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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI Got Myself Arrested So I Could Look Inside the Justice System
By BOBBY CONSTANTINO
Ten years ago, when I started my career as an assistant district attorney in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, I viewed the American criminal justice system as a vital institution that protected society from dangerous people. I once prosecuted a man for brutally attacking his wife with a flashlight, and another for sexually assaulting a waitress at a nightclub. I believed in the system for good reason.
But in between the important cases, 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 neighbors yard, hosting loud parties, fighting, or smoking weed shenanigans that had rarely earned my own classmates anything more than raised eyebrows and scoldings I often wondered if there was a side of the justice system that we never saw in the suburbs. Last year, I got myself arrested in New York City and found out.
On April 29, 2012, I put on a suit and tie and took the No. 3 subway line to the Junius Avenue stop in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Brownsville. At the time, the blocks around this stop were a well-known battleground in the stop-and-frisk wars: Police had stopped 14,000 residents 52,000 times in four years. I figured this frequency would increase my chances of getting to see the system in action, but I faced a significant hurdle: Though Ive spent years living and working in neighborhoods like Brownsville, as a white professional, the police have never eyed me suspiciously or stopped me for routine questioning. I would have to do something creative to get their attention.
As I walked around that day, I held a chipboard graffiti stencil the size of a piece of poster board and two cans of spray paint. Simply carrying those items qualified as a class B misdemeanor pursuant to New York Penal Law 145.65. If police officers were doing their jobs, they would have no choice but to stop and question me.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/12/i-got-myself-arrested-so-i-could-look-inside-the-justice-system/282360/
All I can think is... is this really so hard to see? So hard to believe? I guess my perspective was formed growing up mixed race in a family with several races, so I saw the inequality first hand. But is it really so hard to see this reality from the comfortable suburbs? Don't all the statistics bear this out?
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)...but you have to try really hard.
This piece is good. It shows both the casual, endemic racism of the NYPD and the cruel, vindictive, stupidity of the system.
JimDandy
(7,318 posts)The court system went nuts doling out excessive, and once again, surprisingly unequal punishment, as soon as they discovered that the white guy was working to expose their bias against minorities.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)he could have pled out and gotten 15 days of community service.
Like to see him try it again, but ditch the expensive tailored suit. Try this instead - put on some torn, ragged jeans, really old sneakers and a ragged coat or a t-shirt with a skull on it, go five days without shaving and see how quickly you are stopped and frisked.
Because WITH the suit on, he doesn't just have race on his side, he has race AND class on his side.
redqueen
(115,103 posts)of poor white people vs. poor people of color?
11 Bravo
(23,926 posts)seveneyes
(4,631 posts)Maybe if it was to help someone in need. This act did not do that. If this makes him happy, it's all good I guess.
redqueen
(115,103 posts)for certain kinds of people.
If his actions open some other comfortably clueless people's eyes, I'm glad he did it.