who looks suspicious and that may commit a crime, but it is important for police to do it with respect and politeness (of course if the one being stopped also cooperates). Tyler and Fagan use other research to prove that when police act rude, the attitudes of how the public feels about them become negative. Their legitimacy and credibility is reduced. Drawing from my own experience, I recently went to a retreat and one of the activities was to have everyone line up in a horizontal line. One person would ask a series of questions and depending on our answer we would have to step forward or step back. One of the questions was if we believed the police acted in a respectful manner and if help was needed, we could trust in the police. Alas, about a handful of people out of thirty stepped forward saying they agreed with the statement. While this in no way represents the general public, it does lead to questions of why the police are not trusted so much. Stop and frisks may not be the entire reason, but they definitely have something to do with the mistrust.

Police can try to garner positive reactions from the public through acting respectfully, being able to have a reason for the stop, and being sensitive to concerns. When the police act in such a manner, the community is more likely to feel secure and heard. The public also is more likely to comply with the law and be wiling to cooperate with the police. Additionally, in this article it is stressed that when coming up with policies, such as that of Terry stops, the police must consider various points. It should of course consider whether this would aid in their goal of crime suppression, but also must consider how these policies will affect the public perceives the police’s legitimacy.

What is your opinion of the Terry stops? Do you feel that if you’re ever in need of help the police are reliable to seek? Finally, do you have any other ways in which police can garner more legitimacy?