Category: crime and punishment

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crime and punishment ideological culture

Down Among the Non Sequiturs

BLM, Black Lives Matter, protests, riots, property, Antifa

There is a rule in respectable writing, particularly academic: don’t quote “down.”

This means that academics don’t cite newsletter writers as authorities, scientists don’t consult table-​rappers as purveyors of relevant data, politicians don’t quote tweets.

But of course that’s all changed now, thanks to Trump.

Which perhaps excuses me to deal with a simple Facebook “meme” that I’ve seen shared around among progressives. It’s a deceptively simple question; the point in criticizing it is not to castigate the person who first posed it.

Here it is: “Why is murder an appropriate response to property damage, but property damage isn’t an appropriate response to murder?”

I confess: this really startled me. Not because it is hard to answer, but because what it says about discourse in our time. 

Note what is obviously wrong with it:

1. Murder is not an apt response to anything, for murder is unlawful and/​or immoral killing. The premise is absurd.

2. Some people do indeed kill rioters and others who are attacking them or their property. This can be justified because self-​defense is the basis of all our rights, and a violent attack doesn’t just fit into neat little “I’m only destroying your property” box. 

3. The proper response to murder, after the fact of some violent moment, is lawful arrest and trial, not killing. Self-​defense is for moments of conflict. Some time after an illegal act? Then we proceed by the rule of law.

Of course, this little thought experiment was designed to justify riots.

It does not.

It justifies, really, only this episode of

Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment

Hearts United

Julia Jackson, Kenosha, riots, shooting

“They shot my son seven times — seven times — like he didn’t matter,” explained a choked-​up Jacob Blake, Sr., at a news conference after his son was shot and paralyzed by Kenosha police. “But my son matters. He’s a human being and he matters.”

On Sunday, Kenosha police were called to a domestic disturbance. Attending his three-year-old’s birthday party in the same neighborhood, Jacob Blake, Jr., was reportedly “trying to break up the argument” between two women. Police have provided scant details, but two cell-​phone videos made public show Blake wrestling with police on the passenger side of his vehicle and then walking around to the driver’s side followed by police with their guns drawn. As Blake starts to get into the driver’s seat, an officer grabs Blake’s shirt and then fires seven shots at close range into his back. 

The Washington Post labeled it “the latest incident this summer to … divide a nation over the urgency of bringing fundamental change to law enforcement.” 

But we are not so divided. Not on criminal justice reform, which whopping majorities across all races and political parties fervently support. 

“The only response worthy of the moment is laws,” argued Rev. Al Sharpton. I’m with him. Let’s legally toss chokeholds, no-​knock raids, qualified immunity, civil forfeiture, and police unions … along with their contracts hiding misconduct from the public.

Americans of all races are also united, not divided, in opposing the violence and destruction by rioters in Kenosha and Minneapolis and Portland and elsewhere. 

“As I was riding through the city, I noticed a lot of damage,” Blake’s mother, Julia Jackson, told the media. “It doesn’t reflect my son. Or my family. If Jacob knew what was going on … the violence and the destruction, he would be very unpleased.”

“Take a moment,” she urged, “and examine your heart.”

She continued, “Clearly, you can see by now that I have beautiful brown skin. But take a look at your hand and whatever shade it is, it is beautiful as well.”

In calling for healing, she declared, “I am not talking to just Caucasian people; I am talking to everyone.”

I hope everyone is listening.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment judiciary

Nor Excessive Fines Imposed

criminal justice, traffic,

“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

Although less controversial than other constitutional amendments, the much-​neglected Eighth Amendment provides important protection from the government. Yet this amendment has been violated, sometimes grotesquely, and not only in the context of criminal sanctions.

The question before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, decided July 22, was whether local governments must comply with the prohibition against “excessive fines” when issuing parking tickets.

“This right to be free from excessive governmental fines is not a relic,” the court ruled. “The government cannot overstep its authority and impose fines on its citizens without paying heed to the limits posed by the Eighth Amendment.” Providing the basis for the present decision was a 2019 Supreme Court decision affirming that the Excessive Fines Clause does indeed apply to state and local governments.

The driver who is the focus of the class-​action suit did not win his specific case. With respect to whether the fine he contested was in fact “excessive,” the court said no, it was not. But it sent the question of whether the late penalties were excessive to a lower court for further review.

The principle is crucial here, and the court clearly affirmed the rule that local governments may not impose “excessive fines.”

The many drivers in many municipalities who have been victimized by ridiculous use of red-​light cameras to fill government coffers are among those who should take heart.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Original photo by Kecko

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Accountability crime and punishment government transparency

Hit PLAY for Transparency

Leaked bodycam video shows new details of George Floyd's arrest

“[George] Floyd’s death changed everything,” Fox News’ Tucker Carlson told viewers two nights ago, calling it “a pivot point in American history.” 

Given “the significance of the event, it’s striking how little we really know months later about how exactly George Floyd died,” argued Carlson, before playing bits of the 18-​minutes of police cam video obtained by Britain’s Daily Mail. “The official storyline … couldn’t be clearer. Established news organizations state as a matter of factual certainty that Floyd was … murdered by a Minneapolis police officer.”

“But does it reflect what really happened?” Carlson asked. 

“Floyd had a number of narcotics in his system, including enough fentanyl to die of an overdose,” the Fox host advised. “One of the best-​known symptoms of fentanyl overdose, by the way, is shortness of breath. In the video, Floyd complains that he is having trouble breathing, famously, but says that long before the police officer kneels on his neck.”

Writers at The Wrap and The Huffington Post quickly took Carlson to task for suggesting that the new video evidence in any way altered the media narrative of events, pointing out that two separate autopsies determined Floyd’s death to be a homicide.* 

Neither a medical doctor nor a criminologist, Carlson is right about two things: 

(1) “The American people should have been allowed to see police body camera footage … much sooner than this week.”

(2) “You can decide for yourself what you think of that video.”

The point of police wearing body cameras is to give the public as clear a picture as possible. Had the full video been seen earlier, some of this summer’s violence may have been forestalled.

It should not take someone violating a court order to hit play for the public.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Later in the program, Carlson expressed his opinion that the tape fails to exonerate Officer Derek Chauvin, who held his knee on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes.

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crime and punishment ideological culture media and media people

Violence Against Objective Reporting

violence, journalism, reporting, news, facts

Facts matter. As do their honest expression. But given the “reporting” in recent months about “mostly peaceful protests,” you may wonder whether reporters agree.

Some do. Here’s the Charleston Post and Courier: “Brooms and dustpans replaced rocks and spray paint Sunday as an army of volunteers descended on Charleston to clean up the demoralizing mess left by an angry mob that smashed, burned and pillaged much of the city’s central business district.”

“Hundreds of New York City Businesses Were Damaged, Looted in Recent Unrest,” according to a Wall Street Journal headline. An article in the Minneapolis StarTribune tells us: “Buildings damaged in Minneapolis, St. Paul after riots.” Riots. There’s a word.

Reporters have reported (i.e., done their jobs) on rioters destroying small businesses around the country, and even killing people.

But too many supposed news-​hounds shy away from honest reporting. Recently, U.S. Attorney Bill Williams of Oregon chastised a TV reporter for refusing to name openly criminal behavior … in this case, that of Portland rioters trying to destroy a courthouse.

The newsperson sought to blandify the thuggery as “late-​night demonstrations” or “late-​night activity.” Williams stressed the difference between “lawful, constitutionally protected protest” and criminal conduct. “This is just mindless violence, and anyone who defends the violence is enabling this to continue.”

The reporter wasn’t swayed. “I’m not a police officer, I don’t get to distinguish that.…”

The assumption being that such determinations are up to … police and courts? 

But legal culpability is not at issue. 

What is? Facts: a window was broken; a fire started; property vandalized; person assaulted.

If you feel disallowed from imparting evident facts to the public, a profession requiring you to do so all the time isn’t for you.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment ideological culture

Theft by Spray Paint

graffiti, New York, property, vandalism

Graffiti is theft.

That is how Heather Mac Donald puts it. “To a conservative,” she writes at City Journal, “graffiti is self-​evidently abhorrent, a spirit-​crushing blight on the public realm, and a theft of property by feckless individuals who avenge their mediocrity by destroying what others have built.”

But that is not how “liberals” or “progressives” see it, she goes on to explain, for they regard marking up buildings and subways and streets and sidewalks as a “political statement,” referencing the New York Times recent characterization of spray-​painting on property you don’t own as “a courageous strike against stultifying bourgeois values” representing “urban grit and resistance to corporate hegemony.” 

With each graffito, Ms. Mac Donald insists, progressives see an icon of “the city’s vibrant, anti-​capitalist soul.”

An interesting political divide. But this rumination  on the “taggers’” art is not random. Mac Donald is aghast that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has cancelled a graffiti-​eradication program.

This, she insists, will lead to more crime, worse crime than mere trespass paintings. It’s the Broken Windows idea, and she’s probably right. Allowing small crimes to go unchecked demonstrates a lack of respect for persons and property, and that trains a city’s population to go on to do worse things.

But the program was cut for a reason. You see, de Blasio’s disastrous coronavirus response has put New York into the red. The city has to cut somewhere.

Mac Donald, however, calls the $3 million saved a “rounding error” on the city’s $88 billion budget. She imputes to de Blasio and others a preference for crime rather than fighting crime.

Maybe. And maybe we add law and order to health and commerce as casualties of the pandemic panic.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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