Some Thoughts on Baltimore

NB: Given the sensitive nature of the subject, I reiterate that this is my opinion and should not reflect the views of my employer. -JPB

The unrest that is afflicting Baltimore in the wake of the arrest and death of Freddie Gray is an unfortunate but predictable outcome of years of abuse and neglect. Last year’s Sun investigation of Baltimore’s police brutality cases shined a light on engrained practice of tolerating and covering up police brutality. Such tactics temporarily shielded the police from outside scrutiny by media and kept Baltimore police out of the national spotlight. But those neighborhoods of Baltimoreans who knew and experienced that abuse have endured it for years with no reckoning of criminal justice.

The city has taken the positive step of making civil suit records public and searchable on a government website, but civil suits may take years to litigate and require resources the most vulnerable of Baltimoreans do not have. Without swift change in the day-to-day functions of city policing, piecemeal efforts on the back-end of reform will fail to quell the anger felt by the people of Baltimore.

Part of this problem is Maryland state law. Police personnel records—namely, their disciplinary files—are generally exempt from public information searches. Thus, officers who have a history of violence have no independent check on their behavior. If the Baltimore PD tolerates violent and repeated officer misconduct, as the Sun’s investigation showed it has, then officers are operating without any meaningful oversight vis a vis their interactions with the public.

Maryland is not alone in this secrecy. All but a handful of states provide considerable protections to police disciplinary records. Most Americans live under legal regimes that force them to trust police to oversee themselves. This imposed faith may work in some jurisdictions, but it is clearly failing in many others.

This widespread lack of accountability degrades the police’s relationship with the people they serve, undermining their legitimacy. As author Maurice Punch wrote, “[T]he crucial test for policing in a democratic system is accountability….For without genuine accountability, there can be no legitimacy; and without legitimacy the police cannot function effectively in democratic society.”

What we’re seeing in the streets of Baltimore is a criminal justice system without accountability and a police force that is suffering a foreseeable crisis of legitimacy.

Those who riot and loot should not be excused for their actions. Violence, mayhem, and theft are wrong, full stop. That does not mean, however, that the policing situation that led us to this point is excusable or without blame. When police abuse citizens with impunity and a community suffers years of abuse, the social fabric that holds communities together will unravel.

The solution is simple to say, but a challenge to implement: transparent and accountable policing. If Freddie Gray were the first man abused by Baltimore Police, we wouldn’t be watching kids throwing bricks at officers on our televisions or in our Internet feeds. The unleashed anger in Baltimore is a result of unchecked police power continuously roaming through neighborhoods and terrorizing their inhabitants.

The institutions that have protected violent officers will continue to do so and resist meaningful police reform, at their peril. The tolerance and protection of violent officers is a threat to both public and officer safety alike. Police cannot arrest their way into a restored community faith and ignoring the demands of peaceful protests will further erode police legitimacy. 

The onus is on state and local governments to make police transparency a priority. Police departments must make themselves more accountable to the people they serve and take proactive steps to reassure their citizens that they will discipline or fire their officers for misconduct.

There is simply no other way to prevent the fire next time. 

bellum medicamenti delenda est

On the NYPD Tragedy and Its Aftermath

As most people, I am horrified and saddened by the murder of the two police officers in Brooklyn yesterday. My heart goes out to the family, friends, and colleagues of  officers Wenjian Lui and Raphael Ramos.

But the reaction by some self-styled allies of the NYPD are nothing short of inexcusable. This sentiment may be best illustrated by former New York governor George Pataki:

Like Eric Holder, I have immediate family that served honorably and proudly in law enforcement. To assert that people like Holder (and me) who criticize police practices and want police to be better than they are should be held responsible for the acts of a murderous lunatic is reckless and unforgivably insulting.

Need the preening, self-important politicians be reminded: the United States is a country where free speech is an essential tool by which the government for, by, and of the people is held accountable. To say that those who criticize the police are responsible for the random violence inflicted upon some officers by an evidently suicidal man is to express a sentiment that is not only baseless and malicious, but fundamentally un-American in implication.

Beyond the preening politicians, there have been those who would like to characterize criticism as a 'war on cops.' Admittedly, there are those people who have become so fed up with how they and their loved ones have been treated by police officers that criticism comes from a place of anger and frustration. But the police are ultimately responsible for how they treat the public and thus have considerable control over how they are perceived by that public. It is pure fantasy to believe that the outrage that has fueled the dozens of nationwide protests against police brutality has been manufactured against an otherwise beloved police force that in every case has great relationships with the communities they serve.

Furthermore, the war on cops rhetoric coming from some police sources only reinforce the point made by many critics of the police that too many officers hold an "us versus them" mentality when dealing with the public. If the police believe they are working among an enemy population, their treatment of the public will undoubtedly reflect that mindset.

There is no greater threat to police-public relations than a police force that holds open hostility towards the people it is charged with serving. This jeopardizes public safety not only from police-public violence, but endangers communities by undermining the legitimacy of law enforcement itself.

The NYPD and its members have every right to mourn and be outraged by the actions of a lone gunman yesterday. My most sincere sympathies go out to them for their losses. However, that does not give them or anyone else carte blanche to abuse the citizens with whom they come into contact, nor does it require those of us concerned with improving police practices that enable that abuse to remain silent because they have dangerous jobs.

The police are not our enemies, nor are the people the enemy of the police. At a time when the vast majority of reformers are expressing sympathy for the police and the sacrifices they make, self-appointed friends of the police like Gov. Pataki would serve everyone much better by not stoking police fear and resentment. To do otherwise makes everyone--police, protesters, and the general public--less safe.

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Police Policy and Police Violence

My first installment in a series on police policy and its relationship to police violence is live over at Rare.us. Frankly, so much of the critiques in the wake of Ferguson, Staten Island, and Cleveland focuses on niche issues, like the drug war, instead of how we allow our police agencies to be run in our name.

When used as a method to question someone in relation to a separate crime, whether in a car or on the street, this behavior is known as a pretextual stop. Simplifying a bit, one law (e.g., running a stop sign) is used as pretext to investigate further (e.g., looking for evidence of drug crimes) because the officer otherwise lacks reasonable suspicion or probable cause to stop a person or vehicle. Thus, if a police officer makes up his mind to stop you, even the slightest violation of a law or out of the ordinary conduct (like looking nervous when a police officer is watching you) can give him an excuse to stop you. 

Put another way, he’s certainly going to stop you.
[...]
One disturbing aspect in so many of these recent, high-profile homicide cases is the quickness with which violence became the method of control against Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and others. That the recent cases have all involved black males is no surprise to many observers and protesters. Even skeptical black conservative Jason L. Riley tells a story about how he was grabbed from his vehicle by police at gunpoint because he "fit the description" of a suspect.. “Fitting the description” is, in practice, often just a police euphemism for being a black male.​

It's a tad long, but it lays the fundamental groundwork for understanding what is actually going on during police encounters all over the United States. I also explain how some departments knowingly tolerate police violence:

Fifteen years ago, criminology professor and police researcher Jerome H. Skolnick wrote an article on police brutality in the American Prospect. He noted that, “Police executives sometimes review the ‘resisting arrest’ cases of police officers to determine whether a cop inclines toward administering vigilante justice.”  

The thinking goes, if a suspect is in custody with visible bruises or other injuries, those injuries—if caused by the arresting officer(s)—are typically justified by claims of resistance.  

WNYC News recently reviewed over 50,000 NYPD cases in which resisting arrest was among the charges. WNYC found that five percent of NYPD officers accounted for 40 percent of all resisting arrest charges since 2009, and 15 percent of officers accounted for half of all resistance charges.    

The next installment will discuss systemic susceptibility for police perjury. Read the whole thing here.

On the Rule of Law in Ferguson

After the grand jury decision in Ferguson and the sometimes-violent aftermath, I wrote a piece for Rare explaining--but not excusing--why people reacted the way they did. It's not very long, but might be summed up by a friend's comment on Facebook, "Well what did you expect to happen when you treated people like niggers?"

My piece is here. If I get a chance, I'll share a roundup of some of the most poignant writing on the aftermath. 

I hope you have/had a wonderful Thanksgiving, or Thursday, if you don't happen to live in America.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

Ferguson Grand Jury Announcement Today

It has been a long time since I've been this nervous about a community's well-being, let alone one I'm hundreds of miles away from. All news reports indicate that the grand jury decision in the case of Darren Wilson's shooting of Michael Brown will be announced today.

It seems the entire media is bracing for a riot. I'm hoping that whatever violent elements exist will be largely contained by the righteously angry but largely peaceful demonstration in the case of no indictment--as has generally been the case since the demonstrations began.

Most people, on all sides, assume that there will be no indictment.

Even if everything (including the discredited broken eye-socket story) that Wilson's supporters said about the altercation with Michael Brown was true, the result has revealed the deep and unforgivable fissures between the local police and the community.

Much ado is made about the racial makeup of the Ferguson police force, and that certainly adds to the problems,  but this is really about a police force that enjoys no respect or benefit of the doubt from its community. As I've written recently, that blame falls entirely on the police departments, not the communities they are charged with protecting.

The release of the shoplifting tape, uninvestigated grand jury leaks, police-union backed "anonymous" fundraising campaigns, outright lies, and other Wilson friendly information fed to the media compound this distrust--and that's before you even get to the aggressive, unprofessional, and explicitly hostile way the police agencies have handled the demonstrations since the shooting.

Personally, I'm looking forward to going over the testimony and evidence the prosecutor presented to the jury. I'm very curious as to the actual police account of what happened--something we still have not had to date--and why, presumably, Wilson had his gun out to fight over in the first place, if indeed there was a struggle over said gun as supporters suggest. (That Brown reached inside an SUV and went for a holstered weapon could not pass the smell test.)

My layman's guess is that whatever transpired between Brown and Wilson, Wilson too quickly reached for his weapon. This is something that cost an innocent's life in New York last week, and I'm sure it happens more often than is widely reported.

Police who draw their guns as anything but a last resort demonstrate a fear and scorn of the people they are charged with protecting. Such animosity likely spills over into other, less violent encounters with police. A community that faces that animosity regularly will feel it and naturally resent it.

Regardless of the grand jury's decision, police across America should take this as a teaching moment. It is imperative that any police force has the respect and trust of the people its policing. Otherwise, when things go wrong--and they will--a bad situation may become exponentially worse. 

My thoughts are with the people of Ferguson today. Let us all hope for some measure of justice and, above all, peace.

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Cops on Camera Event Video

Just posting the video to the Cato panel I was on yesterday. It was covered by C-SPAN so you can find it on their website, or you can watch it here, with footage taken from (and available on) the Cato website.



A most sincere thank you to all of my friends, family, and colleagues that have been supportive of me and this event.

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Come See Me at Cato on Thursday

As I've written recently, the advent of small, high quality cameras that can be put on dashboards, worn by police officers, or carried in your pocket as part of your phone is changing the very nature of police encounters and police accountability.

I know it's late notice--it was for me too!--but I'll be on a panel discussing cameras, technology, and policing this Thursday at Cato.

If you can't attend the event in person, you can watch it livestream here or catch it when it's later posted on the Cato Events archives page.

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The Importance of Cameras to Policing

Yesterday was a good day for new law enforcement videos. In addition to the superb John Oliver video on civil asset forfeiture that that went viral on Monday, Vox.com put out a great video on the importance of video recordings to civil rights and policing.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am engaged to the narrator of this video, Ms. Dara Lind, but I would share it even if she had nothing to do with it. (Or, for that matter, that my employer was not cited briefly in the video as it is now.)

WARNING: Video contains footage of people being shot.


Police misconduct, as anyone familiar with my work probably knows, is a subject I've been interested in for several years now. I can talk about incentives and systemic structures and a bunch of other wonkish terms that explain what is happening and why, but videos like this really explain the human-impact of police abuse and how video evidence is often the only way for victims to prove their innocence.

After the fact video evidence won't bring back John Crawford, but wider use of dashcams and personal cameras my prevent more John Crawfords from dying in the future.

There are other issues that need to be addressed to save future John Crawfords...and Mike Browns...and Eric Garners....

But in the meantime, the more video evidence of police interactions, the better.

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John Oliver [Ultra-Violent Verb]s Civil Asset Forfeiture

NB: My employer is a 501c3 and therefore does not endorse legislation. As always, I write here in my personal capacity and not as an employee. Thx, Mgmt.

If you haven't seen it already, I highly recommend watching John Oliver's latest video on civil asset forfeiture.


Hopefully, this high-profile treatment will get the ball rolling in Congress on federal forfeiture reform. States will have to independently reform their own laws, but a healthy debate about the practice could see reform moving in the right direction.

Two such bills happen to have been introduced this Congress:

HR 5212 is the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act in the House by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI).

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has introduced the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act (Aka: the FAIR Act--well done, acronym team!)

Bills like this always face stiff resistance from law enforcement--both at the federal and state levels. Equitable sharing agreements that split proceeds from federal asset forfeiture typically sends 80% back to the state and local agencies that "cooperate" with federal authorities in these raids. As the Institute for Justice's 2010 paper pointed out, many law enforcement agencies feel that these proceeds are "necessary" to run their budgets.

If you care about this issue, this would probably be a good time for you to contact your senator or representative about supporting these bills.

P.S.--Headline reference here.

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Rethinking Civil Rights as Property Rights

My latest over at Rare is an attempt to couch the importance of race-conscious policing within a libertarian framework:

As we’ve seen over the years, property rights, even more than tax rates, are more important to the development of markets and growing economies. Simply, if a nation-state wants investment—of both capital and effort—people who make those investments must have a reasonable belief that a return on that investment is possible in a successful venture. A state with shaky property rights—whether expropriated by the state, such as Venezuela, or seized and distributed to the kleptocratic oligarchy, like Russia—is much less likely to draw foreign capital because property can be seized at the whim of the elites. Places where investments are protected by the rule of law, on the other hand, attract capital because investments are protected from state-sanctioned theft.

Civil rights are really no different.

If civil rights protections are widely denied, particularly to one group of people, because they are routinely ignored and capriciously violated by police officers, those rights lose all tangible meaning to that population. Mistreatment by authorities—whether official policies like Stop and Frisk, or tolerance of police brutality, corruption, or homicide—corrodes the integrity of a community. The government loses credibility by effectively nullifying its own authority by arbitrary enforcement of laws (government powers) and the protections for citizens (civil rights).

Read the whole thing here.

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Lessons from Ferguson

The quote that has been the subhed of this blog for years is Robert Nozick's "Only the refusal to listen guarantees one against being ensnared by the truth." In a world in which people of color feel mistreated because of their race, supported by mounting evidence supporting those claims, ignoring or simply waving away those problems is just that sort of deliberate ignorance. Someone who comes to public policy from this perspective needlessly undermines their own message because their worldview doesn't comport with the realities faced by many people.

That is why I was so excited about a recent event at Cato, and was even more pleased with how the event went.  The event was called "Lessons from Ferguson," and it featured a number of voices across the spectrum dealing with race and American policing.

Moderated by my colleague Tim Lynch, the panelists included Professor Alice Goffman, author of On the Run, a sociological narrative about her observations in a black Philadelphia neighborhood; Ethan Brown, author of Snitch, a history of the infamous and widely misunderstood "Stop Snitchin'" movement; Neill Franklin, retired Baltimore police officer and executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, and Lauren Victoria Burke, journalist and creator of the blog Crewof42.

I highly recommend you watch the event in full. I enjoy many Cato events, but it is rare when we have a collection like this. I'm not sure anyone on the dais (besides Tim, of course) would self-ID as libertarian, but these are problems everyone should recognize regardless of party or ideology.


Of particular note, I found Neill's comment about his run-ins with the police as a black child in Baltimore, as well as his admission that, even as a black police officer, you just become accustomed to treating black kids differently. That is what institutional racism is all about. 

It's all worth watching as I thoroughly enjoyed each presentation. I cannot say enough about how glad I am that Cato hosted it.

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DISCLOSURE: As most people who read this know, I work at Cato, but this is my personal blog. I wasn't asked to promote this event, it's just a topic that is near and dear to me and I'm so happy we're bringing in people--scholars, practitioners, and writers, including people of color--who can talk about what is going on in America. Also, I make a brief cameo near the end.

How Did We Get Here?

Today, Mike Konczal of the Roosevelt Institute takes exception to my response (and that of Vice writer Lucy Steigerwald) to Franklin Foer's piece about runaway local law enforcement and the abuse of civil asset forfeiture.

As I explained to Konczal in a longish Twitter exchange last week, I'm not arguing with Foer's point that local law enforcement needs oversight, namely by the federal government. I believe strongly in equal protection and I have argued many times on this blog and other places that local law enforcement can be and is often a pernicious influence on the well-being of a community.The federal government, specifically the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, serves a vital role in the protection of American citizens from the abuses of their own police forces.

But the argument Foer and Konczal make is that because most civil asset forfeiture--Foer's exemplar of local government run amok--is run by and for state and local governments, the remedy for this should be federal. The point of my argument in Rare last week was that civil asset forfeiture is also the policy of the federal government and doesn't look to be abating any time in the near future.

Lost in Konczal's response today is how much of local police policy is driven by federal intervention. COPS grants, Byrne Grants, the War on Drugs, the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill all had and continue to have direct influence on where and for what purpose policing happens.

Take these highlights of the 1994 Crime Bill, courtesy of Mariame Kaba:

1. $10.8 billion in federal matching funds to local governments to hire 100,000 new police officers over 5 years.
2. $10 billion for the construction of new federal prisons.
3. An expansion of the number of federal crimes to which the death penalty applied from two to fifty-eight (the bill also eliminated an existing statute that prohibited the execution of mentally incapacitated defendants).
4. A three strikes proposal that mandated life sentences for anyone convicted of three “violent” felonies.
5. A section that allowed children as young as thirteen to be tried as adults.
6. The creation of special courts able to deport noncitizens alleged to be “engaged in terrorist activity” on the basis of secret evidence.
7. Established guidelines for states to track sex offenders. Required states to track sex offenders by confirming their place of residence annually for ten years after their release into the community or quarterly for the rest of their lives if the sex offender was convicted of a violent sex crime.

I think Foer, Konczal and everyone else with passing knowledge of criminal justice policy agree that the War on Drugs undergirds these and other rampant abuses by local police. The War on Drugs IS federal policy. The War on Terror which further augmented the already creeping militarization of local police departments, IS federal policy. DHS and DoD grants are federal government incentives--some of which are "use it or lose it" grants that influence local police to buy more than they need or risk losing federal assistance.

Therefore, it is PATENTLY ABSURD to believe that the federal government neither has had nor  continues to have an active role in influencing and driving the policies of local police. Without the federal War on Drugs, it's hard to imagine civil asset forfeiture becoming the cash cow for local authorities it is today. Without federal direction and incentives, due to the War on Terror, it's hard to see how police became surplus dumps for the DoD and beneficiaries of DHS largesse. Without federal influence, it's hard to see how marijuana and other drug arrests for simple possession become the number one reason for being arrested in the United States. (I think it is no coincidence that driving under the influence, a crime that also drew federal incentives before it became a cash cow in itself, is the second leading cause of arrest in the United States.)

In short, yes, the states and localities are running rampant with the law enforcement tools they use. I never argued they didn't. But it is nothing short of fantasy to think that past and current federal policies didn't get us to this point. Looking to them as the beneficent saviors to the policies they created--beyond removing the incentives they did and continue to provide--seems a bit daft.

As I ended my Rare piece, criminal justice reform need not start at the federal government level. But if we want to look at the source for many of these problems we face in localities today, you cannot responsibly ignore the federal government's heavy hand in most of them.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

Beyond the Drug War: How Libertarians' Aversion to 'Black Issues' Impedes Their Own Relevance

I have a new piece up at Rare today. In it, I lay out the case that color-conscious criminal justice reform is needed, and libertarians persistent refusal to take these problems head-on undercuts their message of individual liberty.

Take the reaction to the Ferguson protests: only one third of white people surveyed by Pew thought tear gassing and pointing guns at peaceful black protesters (and journalists) was “too far.” Even subtracting the third who answered “I don’t know,” half of those who expressed any opinion thought the police’s actions against the primarily black crowd—captured on countless cameras, phones, and video recorders—were within the range of acceptable behavior.

In a world in which this well-documented, recorded, over-the-top enforcement is tolerated or condoned by a majority of Americans, relying on cameras to rein-in police behavior in minority enclaves or against minorities individually is probably quite naïve.

Other big picture policy shifts like eliminating sex-work prohibitions, broad sentencing reform, and reducing the Pentagon programs that militarize and hyper-weaponize local police would also benefit millions of Americans. However, there’s no reason libertarians should not add an equal protection component to their criminal justice reform wish list and encourage law enforcement agencies to improve community relations with minorities.

You can read the whole thing here.

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Libertarians' Racial Blindspot

My friends and former colleagues over at reason rightly note that a cop appears to have been way too aggressive when stopping a college professor for jaywalking:

A police encounter in Tempe, Arizona, over the weekend turned ugly after a campus police officer wrestled Arizona State University professor Ersula Ore to the ground. Video footage shows the officer attempting to pull Ore's hands behind her back and pin her against the dashboard before slamming her onto the ground in the middle of the street.

Ore's crime, evidently, was jaywalking in the middle of the night.

Now, I'd seen people share this story on social media without clicking through, but it was something I wanted to check out. Without seeing her name--or even her gender--but hearing about the incident, I assumed that the professor was likely black and the officer was likely white.

Why? Because black people's history with law enforcement has long been fraught with conflict and the years of police officers treating black people more harshly than they treat your average white person is no secret. Police abuse is by no means exclusive to black people, but it is and has been prevalent since law enforcement and black people have coexisted in this country. And jaywalking is one of those laws that is, for the most part, used as a pretextual stop (as opposed to, say, a priority of law enforcement) because the officer thinks the person is otherwise up to no good.

Police have a special place of disdain in the hearts and minds of many libertarians.* Libertarians often see police as the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the state and their use and abuse of force is wanton and without rhyme or reason. Yet, most black people understand that this sort of abuse happens to them more often, whether it's inherent racism or suspicion on the part of the officer, the policing style in a given neighborhood or area, or the disparate political power of a group of people less able and likely to successfully challenge the behavior of an officer.

I don't think it's a failure of the reason author to point this out, but I would have liked to see it.

Too often, libertarians have asked me in private conversation about what's best described as "respectability politics." That is, because of the dress or language or behavior of young black men particularly that the ire of police is directed their way and therefore results in the myriad criminal justice disparities. But here you have a black female college professor refusing to show ID--as any good libertarian would--and getting thrown to the ground and arrested. How many times does this sort of thing happen to black people before libertarians recognize that maybe her race may have played a role? It's journalism--you're supposed to stick to the facts and keep speculation down, I know. But the fact is black people have a long history in this country of being singled out and abused by people in power and, to my knowledge, there's been no magical moment when that has stopped being true.

I've written about this libertarian blindspot at length in my latest essay at Libertarianism.org.

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*NB: My father was a police officer.  Many years after he retired, he went back to work part time at the police department because it was home to him. I got to know many police officers and I continue to respect police officers today. But that doesn't make the history any less true or troubling.

AAG West: 'Just So You Understand Where I'm Coming From'

There's an event in New York City going on right now called the "Strengthening the Relationship Between Law Enforcement and Communities of Color Forum." I don't know much about it, other than the NYPD could stand to learn a lot about how to deal with minorities fairly, so it sounds like a good idea, at least.

Today, Associate Attorney General Tony West gave a speech there in support of a new federal program to study ways to improve how law enforcement deals with persons of color. And while I know better than to endorse any government program solely based on its conceptual framework--let alone a loose framework laid out in a speech--I did want to highlight parts of the speech I think is important.

I come to this discussion as one who has been privileged to work with law enforcement for most of my career -- for several years as a federal prosecutor in a U.S. Attorney's Office; as a lawyer in the California Attorney General's Office; and now as part of the United States Justice Department's leadership. That experience has left me both profoundly grateful for and humbled by the dedication and commitment of so many in law enforcement who serve to keep our communities safer places to live, to work and to play; and who do so with integrity and in compliance with the law.

Theirs is not an easy task, and their duties are often performed under difficult and dangerous circumstances. And the reality for most officers, I believe, is that policing is not a job; it's an honor and profession. It's about service. It's about promoting safety and security and fostering strong neighborhoods for the residents who live there.

I also come to this discussion as my father's son. He was a man born and raised deep in the Jim Crow south. And when the time came for his eldest child and only son to take up driving lessons, dad was my teacher, imparting all the familiar lessons of keeping my eyes on the road and signaling before I turned.

And then there were the lessons not found in any driver's manual; lessons informed by family history and community experience: When -- not if -- you are pulled over by the police for no ostensible reason, keep your hands visibly planted at 10 and 2 until instructed otherwise. Always ask permission before reaching for your license and registration, and even then verbally explain what you're doing. No quick movements. End every sentence with "sir." Speak only when spoken to and never, ever talk back. 

Dad called these "survival skills," and I put them into practice on more than a few occasions, well into adulthood. I suspect that I'm not alone in bringing such divergent, perhaps even conflicting, perspectives to today's discussion.

AFF Poverty Roundtable: Follow-Up

I'd like to again thank AFF for hosting the poverty roundtable last night. It was a great opportunity for me, not only to give my views, but to hear what other organizations are doing on poverty, and how this will play out on the Right going forward. A special thank you to Lori Sanders of the R Street Institute for organizing the panel and inviting me to speak.

I'd like to congratulate my co-panelists for a good discussion on how the Right can move forward on poverty issues: Elise Amyx of IFWE, Brandon Smith of Fed Soc, and Brad Wassink of AEI.

I have excerpted parts of my comments below. I didn't give them verbatim, but this should paint a decent enough picture of what I think the role of policymakers should be as we look to take on the root causes of cyclical poverty.

My primary area of interest is criminal justice. When discussing criminal justice reform, there are two key components to think about: “Front end” reforms deal with policing, alternatives to incarceration (like drug courts), and revisiting laws on the books. “Back end” reforms deal with early release, mental health support, and job training after incarceration. If you look at the reforms being discussed among policymakers today, they are concentrating primarily on back end reforms.
 [...]
There is a lot of talk about “reentry programs,” like regularizing punishments for parole violations, reducing collateral consequences like housing and employment restrictions, and providing mental health assistance, all in effort to decrease recidivism. These ideas are particularly salient today because more than 10,000 people per week—and more than 650,000 per year—are released from jail or prison into society. A large number of these people will be concentrated in economically depressed neighborhoods with little or no infrastructure to support them—further burdening those areas with more unemployed people looking for work and seniors with no one to care for them.

These programs are important, but they don’t go far enough. None of the back-end solutions address the fundamental problem at the front end: The way in which the government treats the people hanging onto the lowest rung of society is a travesty across the board.

Living While Black: Anecdotes about Dealing with Police

Due to the genetic happenstance of my bi-raciality, I don't look black. This has led to more than a few "No, really, I'm black" conversations, but generally speaking, I can pass for white if I want to. Passing isn't a new phenomenon, but it does generally protect me from unnecessarily hostile contact with police and other authority figures that regularly harassed what Malcolm called "recognized Negroes." That said, I know racially biased harassment is very real.

Gene Denby of NPR Code Switch started a conversation about police interactions on Twitter last Thursday. I Storify'd it so you can read it here, but I want to delve further into why they are more than simple anecdotes of inconvenience.

Most countries have foundational myths that underlie the ethos of the national character. Much of our national myth involves freedom and Enlightenment liberalism: property rights, religious freedom, and the dignity of the individual are among the core values which under-gird our national identity. This narrative leads to national cliches like "If you work hard enough, you can do anything" and 'pulling oneself up by the bootstraps' is the key to success.  The accompanying narrative overlooks what that actually looked like for much of our history including, inter alia, discriminatory legal regimes. This is important not, as many think, to enable a "victimhood" mentality among descendants. This is important to reaffirm that this country has only recently recognized that the "inalienable rights" explicitly assigned to all of mankind in our founding document apply to women and many people of color. This recognition is to understand that, since our country's inception, there have been parallel sets of rules and laws for  marginalized people that are distinct from and harsher than those for the majority. It also means "dignity of the individual" doesn't apply equally.

Some Thoughts on the Broad Spectrum of Racism

I've never shied away from my particular resentment of Southern racism. Cloaked in tradition and gentility, years of barbarity and terrorism are blithely ignored as the Southern gentlemen and their darling belles get misty when they hear 'Dixie.' It's enough to make me reach for blood pressure medication. But that doesn't mean that it's the only kind of racism, or the most important.

Racism isn't geographically isolated, nor is it confined to a particular political or ideological affiliations. Boston, for example, famously resisted bused integration in the 1970s, resulting in this Pultizer prize winning photograph:

Today, Boston remains one of the most segregated cities in the United States. Don't let the 'enlightened Northeastern liberal' reputation fool you. (see also Twitter reaction to the Bruins' elimination from last year's Stanley Cup Playoffs on the goal by a black man) Racism, in its individual and collective forms, is still ubiquitous.

Progressives tend to focus on racism in systems, often referred to as "institutional racism." Conservatives and libertarians tend to be skeptical of allegations of entrenched racism, seeming to believe that racism can only exist on an individual level, and that to the extent it exists in the United States, it's not pernicious enough to require laws to combat it because "Jim Crow is over."

Neither political side quite seems to get it.

"And How Does This Relate to Our Discussion of the Uses of Irony?"

Pardon the Ferris Bueller reference, but I received this case in a media update from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and it made me laugh:

On December 15, 2009, while on duty, Appellants stopped and frisked men they believed were engaged in an illegal drug transaction. One of the men they frisked, Keyshawn Artis, accused Appellants of stealing money from him. Appellants denied the accusation, and told Artis to ―move along.

When Appellants returned to headquarters, a superior officer, Sergeant Salvatore Fede, ordered them into his office. After informing Appellants that a complaint about their behavior had been made to the Internal Affairs Bureau, Sergeant Fede took Appellants to Captain Melvin Singleton’s office. Appellants did not feel free to leave because they had been ―ordered to be in the captain’s office.‖ App. 285. After waiting fifteen to twenty minutes, Appellants and Sergeant Fede were joined by Captain Singleton, then-Sergeant Patrick Kelly, and Lieutenant Frank Palumbo.

Appellants were instructed to stay in Captain Singleton’s office until officers from the Internal Affairs Bureau arrived. While Appellants waited, Captain Singleton offered them water and told them that they could watch television, but instructed them not to use their cell phones. Appellants then were questioned about their interaction with Artis, including whether they had taken money from him. In that regard, Appellants were asked to remove their jackets and Gwynn was asked to remove his outer vest. Appellants also were told to pull out their pockets, pull up their pant legs and pull down their socks, and open their wallets. Finally, Appellants were told that cooperation would be in their ―best interest insofar as it could demonstrate to Internal Affairs that they did not have Artis’s money when they returned from their patrol. During the hour or so they spent in Captain Singleton’s office while awaiting the arrival of Internal Affairs officers, Appellants did as they were told because the orders came from their ―superiors and supervisors, and they feared ―discipline and possible loss of employment‖ if they disobeyed. App. 241.

Upon their arrival at Captain Singleton’s office, two Internal Affairs officers questioned Appellants for about fifteen to twenty minutes and then left briefly to talk to Artis, the complainant. Appellants were told to stay put until the Internal Affairs officers returned after speaking with Artis. As Appellants waited, Gwynn asked for permission to call his wife to arrange for her to pick up their son, and then-Sergeant Kelly granted permission. The Internal Affairs officers returned, stated that they believed Artis, and told Appellants that they were not needed for anything further that day. Appellants left Captain Singleton’s office around 8:15 p.m. and when they opened their lockers that evening, it appeared as though they had been searched.

For those not fluent in legalese, two Philadelphia police officers stopped and frisked two civilians who were not found to have any contraband, one of the civilians said one of the cops took his money, the cops told him to get lost, and the police superiors (to my surprise! Especially in Philly.) put the officers in an office, told them to empty their pockets and turn out their clothes to prove they didn't take the man's money. The ordeal at the station lasted about an hour.

They sued the department and their fellow officers for violating their 4th Amendment rights and false imprisonment because the department superiors kept them in an office and had them, to borrow a term from the anti-immigration folks, "self-frisk"...after they stopped and frisked two guys on the street. (Bonus chutzpah: they also sued for overtime.)

Thankfully, CA3 was unpersuaded by their case. You can read the opinion here.

A Quick Comment on Perspective

My friend wrote to me this morning about his thoughts on the Trayvon Martin case. It was moving and awful, as he too experienced harassment and abuse of force at the hands of people who thought a young black man was in the wrong place to be up to anything but trouble.

Shortly thereafter I see a retweet of "Chef Geoff" Tracy on Twitter:

Virginia ABC law prohibits us from using the words "Happy Hour" in any advertising. Are we still in America?

Yes, it's a stupid law. Yes, bar and restaurant owners should work to get rid of the law and I would fully support that effort. But given that a 17 year old black kid was hunted down and shot by a man with dubious authority, at best, who was explicitly told by police dispatch not to pursue and engage him, with no legal repercussions to this point, I think it's a tad overwrought to start questioning the sanctity of America over ad restrictions.

This isn't to say that Trayvon's killing is necessarily Chef Geoff's fight, but I think this underscores a lot of the disconnect between what liberty means to the business-centric folk and what liberty means to those of us who see and/or experience the abuse of power in ways more threatening to personal safety, security, and dignity. Chef Geoff isn't at all wrong to claim injustice--the Virginia alcohol laws are harmful to business and that directly affects his livelihood, and he has every right to be upset--but in the grand scheme of things, a catchy phrase for an ad just doesn't compare to some guy with a gun and a power trip getting away with hunting down and killing a black kid because 'he looked suspicious.'

I have nothing at all against Chef Geoff and have heard only great things about him and his notable establishments. He's not guilty of anything other than slight overstatement and I do not wish to impugn him in any way. I just thought his comment reflects a language gap between people who rightly fear threats to economic liberty, but may not give as much thought to threats to personal liberty that so many others face on a daily basis. It's not that he's wrong, it's just that he--and so many others who care about liberty--could use a dose of perspective.

bellum medicamenti delenda est