[Discuss] [Peace-discuss] Chicago police -- holding out until the lawsuits stop?

Mon Jul 7 13:16:31 CDT 2008

I am inclined to agree with both John and Wayne that in cases of murder, the
police are not very effective preventatives but only reactive after the fact
measures who focus on solving the crime and removing the potential cause
from the general population for purposes of treatment or punishment.  Such
removal becomes a matter of prevention only in so far as it prevents that
particular person from killing again in the future in society (that does not
prevent them from doing it while incarcerated).  However, I believe that
studies have shown that, in the case of homicides, most murders are not
really premeditated but are crimes of passion or of the moment and not that
easily predicted in the concrete with respect to when and where who is going
to do what to whom or even how they are going to do it, nor is it easily
prevented or preventable even under the best of conditions.  Moreover, most
non-professional murders tend not to be recidivists for homicidal crimes if
and when they are released from detention or medical facilities unlike other
types of crimes.

I also agree with John and Wayne that in hard and stressful times - economic
and otherwise - crimes of violence including murder and domestic arguments
as well as child abuse tend to go up with abnormal increases and peaks in
the statistics happening at various points depending on (1) the duration of
the hard times, (2) the degree, extent, and nature of the stress and chaos
and their fluctuations, and (3) the degrees and extent of the frustration
that is produced by the hard times and the perceived futility and
hopelessness that is being experienced among other things.  Given (1) the
economic down turn, (2) the duration, costs in resources, money, and lives
of the war in and against and occupation or Iraq and Afghanistan, and lack
of believable justification for the war, (3) the unwillingness and inability
of our government officials and political leaders to listen to the people
and do anything to correct the situation, and (4) the now almost universal
realization of the fact that we are nearing the point of no return in
minimizing or avoiding an environmental catastrophe - again among other
things, it is no surprise to see increases in these statistics not only in
Chicago but across the country in cities big and small as well as in rural
areas.  While it may not be evident in the crime statistics themselves due
to the fact that different police and law enforcement agencies in different
areas either do not report some types of incidents or report them
differently as manslaughter, suicide, etc. rather than homicide, I am sure
that if we examined other factors which tend to increase during periods of
hard times - such as suicides, hospital admissions for depression and other
mental illnesses, drug and alcohol use, divorce rates, etc. -we would find a
similar set of increases and peaks taking place at the same time or around
the same periods.

I think the issue of police brutality is not a directly related issue to
this increase in homicides but a separate problem, although I think that the
police are open to the same sorts of stresses as everyone else during these
periods and therefore probably not only will continue to display police
brutality at the same levels as have existed prior to the hard times but may
actually elevate just as we see is the case with incidents of domestic
violence, child abuse, and animal abuse.  However, I think that the police
would deny that they are subject to the same consequences of hard times as
everyone else until they need to use that as an excuse for or justification
of inappropriate policies and practices.  In line with this, I see the quote
by the law enforcement agent as reflecting how many law enforcement
personnel will use the increase in homicide rates as a scare tactic to
justify policies and practices that remove them from public scrutiny and
allow them to pursue whatever actions THEY deem appropriate.  But then
again, their doing so should not come as any big surprise when we see out
political leadership engaged in the same sorts of things - e.g., using fear
and scare tactic to justify to justify actions that they might not otherwise
take or to extend current practices as far as they can get away with.

Lastly, I think that a large number of the American population bear some of
the responsibility for not only the situation we find ourselves in but for
what our politicians, community leadership, and law enforcement agents  get
away with.  If the population did not support this either explicitly or
implicitly through action or inaction, these politicians, community
leadership, and law enforcement agents would not only not get away with what
they now do but would not have the expectation that they could get away with
it and that they should be able to get away with it as a "RIGHT".  And to be
sure, some of that large number of the American population may be US or
those we know, work with, and whose causes we often identify with.

From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
[mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Brian Dolinar
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 11:26 AM
To: E. Wayne Johnson
Cc: peace-discuss at anti-war.net; Stuart Levy;
discuss at lists.communitycourtwatch.org
Subject: Re: [Discuss] [Peace-discuss] Chicago police -- holding out until
the lawsuits stop?

I can assure folks, the Chicago Police are not letting up on their
brutality.

BD

On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 11:18 AM, E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag> wrote:

Actually I am a bit skeptical that Police have all that much to do with
stopping murders.
I would suppose that the Police actually get called to the scene after the
event, and that Police are
actually doing very little to prevent murders since they would have no way
of knowing whether or
not one is about to occur.  I think the Chicago Police is trying to pull the
wool over the people's eyes.
On the other hand such a confession to a deliberate dereliction of duty
should lead to immediate dismissal of those
so motivated as to "let the bodies pile up".

A 10% change could just be a chaotic fluctuation in the data or it might be
a reflection of the declining economy
leading to an increase in urban misery showing up as  increased homicide
rate.

Stuart Levy wrote:

At yesterday's AWARE meeting I mentioned hearing, on NPR station WBEZ in
Chicago,
a report that (a) the Chicago murder rate is up this year and (b) that may
be
because (some?) Chicago police are unwilling to risk being sued/charged for
misconduct as a few have been recently.  (Also, "juries in 2008 are
different,
they are much less inclined to just believe the police version of events.")
Therefore, the suggestion is, police are taking it easy on law enforcement,
declining to apprehend people that they would have pursued in the past.

One police officer is quoted ("a grim assessment") as saying that they would
just let the bodies pile up until there was enough pressure from the public,
and from the police officials, to let the police do their work
undisturbed by misconduct lawsuits.

Several appalling things about this, including the reporter's lack of
criticism in a couple of directions:
 - of the police (if there's truth to this theory), and
 - of the theory itself.   When trying to find this story, I ran into
   various articles online about large-city murder rates, which are
   up in other cities as well.  So it could be happening for reasons other
   than this kind of hold-the-city-hostage behavior.

Here's the source:

   http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Content.aspx?audioID=26287

   We're now halfway through the year and the homicide rate is up more
   than 10 percent compared to last year. A police source says the
   unofficial tally is around 230 murders in 2008 compared to just over
   200 by this date last year. There are many theories as to what's
   causing the rise. Chicago Public Radio's criminal justice reporter
   Robert Wildeboer shares one of them-a theory that's held by some
   of the officers themselves.

For the audio of the story (~6 min), follow the above page's
"Download" link to MP3 audio:
   http://audio.wbez.org/848/2008/07/848_20080702a.mp3

Also, a blogger (apparently a lawyer), outraged at hearing the same story,
wrote about it:

http://chicagocrimelaw.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/police-misconduct-and-the-in
creased-homicide-rate/
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-- 
Brian Dolinar, Ph.D.
303 W. Locust St.
Urbana, IL 61801
briandolinar at gmail.com 

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