Go to qualitypolicing.com

Tag: In Defense of Flogging

  • “Kalief Browder, Held at Rikers Island for 3 Years Without Trial, Commits Suicide”

    Meanwhile, with people too busy complaining about cops, I think we’re missing the big picture. We really need to prioritize a bit here. In 2010 a 16-year-old boy was accused of stealing/robbing a backpack. He spent 3 years in a Rikers Island jail.

    Three years.

    He could have gotten out earlier, but he would have had to take a guilty plea. He said he didn’t do it. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. (But given his unwillingness to take a plea, I’m partial to believing he was innocent. But it really doesn’t matter.)

    Kalief Browder wanted his day in court. If he were found guilty in trial, he would have faced up to 15 years. Instead, after three years in jail, his case was dismissed. Charges dropped. He was released. A metro card and home. The end.

    A few days ago he killed himself.

    Browder never recovered from his time in jail. Could you?

    We only now about Kalief Browder because the New Yorker did a piece on him last year.

    There are so many problems here, it might even make one defend flogging.

    How do we allow this to happen in our nation?

    I wrote a book about the horrors of jail and prison. (Did I mention Flogging is short, light, a great beach read, and the most enjoyable book you’ll ever read about whipping people?!) The pointless of it all. The system of justice that does not work. It seems almost pointless to regurgitate them here. And yet this case combines so many bads it seems worth a few highlights.

    Browder was sent to jail as a 16-year-old. Browder, as documented on video, was beaten up by guards and inmates. Because of these fights, Browder spent two of his three years in jail in solitary confinement. Browder would not cop a plea, so he stayed in jail.

    His bail was $3,000. His family couldn’t afford to pay. So he stayed in jail awaiting a trial that never came. In 2013, a judge offered to let him go if he:

    plead guilty to two misdemeanors — the equivalent of sixteen months in jail — and go home now, on the time already served. “If you want that, I will do that today,” DiMango said. “I could sentence you today. . . . It’s up to you.”

    Browder said he wanted to go to trial because he didn’t do it. He faced up to 15 year if convicted at trial.

    Then, on his 31st court date, three years after he was arrested, his case was dismissed. No trial. No conviction. Also no exoneration. It’s like it never happened.

    How can this great nation sent a kid to jail for three years without trial? This is third-world dictatorial bullshit.

    One reason is budgetary. There are not nearly enough judges and court staff to handle the workload; in 2010, Browder’s case was one of five thousand six hundred and ninety-five felonies that the Bronx District Attorney’s office prosecuted. The problem is compounded by defense attorneys who drag out cases to improve their odds of winning, judges who permit endless adjournments, prosecutors who are perpetually unprepared. Although the Sixth Amendment guarantees “the right to a speedy and public trial,” in the Bronx the concept of speedy justice barely exists.

    So one answer, a partial answer, is to throw money at the problem. That ain’t gonna happen. Because that would require us to actually care. But with more judges and lawyers, the justice system might actually administer more justice. Or at least bad justice quicker. But who really cares about justice when it’s other people, poor people, being fucked by the system? Browder is dead because the system — our system — fucked him. And it’s not like the system forget about Browder. This isn’t our system not working as intended. This is the system we have. The least we could is actually care.

  • Baltimore mom beats son for rioting

    This had become a popular video in Baltimore.

    And the interview with moms.

    You know, technically, in our-spanking-is-wrong society, mom committed the crime of physical child abuse. The law says lock her up and put her child in protective services to protect him from her. The law is not made by single mothers in Baltimore.

  • Life in Federal Minimum-Security Prison… Free Kariakou!

    Life in Federal Minimum-Security Prison… Free Kariakou!

    Not too long ago I sent my Greek Americans book to John Kiriakou. He’s a proud Greek American and about as close to a political prisoners as we have. In his own words:

    I’m one of the people the Obama administration charged with criminal espionage, one of those whose lives were torn apart by being accused, essentially, of betraying his country. The president and the attorney general have used the Espionage Act against more people than all other administrations combined, but not against real traitors and spies. The law has been applied selectively, often against whistle-blowers and others who expose illegal, corrupt government actions.

    After I blew the whistle on the CIA’s waterboarding torture program in 2007, I was the subject of a years-long FBI investigation. In 2012, the Justice Department charged me with “disclosing classified information to journalists, including the name of a covert CIA officer and information revealing the role of another CIA employee in classified activities.” I had revealed no more than others who were never charged, about activities — that the CIA had a program to kill or capture Al Qaeda members — that were hardly secret.

    Eventually the espionage charges were dropped and I pleaded guilty to a lesser charge: confirming the name of a former CIA colleague, a name that was never made public. I am serving a 30-month sentence.

    After getting my book, Kiriakou wrote me back a nice thank-you note (hand-written, of course) so I then sent him another book of mine, In Defense of Flogging. I figured he has plenty of time on his hands to think about incarceration. Kiriakou mentions me in his his latest missive from Loretto Minimum Security Federal Prison. It’s a good read, if for nothing else his concise summary of prison religions and having to deal with pedophiles in prisons. The latter includes this:

    Loretto’s “Education” Department scheduled a prisoner-led class last fall called “Quantum Physics.” Nobody bothered to check whether the prisoner-teacher was qualified to teach a course on quantum physics, nor did anyone request a lesson plan. As it turned out, the gay prisoner-teacher’s only degree was from the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Clown College. The course had nothing to do with quantum physics. It was a self-help pity party for pedophiles, and it sought to help them expand their rationale of denial, with the theme from “Rocky” playing in the background all the while. The teacher began the course by chanting, “We’re homos and we’re chomos! We’re homos and we’re chomos!” (“Chomo” is short for “child molester.”) One African-American prisoner, who expected to learn something about quantum physics, got up, shouted, “This is fucked up!” and walked out. Otherwise, it was a very popular class among a certain demographic. I’m not kidding.

    The Dissenter has been publishing Kirikou’s letters under the heading: Letter From Loretto. They are worth reading in their entirety.

    Here is a brief summary of one:

    [Kiriakou] has learned “how to cook methamphetamine.” He has learned how best to steal food from a cafeteria to cook food “using only a live electrical wire and a garbage can full of water.” He has learned how to smoke “spitarettes,” which cost $10 each and are cigarettes made with chewing tobacco spit out by prison guards and dried and rolled up with toilet paper.

    He concludes, “The country already is home to an increasingly large population of uneducated, untrained, unreformed, pissed-off ex-felons who are not going to just sit around hoping to win the lottery. Lacking prospects for employment, they’ll do what they do best—commit crimes.”

    “For the pedophiles, they will leave prison emboldened by the fact that they spent their entire sentence among like-minded sickos without once being challenged about their perversions.”

    This the type of prison disparaged as Club Fed. I wouldn’t want to take a vacation there.

    Here’s a copy of one of his thoughtful thank-you letters to me. John Kiriakou will probably be getting a copy of Cop in the Hood for Easter.

  • Rich folk don’t “fare well” behind bars

    A du Pont family heir plead guilty to raping his 3-year-old daughter in 2008.

    From The Daily News:

    Superior Judge Jan Jurden sentenced Richards to eight years in prison, but suspended the time for probation that requires monthly visits with a case officer. “Defendant will not fare well in [a prison] setting,” Jurden wrote in her sentencing order.

    Well that’s very sweet. Money does have its privileges. But as much as I’d love to go off on trust-fund babies, a large part of me says this judge did exactly the right thing: not send this guy to prison. Why? Because he will be killed in prison. The problem is that the state cannot protect its prisoners from being murdered. How could you, as a judge, knowing sentence someone to prison knowing they will be killed? Now were he killed, I wouldn’t shed a tear, but still… if we as society want this guy to be executed, then we as society should have the balls to kill the guy. Legally. By the book. But to gleefully put a guy in locked cage knowing that convicts will do our murderous dirty work for us? For shame.

    [The definition of “rape” has come to mean too things; here’s the definition of 4th degree rape in Delaware.]

    [hat tip to Jay Ackroyd]

  • Like David Hasselhoff, but in Australia. And with a whip.

    Like David Hasselhoff, but in Australia. And with a whip.

    Not too long ago I was kindly very politely by a woman at the Australian Police Journal to restate my argument in defense of flogging. This goes back to my Festival of Dangerous Ideas talk last November. I am generally happy to oblige anything with “police” in the name, even if they don’t pay. So I dusted something off and thought that was that.

    Well perhaps I, er, mis-underestimated the APJ. S allow me to plug them:

    The Australian Police Journal (APJ) is Australasia’s pre-eminent non-fiction publication about policing.

    The APJ is published quarterly on behalf of all the Police Commissioners of Australia in order to educate and inform police and interested members of the community, in policing and related topics – both contemporary and historical. From its humble beginning in 1946, the journal now has over 25,000 subscribers throughout Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Region and beyond.

    The APJ is administered by a not-for-profit company representing all the Australian police services. Its articles are written by police and related professionals, and have a direct relevance to Australian policing.

    Admittedly, that description is a bit dry, but that’s actually just the kind of publication I love publishing in.

    Anyway, it turns out that more than just flatfoot cops read the APJ. And it turns out my flogging story was their cover story. After the APJ article appeared, it was picked up by the mainstream Australian media. In the past few weeks, me or my argument against prisons and In Defense of Flogginghas appeared down under here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. G’day, mate! (Best of all, because of the 15-hour time difference, even the morning-drive radio interview was at a civilized 3pm.)

    And of Friday I’ll be on “The Project.” (Pronounced down-under with a long-O and, as my friend put it, “It’s like the Jon Stewart of Australia, but more serious.” Though actually my friend used the words, “…not as funny,” but let’s not quibble about his comedic taste.) Here was my first appearance on the Prooooject (though last time I checked you couldn’t view from the US).

    Anyway, all this is to say it’s nice the flogging is still alive in Oz. Better yet that they’re actually talking about alternatives to incarceration that are politically more feasible. I don’t know if this will sell books or improve the criminal justice system in Australia… but a man can dream. Regardless, it’s a bit odd to be a very minor academic celebrity in a land that is 10,000 miles away.

  • Prison is worse than flogging? You don’t say…

    In the TimesDavid Brooks makes a crazy point that prison may actually be worse than flogging. Craaaaaazy… I only wish I had thought of this idea…

  • Flogging is less harmful than prison?!

    David Brooks says so in the Times, so it must be true. But what a craaaazy idea… who would have ever thunk such a thing?

  • Flogging on Sunday Night Safran

    This is the best radio show you’ve never heard of (unless you’re Australian, in which case it might just be the best radio show). Where else do you get a smart-alec Jewish boy from Melbourne and an (almost) 80-year-old Catholic priest shooting the shit? (pardon my language, Father Bob.) I was on it last week. I really love being on shows I know and enjoy.

    I first heard about John Safran at the Festival of Dangerous Ideasin Sydney last November. Actually, I had heard of his black-faced experience in Chicago’s Wiener Circle, where I’ve eaten a few hot dogs in my days. Was what he did racist? Certainly as an American I wouldn’t do what he did. But, as to an Australian doing it? As the Pope said, who am I to judge? Certainly his intentions were good and the end result interesting (in a gonzo-journalism black-like-me kind of way, which I rather enjoy as a TV viewer).

    Anyway, that was five years ago.

    Meanwhile I’m on my flight back from Sydney and start reading Murder in Mississippi by John Safran. It was in my swag bag coming back from the festival in Sydney. (Alas, the book isn’t available yet in the US, but eventually it will be.) It’s a great book. Safran conducts some fine investigative journalism while delving into the murder of a white supremacist. Sometimes you need an outsider to appreciate the oddities of one’s own culture. On the same flight I happen to be listening to podcasts of his show, Sunday Night Safran, as recommended to me by an Australian friend (when I asked about some Australian culture I wouldn’t know about, but should, like in the same way he listened to This American Life and Radio Lab).

    Turns out Safran (pronounced with two strong A’s that sound odd to the American ear, like the ass in, er, sassafras) is one smart and thoughtful Aussie. (It also turns out that in the course of researching his book, he spent some time with Yolande Robins, my 7th-grade history teacher and now dear family friend, who returned to Vicksburg, Mississippi to run the family funeral parlor.)

    Listen to the show. Download the podcast, expand your cultural horizons, and don’t worry, we do speak their language (though with the occasional stumble).

    (And the techies out there might be impressed, as was I, at the pretty good audio quality, albeit with a slight delay, that came with skype and my new fancy microphone.)

  • Defending Flogging Down Under

    Waste an hour watching my dangerous idea at the Sydney Opera House’s 2013 Festival of Dangerous Ideas:

    There’s also me on a panel “Getting Soft on Crime”:

    You can watch all the Dangerous Ideas here. What an amazing weekend and amazingly well run festival! Thanks to everybody at FODI.

  • Waltzing Matilda

    Waltzing Matilda

    Should you just happen to be in Sydney next week, wonder over to the Opera House and check out the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. I’ll be there, spreading dangerous thoughts about flogging and the war on drugs.

    Did I mention they’re flying me over there all fancy? Like in business class? Classy, those Aussies are!

    It should be a blast.