http://www.inthesetimes.com/archives/tags/criminal+justice/ In These Times features award-winning investigative reporting about corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing, insightful analysis of national and international affairs, and sharp cultural criticism about events and ideas that matter. en-us Expression Engine jessica@inthesetimes.com seamus@inthesetimes.com Thu, 21 Jul 2005 06:59:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2242/so_very_sorry/ Occasionally I speak publicly about the racial disparities that afflict the prison-industrial complex. I often end my talks with an observation about how racial lynching once was accepted by white Americans because they assumed that the mostly black male victims were guilty. African Americans had been so thoroughly demonized by the media of those days many whites considered lynching a public service. We marvel at our former acceptance of such racist injustice. But in the future we'll look back on our current apartheid system of criminal justice and shake our heads in disbelief. I thought about this when the Senate passed a voice vote apology for its inaction in the face of a documented 4,743 lynchings from 1882 to 1968.… criminal justice race David Sirota Mon, 31 Oct 2005 06:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2374/liberalism_brain_on_drugs/ At some point, everyone ought to throw his or her political theory--whatever it is--up against the wall of reality to see if it sticks. I ran smack into that wall when the state shackled Mark, one of my best friends, and hauled him off to a dank, violent, maximum-security prison for a 17-year stay. His crime: possession of a spoonful of cocaine, some of which they said he intended to distribute. The judge had recommended he be sent to a prison that focuses largely on drug treatment, but it is hopelessly overcrowded. So there Mark sits in Hagerstown, Md., his letters reflecting a mind slowly losing its tether as violence and mayhem swirl around him. I've always believed that we… criminal justice David Sirota Wed, 02 Nov 2005 00:55:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2388/breaking_rank/ In 1999 Norm Stamper made international news in a most inglorious way, as the police chief of the Seattle Police Department during the WTO-related demonstrations. For this 34-year veteran police officer with a Ph.D. in behavioral psychology, it was not his proudest moment. Stamper now says that he made serious mistakes. Stamper's resignation and retirement from the force followed shortly thereafter. He moved to a cabin in Washington's San Juan Islands and began to write a book that would put him in a different kind of spotlight altogether, as an advocate for the legalization of drugs and prostitution, as well as a critic of racism, sexually predatory behavior and the prevalence of domestic violence within police departments. Breaking Rank: A… criminal justice David Sirota Mon, 07 Nov 2005 21:36:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2382/give_me_cognitive_liberty/ Psychoactive drugs offer access to varied states of consciousness; restriction of this access is a fundamental form of repression. Consequently, the "war on drugs" is not just a campaign against the use of certain substances; it's also an attack on "cognitive liberty," or the right to control individual consciousness. This argument has a libertarian pedigree, but there is a growing movement, concerned with expanded consciousness and cognitive liberty, that has adopted and adapted it. "The so-called war on drugs is not a war on pills, powder, plants and potions," argues Richard Glen Boire, founder and executive director of the Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics (CCLE) in the Summer 2000 edition of the group's Journal of Cognitive Liberties, in what… criminal justice David Sirota Mon, 14 Nov 2005 22:43:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2397/cops_and_harm_reduction_hotties_oh_my/ You wouldn't have expected it during any other week, but for a few days in mid-November, pot smoke wafted throughout the hallways and meeting rooms of the Westin Hotel in Long Beach, California. Upscale hotels aren't typical hangouts for barefoot young hippies, recovering addicts, or a handful of self-described "harm reduction hotties" toting their own 12-month calendar and information about how to minimize disease and other damage from injection drug use. But here they were, rubbing elbows with retired police chiefs, academics, addiction specialists, attorneys, non-profit directors, religious leaders and formerly incarcerated prisoners. The occasion? The 2005 International Drug Policy Reform Conference, organized by the Drug Policy Alliance. With nearly 1,000 registrants from all over the United States and many… criminal justice David Sirota Thu, 22 Dec 2005 06:01:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2446/christmas_in_new_orleans/ Picture Santa's sled with a rolling kitchenette attached and you have some idea about the size of a FEMA trailer. I came across a yard of them when I got lost on the highway near Baton Rouge, where most of my family evacuated out of New Orleans. The trailers are not the double-wides I imagined--but some are festooned with lights and an artificial Christmas tree outside the door as in a Bobbie Ann Mason short story. A FEMA trailer is more like a camper that you'd attach with a hitch to your four-wheeler when you want to get out of the city for the weekend. Tiny, but nonetheless a gift. As the rest of the country, children and adults alike,… criminal justice environment David Sirota Wed, 18 Jan 2006 23:10:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2466/reflections_on_tookie_execution/ Last month's execution of Stanley Tookie Williams is part of a grotesque revenge ritual that likely will deepen the cycle of violence it purports to diminish. Williams, a co-founder of the Crips street gang, had transformed himself into a passionate anti-gang activist during his near quarter century in prison. When he talked of personal redemption and racial pride, it had a ring of authenticity---and it rang a bell with other inmates. Record numbers of black ex-inmates now are flooding into communities that are woefully ill-equipped to absorb them. These returning community members are angrier than when they left. Cooped in fetid warehouses that long ago abandoned the goal of rehabilitation, they usually lack marketable skills and often scorn old-school black… criminal justice David Sirota Mon, 30 Jan 2006 06:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2479/witness_for_the_prosecution/ A Florida hit man. A high-powered lobbyist. A pair of disgraced Republican congressmen. The ingredients for a potboiler novel? No--this is what passes for political news in the age of Abramoff. In a trial scheduled to start in early February, Brian Cavanaugh, an assistant state attorney in Broward County, Fla. is prosecuting three men for the murder of former SunCruz Casino cruise ships owner Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis. And he wants to talk to Abramoff and a close business associate, Adam Kidan, about what role, if any, they played in the murder. For years, the two men were high-rolling, hobnobbing lobbyists, rubbing elbows with best of Washington Republican society. But their political connections could not save them from a slew of… criminal justice government: congress David Sirota Wed, 01 Feb 2006 06:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2483/walking_to_guantamo/ It was tough getting used to being a spectacle, but that is exactly what we were--a motley gaggle of gringos walking through Cuba in short pants and matching gray T-shirts that read "Witness Against Torture: A March to Visit the Prisoners at Guantánamo." Wearing straw hats and sunglasses, we trailed clouds of sunscreen and bug spray. Our journey did not start on a Cuban road. We had met and prepared for months to get to this point. Our conversations started as an exploration of ways to resist the "war on terrorism" and respond to the suffering of its victims--and ways to do that as Christians in the tradition of the Catholic Worker movement. Dorothy Day, one of its founders, is… criminal justice military and armaments David Sirota Mon, 27 Mar 2006 04:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2569/race_riot/ When the nation's largest jail system erupted in violence on Feb. 4, officials thought they would quickly bring the situation under control. L.A. County Jail correctional officers are trained in forms of riot control, and regularly drilled in the art of jail combat, complete with S.W.A.T.-style protective gear and access to an arsenal of lethal and "non-lethal" weaponry. But this wasn't the kind of inmate uprising that jail officials expected. For the better part of a month, inmates throughout the sprawling L.A. County Jail system tangled with one another in small-scale scuffles and large-scale battles. By late February, two dead inmates and hundreds of injured inmates later, jail officials believed they had finally contained the riot. But then violence broke… criminal justice race David Sirota Thu, 27 Apr 2006 01:00:01 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2636/reporting_on_america_most_unwanted/ From the car seat of his 1998 Nissan Altima, journalist Sasha Abramsky views the American landscape through a multifocal lens. So too does journalist Steve Bogira, from the purview of an uncomfortable courtroom bench. But wherever they are, each spends his time documenting the nation's most unwanted citizens: the impoverished, adjudicated, imprisoned, and disenfranchised. Neither Abramsky nor Bogira come across as pessimists. Both recognize the myriad ways in which individuals and communities strive for the American dream. But as journalists, both also focus their attention on the sociopolitical inequalities that thwart those democratic aspirations--inequalities woven so deeply into the national fabric that they seem impossible to extract. Abramsky and Bogira are both part of a small but influential set of… criminal justice media David Sirota Wed, 10 May 2006 04:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2622/no_room_in_prison_ship_m_off/ It has been an arduous, surreal journey for eight Hawaiian female prisoners sent to do their time on the mainland. The plight of this group of women housed, most recently, in a prison in the small eastern Kentucky town of Wheelwright, would have escaped unnoticed, had it not been for the death of 43-year-old Sarah Ah Mau, on New Year's Eve 2005. Mau, serving a life sentence for second-degree murder, had been incarcerated since 1993 and had a shot at parole eligibility in August 2008. She never got that chance. Instead she died of as-yet-unexplained "natural causes" after two days in critical condition--and a month after first complaining of severe gastrointestinal distress. Family members and fellow prisoners say that Ah… criminal justice David Sirota Fri, 19 May 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2656/science_the_drug_war_latest_victim/ The war on drugs is an attack on rationality. Reason lost yet another skirmish recently when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on April 20 that "no sound scientific studies" supported the medical use of marijuana. The announcement flatly contradicts the conclusion of virtually every major study on the efficacy of medical marijuana, including two performed by the government. In a New York Times article the following day, Dr. Jerry Avorn of Harvard Medical School said "this is yet another example of the FDA making pronouncements that seems to be driven more by ideology than science." Avorn's criticism is one regularly leveled at the Bush administration, namely, that it is using politics to trump science. Last year, for example,… criminal justice David Sirota Thu, 01 Jun 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2679/new_orleans_defendants_lost_in_legal_swamp/ Even years before the water came to New Orleans, many of its indigent criminal defendants had been left to drown in the state's criminal justice system. During the last decade, Louisiana's indigent criminal defense was so underfunded that in 1993, one public defender in New Orleans refused to go forward with his cases, saying that with such inadequate resources he couldn't provide a level of representation that would pass constitutional muster. A year later the State Supreme Court created an emergency board to reform the state's system and that was followed by legislation a few years later. But things didn't get much better. From the American Bar Association to the New York Times, nearly every single report on indigent defense… criminal justice race David Sirota Mon, 05 Jun 2006 05:30:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2680/convict_nation/ Let me tell you what hurts the most I'm a convicted felon and I can't workNo matter where I go to try to get paid ... That's the everyday life of a convictTrying to make it while they're saying to me: The judge said, "Don't trouble nobody," Probation said, "Don't trouble nobody," "Stay out of trouble, don't trouble nobody," And I'm a tryin' not to trouble nobody ... Picture lookin' at your babies in the faceWhen they hungry and they need to eatTrying not to do wrong, But they won't let me do right. Even though I done change my lifeCriminal record's what they're judging me by. Akon, "Trouble Nobody." In May, I traveled to McNeil Island Corrections Center, a… Criminal Justice Drugs Judiciary David Sirota Thu, 03 Aug 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2769/police_torture_and_the_need_for_repair/ When the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) mobilized opposition to a bill naming one Chicago block in honor of the late Fred Hampton, the legislation died, despite vigorous support from African-American activists and politicians. Hampton, a Black Panther killed by police in an infamous 1969 raid, was popular among many in the black community because he aggressively challenged police brutality. Hampton's brazen assassination confirmed his complaint and transformed him into an international martyr. But the FOP said Hampton advocated cop killing and the bill for an honorific street died without any support from the city's white aldermen. More than three decades later, many white Americans remain unconvinced by blacks' complaints of police abuse. Those same differences likely explain why charges… Criminal Justice Government Agencies Race Corruption David Sirota Wed, 27 Sep 2006 00:01:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2835/tracking_the_cia_torture_flights/ On September 6, President George W. Bush admitted that the United States detains suspected terrorists in secret CIA-run prisons in foreign countries. He announced that 14 individuals previously held in these secret jails had been transferred to the "detention facility" on Guantánamo Bay Naval Base. The president claimed that no other individuals were currently being held at these CIA "black sites," but refused to disclose the location of said jails. "Doing so would provide our enemies with information they could use to take retribution against our allies and harm our country." In their new book Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights, A.C. Thompson and Trevor Paglen detail how the CIA transports these "detainees" around the globe.… guantanamo criminal justice books war on terror David Sirota Mon, 16 Oct 2006 05:00:01 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2864/abandon_hope_all_who_enter_here/ Moazzam Begg is a second-generation British Muslim. In 2002, he was arrested in Pakistan and held for two years by the United States as an "enemy combatant." Below, he describes his arrival and interrogation in Guantanamo after being held at both Kandahar and Bagram. He was released in 2005, and now lives in Birmingham, England, with his family. Today, Begg can lecture only in Britain because, despite the absence of charges against him, his passport was withdrawn as a condition of his release. He hopes to be able to travel and lecture more widely in the future. It is considered a sin in Islam to despair, but in Bagram, during the worst days of May 2002, I had been unable… Terrorism guatanamo criminal justice military David Sirota Mon, 13 Nov 2006 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2894/stunning_revelations/ TASER International Inc. maintains that its stun-guns are "changing the world and saving lives everyday." There is no question that they changed Jack Wilson's life. On Aug. 4, in Lafayette, Colo., policemen on a stakeout approached Jack's son Ryan as he entered a field of a dozen young marijuana plants. When Ryan took off running, officer John Harris pursued the 22-year-old for a half-mile and then shot him once with an X-26 Taser. Ryan fell to the ground and began to convulse. The officer attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but Ryan died. According to his family and friends, Ryan was in very good physical shape. The county coroner found no evidence of alcohol or drugs in his system and ruled that Ryan's… corporations criminal justice weapons David Sirota Mon, 02 Apr 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3091/rethinking_lineups/ In the mid-'90s, inspired by a spate of DNA exonerations, academics began to study whether eyewitness identifications using traditional police lineups were less reliable than previously believed and found that a different lineup protocol appeared to be more dependable. So Sheri Mecklenburg, general counsel to the Chicago Police Department, and Ebbe Ebbesen, a psychology professor at the University of California at San Diego, decided to test it. Their one year field study, conducted in three different-sized Illinois cities--Chicago, Evanston and Joliet--was Mecklenburg's idea. As counsel to the police department, she says, "I want them to do the best job they can, and they want to do the best job they can. I'm not against any improvement." However, the Illinois results… criminal justice prison David Sirota