Posted on 08/22/2015 5:21:12 AM PDT by Kaslin
Last Saturday I made a first-ever visit to the down town Dallas Police Department to fill out a report. I had never been to a police department before. My only image of one was the police station I had seen on the television series Hill Street Blues.
Unlike the television show, the building I approached was thoroughly modern -- constructed of glass and steel. I was impressed.
Also unlike the television show, the building was locked. Locked? Yes locked. The police take off on weekends? Apparently. From what I remember, people walked in and out of the Hill Street Blues police station at any time night or day. It was part of the community. Not in Dallas.
That Saturday morning there was someone behind the locked front door. But he would only talk to me over an intercom. “Come back Monday morning after 8:00,” he ordered. When I did, I observed the interior of the building was as impressive as its exterior. But the mood and demeanor of the personnel was not much different than what I had experienced at the Department of Motor Vehicles or the Social Security administration office or almost any other government agency.
Conservatives have a long tradition of being suspicious about the power of government. But they have tended to make an exception for the police in particular and the criminal justice system in general. It was not that long ago that “support your local police” bumper stickers were popular in some parts of the country.
It’s time to reset.
The shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. was just the first in a disturbing string of widely publicized deaths of black citizens who were stopped by the police or in their custody. Most of what I’ve read about this lately has been written by liberals. But try to put that thought aside and objectively consider what New York Times columnist Charles Blow has to say:
Many local municipalities experience budgetary pressure. Rather than raise taxes or cut services in response, things that are often politically unpalatable, they turn to law enforcement and courts to make up the difference in tickets and fines. Some can also increase the number of finable offenses and stiffen the penalties.
Officers, already disproportionately deployed and arrayed in so-called “high-crime” neighborhoods — invariably poor and minority neighborhoods — are then charged with doing the dirty work. The increase in sheer numbers of interactions creates friction with targeted populations and ups the odds that individual biases will be introduced.
Blow isn’t saying the police are racists. They are probably no more racist than anyone else. The problem is that pressure from City Hall creates a situation that disproportionally affects blacks. As Blow writes:
There is blood on everyone’s hands, including the hands still clutching the tax revenue that those cities needed but refused to solicit, instead shifting the mission of entire police departments “from ‘protect and serve’ to ‘punish and profit,’ ” as Mother Jones magazine recently put it in a fascinating article on this subject.
Is it a coincidence that many of the recent cases involving black people killed by the police began with stops for minor offenses?
And that’s just the first step people encounter when they interact with the criminal justice system. If they are charged with a crime, it gets worse. Writing in the New York Times Magazine, Nick Pinto says that:
[A]t any given time, close to 450,000 people are in pretrial detention in the United States — a figure that includes both those denied bail and those unable to pay the bail that has been set... In New York City, where courts use bail far less than in many jurisdictions, roughly 45,000 people are jailed each year simply because they can’t pay their court-assigned bail. And while the city’s courts set bail much lower than the national average, only one in 10 defendants is able to pay it at arraignment. To put a finer point on it: Even when bail is set comparatively low -- at $500 or less, as it is in one-third of nonfelony cases -- only 15 percent of defendants are able to come up with the money to avoid jail.
In a post at Slate, Andrew Kahn and Chris Kirk note that:
· Black and Hispanic drivers are far more likely than whites to be stopped and searched by the police.
· Black Americans are more likely to be jailed while awaiting trial.
· Blacks are more likely to be offered a plea deal that avoids trial.
· Blacks are more likely to serve longer sentences for the same offense.
· Blacks are more likely to be disenfranchised because of a felony conviction.
· Blacks are more likely to have their probation revoked.
· Blacks are more likely to be excluded from jury pools.
· Blacks are more likely to have their probation revoked.
None of this means that racism is involved, although it may be.
Conservatives are prone to point out that there is more criminality in the black community. Writing in USA Today, criminology expert James Alan Fox notes that:
"[T]he police were not the greatest threat to black citizens and the tranquility of their neighborhoods during the late-80s crime wave. At that time, blacks were only 12% of the U.S. population, yet constituted nearly half of the nation’s homicide victims. Moreover, well over 90% of these black homicide victims were slain by members of their own race. Black lives do indeed matter, but not just when they are taken by officers in blue."
Fair enough. But that can’t excuse a lot of current practices.
Conservatives who become outraged when city governments overstep their powers of imminent domain and seize private property should be even more outraged when the criminal justice system abuses rights instead of protecting them.
What has happened to Townhall. They’ve become nothing more than a more moderate Politico.
Well said.
Excellent point
Once an author brings up Michael Brown sympathetically, I stop reading.
Brown was a thug who got exactly what he deserved. I have ZERO sympathy for him or anyone who mourns his death. I congratulate officer Wilson for ridding this world of a criminal savage.
Anyone who believes differently is incapable of logical, moral thinking. Basically, they can’t tell right from wrong. That includes John C. Goodman of townhall.com.
Just as comparing anyone to Hitler is an automatic loss of argument, using the Michael Brown shooting as an example of police brutality is also a losing argument.
Once again...gibsmedat!
Wait a minute. What do you blame Townhall.com for? The site didn’t write the column
Really?
I saw an obvious three points:
1- Throw money at the poor, downtrodden black man.
2- Throw more money at the poor, downtrodden black man.
3- Throw a boatload of money at the poor, downtrodden, black man.
Can no one see that the more freebies they get, the more they demand?
What in the hell more can we do?
We've gone the welfare queen route, been down the "affirmative action" road, created an entire ghetto economy that revolves around the USDA Food Stamp program, given them housing that they promptly squat in the middle of and take a crap, subsidized businesses to open in these depressed areas, which are promptly driven to bankruptcy by the plethora of shoplifting and thievery, provided free medical care, the resources of which are sucked up by the gunshot and knifing subjects, attempting to kill one another or if not the violence, the treatment of drug overdose and addiction, to the absolute point that there is no money left to provide a child an immunization shot...on and on and on...WHERE and WHEN does it end?!
There is A LOT of crime toward peaceful civilians that is not being reported. I just spoke to someone ‘in the know’ about goings on in my community that made the hair on my neck stand on end. Violence is on the increase.
There needs to be a return to GOD before it is too late. Churches cannot turn a blind eye to this.
Pull everyone of consequence, and then nuke it from space. It is the only way to be sure.
Where does the low character come from? Is it race?
I do believe it is environment. Raised with no father figure and no real hope of success.
I’m not saying they are not responsible for their state. I’m saying we could do something. But to be clear, I’m not talking about the government, other than them actually enforcing the law. Our strength is not in our government. Our strength is in our individual character - collectively. And when everyone spends all their free time in selfish pursuits, well, it will not last. People get the greatest joy from helping others. It is a two sided coin that seems to remain in our pockets.
You seem to be the only one who gets it.
If you don't want to live in a police state, you have to police yourself. It's silly to complain about a large police presence in your community, and all the unpleasantness that brings, after your citizens have chosen, in large numbers, to ignore the law.
Too many black people seem to have the idea that the law means whatever they can get away with.
To me, ‘Ferguson’ is not simply the Gentle Giant and so-called police brutality.
For the rest of the country, ‘Ferguson’ means the days of riot, and lawlessness.
Should conservatives care about Ferguson? Absolutely, just like Baltimore, you don’t give rioters ‘space’. They want anarchy, they meet with Chicago DNC 1968 riot response.
Not necessarily. Some people might just have it in their genes, regardless of race, to be more violent, hot tempered, and even less intelligent and/or less imaginative than others, in terms of problem-solving one's way through difficult situations.
I lived near Fergison when the whole shooting thing happened. It was an ugly time to be living in St. Louis, that’s for sure.
I think that the frustration that the ‘black community’ (as much as I hate that term, because it’s segregationist at the very least) feels is somewhat justified, just that it’s aimed at the wrong parties. They ARE being kept down, but it’s not by racist white cops. From what I’ve seen, the entire community is having its legs cut out from under it by the same programs that supposedly help them, and the same politicians pandering for their votes and keeping them, yes, enslaved.
The black women I’ve talked to are alternately wanting a man to take care of them and their children, but at the same time afraid of the men in their community.
The black men I’ve talked to—at least some of them; I haven’t talked to the thugs—are aware that there’s some kind of injustice going on because they can see how different black neighborhoods are from others, but many of them either blame Republicans or don’t know what to do about it.
And no one wants to even consider the thought that they’ve been lied to their entire life and worse, been fooled by people who you thought were your friends.
That trend has ended, and Christian virtue has been, in many ways, rejected by our culture. How do we put that toothpaste back in the tube? We don't.
Yes, maybe the writer should have looked up “eminent” and “imminent” before going live.
And “low character,” if you’re a Christian, is understood to be Man’s default state.
I'm only mildly interested because it conclusively proves a point: The whole mess was caused by LBJ and the RATs.
If anyone should care about Ferguson, it's the socialist-filth that destroyed the black nuclear family in the first place.
They made their bed, let them lie in it.
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