Ive been working on a post on the whole wilding thing, and it just keeps on coming out badly. Maybe its just that I am friends with too many cops, and see the damage done to them and to their ability to be what we want them to be by the overt hostility coded in these articles. I want to write something thoughtful and evenhanded and my emotions keep getting in the way.
Heres the objective point: First, there is error in any system, and our system of justice is no different. Some of the error is caused by bias, some by laziness, some by unavoidable chance, all of it is tragic. Every system of justice has the same problems, and has had them for as long as there have been systems of justice
or human systems of any kind. What is unique about ours is the very faith in its perfectability
in the attainability of a justice beyond that given through personal relationships, connections, clout, or bribery. On one hand this faith is misplaced
the reality is that we are nowhere close to there.
But on the other
on the other
the goal speaks to virtually everyone in our society. The shining, Platonic, unattainable ideal of perfect justice is one that we do believe in, and fight for, and the genius of our system is that it lets us do it, and harnesses our desire for it, and does so in the name of progress toward the unattainable perfection. It speaks to us, and we act on it.
I think thats great, and thats what I spoke to when I gave my opinion on this case.
I think that sets our system of justice apart from any other that I have read about.
I think that the root of my kind of liberalism is that belief that we can build human systems that strive toward improvement, believing that perfection is unattainable and still worth struggling for.
And what I dont see in these rounds of endless criticism is a real belief in making the systems better; what I see is a wholesale rejection of the systems
the brutal cops, corrupt prosecutors, the enforcers of the intolerable status quo
that protect the middle-class critics, who seldom acknowledge the benefit of the protection they receive.
See, I believe that there are Really Bad People out there
and that there are many of us who given the right circumstance can be really Bad. The police and the folks in the criminal justice system deal with it every day, at its very bad worst.
We need them. Its a crappy job done for little money and less respect. It has its own satisfactions, and the good cops I know live for them
for the times they can save someone, the times they can hook up a bad guy, the times they can bring some justice and order to an unjust and chaotic world.
I know the choose the job, but as a consumer of their services, Ill tell you that we all have a vested interest in seeing them do as good a job as possible.
Some, very few of them are corrupt in meaningful ways (not talking about free donuts); some are racist, some cruel. But fewer today than ten years ago, and fewer still than fifty years ago.
Some of my employees do a bad job, too. Sometimes my sons do bad things. But I find that a blanket condemnation is seldom a good way to get good performance out of them; and if you want to deepen the us v. them chasm, the kind of criticism Ive seen levied at the NYC folks seems like a pretty good shovel.
So Im sorry that I havent been able to set out the logical social critique of the case and the arguments; Ill work on it and try to do better.
Date: 09/19/2002 00:00:00 AM
I hate to do commercials on other people’s blogs, but if the “wilding” night is your launching point, you might want to check out some of the facts I present on that incident in a post from Wed, Sep 19. Regards,
Date: 09/18/2002 00:00:00 AM
“This doesn’t mean that one who grew up in such an area hates the police — it means that one doesn’t necessarily assume the inherent goodness of a cop simply for being a cop.”This bears repeating. I got a small taste of police prejudices growing up in a small Indiana town and having a) a mohawk, and b) later a ponytail to my waist.Anyone who’s spent time handcuffed to a chair in a station with a group of cops standing around commenting on the “bad vibes” they’re getting from your earring will have less than warm feelings toward policemen. That doesn’t mean I don’t understand that they have a hard job, and have to spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with assholes. It does mean that I’ve been on the receiving end of (minor) bias from “good” cops and feel ok about extrapolating from that experience.
Date: 00:00:00 AM
“And what I don?t see in these rounds of endless criticism is a real belief in making the systems better; what I see is a wholesale rejection of the systems?the brutal cops, corrupt prosecutors, the enforcers of the intolerable status quo?that protect the middle-class critics, who seldom acknowledge the benefit of the protection they receive.”First off, where in anyone’s criticism is there rejection of the entire criminal justice system? I think you’re reading something that’s not there. And if you think all your critics are middle-class suburbanites protectd by police who they hate … well let’s just say that some of us grew up in places where many, many cops were NOT polite, were NOT friends with you, and viewed everyone around them as a hostile population to be treated accordingly. These cops quite often outnumbered the good cops, who saw people in the neighborhood as actual people. This doesn’t mean that one who grew up in such an area hates the police — it means that one doesn’t necessarily assume the inherent goodness of a cop simply for being a cop. There are good cops, bad cops, good prosecutors, bad prosecutors. But the system as it works now is under severe strain for a variety of reasons, and it should be looked at critically with an eye for reform, as opposed to contentment with the status quo.