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

Mon Jul 7 14:16:01 CDT 2008

I really liked this article on the subject. Thanks for sending it, Stuart.  http://chicagocrimelaw.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/police-misconduct-and-the-increased-homicide-rate/

--- On Mon, 7/7/08, LAURIE <LAURIE at ADVANCENET.NET> wrote:

From: LAURIE <LAURIE at ADVANCENET.NET>
Subject: RE: [Discuss] [Peace-discuss] Chicago police -- holding out until the lawsuits stop?
To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
Date: Monday, July 7, 2008, 1:16 PM

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-increased-homicide-rate/
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-- 
Brian Dolinar, Ph.D.
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Urbana, IL 61801
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