The Smithian

March 25th, 2013

I’m not concerned that ultra-violent films and video games exist; I’m concerned that, increasingly, that’s almost all there is. For several generations now, the homicidal reflexes that structure these media entertainments have become second-nature, and other narrative paradigms are being phased out. But the larger reality is that these reflexes are present everywhere in our pathology, in our global politics, our sports culture, our criminal justice system, our weapons policy…our ignorant myths of our own national history…

Michael Atkinson, at In These Times

February 21st, 2013

thesmithian

'The study...concluded that “the overwhelming message in hip-hop wasn’t that the rappers disliked the idea of justice, but they disliked the way it was being implemented.”'

March 6th, 2012

thesmithian

Bryan Stevenson is a public-interest lawyer who recently gave an inspiring TED Talk about racial injustice. Stevenson founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, an Alabama-based group that has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive, unfair and racist sentencing. This is a rare TED Talk for confronting issues of racial injustice„,

more. it’s pretty incredible. beyond incredible, actually.

January 16th, 2012

thesmithian

Zoom

…legal scholar Michelle Alexander writes that many of the gains of the civil rights movement have been undermined by the mass incarceration of black Americans in the war on drugs. She says that although Jim Crow laws are now off the books, millions of blacks arrested for minor crimes remain marginalized and disfranchised, trapped by a criminal justice system that has forever branded them as felons and denied them basic rights and opportunities that would allow them to become productive, law-abiding citizens…

more.

…legal scholar Michelle Alexander writes that many of the gains of the civil rights movement have been undermined by the mass incarceration of black Americans in the war on drugs. She says that although Jim Crow laws are now off the books, millions of blacks arrested for minor crimes remain marginalized and disfranchised, trapped by a criminal justice system that has forever branded them as felons and denied them basic rights and opportunities that would allow them to become productive, law-abiding citizens…

more.

October 25th, 2011

thesmithian

'...proportion of black and minority ethnic young men in young offender institutions in England and Wales has risen...Young black men now account for nearly 40% of the population of youth jails in England and Wales...'

October 8th, 2011

thesmithian

In even the bleakest, most terrorized neighborhoods in the most devastated cities, Kennedy suggests, violent crime and open drug markets are the work of an astonishingly small number of individuals. What’s more, these criminals are deeply rational, and it has likely already dawned on many of them that there must be more lucrative and safer ways to live. Perhaps, Kennedy suggests, the mass incarceration of black American men is not a necessary condition for keeping cities safe, but simply the collateral consequence of a poor understanding of how crime really works.

more.

In even the bleakest, most terrorized neighborhoods in the most devastated cities, Kennedy suggests, violent crime and open drug markets are the work of an astonishingly small number of individuals. What’s more, these criminals are deeply rational, and it has likely already dawned on many of them that there must be more lucrative and safer ways to live. Perhaps, Kennedy suggests, the mass incarceration of black American men is not a necessary condition for keeping cities safe, but simply the collateral consequence of a poor understanding of how crime really works.

more.

September 25th, 2011

thesmithian

'...capital punishment solves no societal ills. It perpetuates many that should not be perpetuated. It must be abolished. Not only for those like Troy Davis who almost certainly were innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted, but also for those like Lawerence Russell Brewer who certainly were guilty. And this is where principled opposition to capital punishment seems complicated. But it really shouldn't be. Because as long as this nation is executing the Lawrence Russell Brewers it also will be executing the Troy Davises. It is not possible to have one without the other. This must be understood. It must be understood that it is not possible to have capital punishment and still have fairness and justice and a society that is at its core humane.'

September 16th, 2011

thesmithian

…the problem…exists in two places most Americans (and the media) don’t often bother to look: in crime-ridden sections of cities where minorities live, and in the overcrowded prison system that gives America the world’s highest rate of incarceration.

more.

…the problem…exists in two places most Americans (and the media) don’t often bother to look: in crime-ridden sections of cities where minorities live, and in the overcrowded prison system that gives America the world’s highest rate of incarceration.

more.

September 12th, 2011

thesmithian

'...the crowd of Republicans who gathered at the Reagan Library last week to watch their presidential candidates debate actually applauded and cheered when a moderator noted that Texas had executed 234 inmates under Gov. Rick Perry, by far the most under any governor in modern times. Then came Mr. Perry’s blithe denial that he had ever struggled with a single one of those state killings. Texas has a “thoughtful, a very clear process,” he said, which ensures everyone a fair hearing, so there is no need to lose sleep over the possibility of executing an innocent person. It may not trouble Mr. Perry, but any clear-eyed observer would be shocked at the grim momentum of his state’s death machine, which stops for no suggestion of error.'

February 7th, 2011

thesmithian

The juvenile unit of the New York City jail is a survival-of-the-fittest finishing school for the roughest kids in New York. And an upcoming case alleges the guards run the show.

December 14th, 2010

thesmithian

It’s easy…to stereotype an entire kind of music (though no one seems interested in doing do with rock, which last time I checked also had its share of sexist and violent content). More productive would be to examine the market forces that push the kind of songs you’re talking about into positions of mainstream prominence—and to acknowledge that those forces do not act solely on hip hop, but on mass culture at large. But it’s easier to pretend that violence and misogyny were somehow smuggled into the country through hip hop, as opposed to forces that act profoundly on us all…Ultimately, blaming hip-hop for “keeping African-Americans down” is a tried and true method of obscuring structural racism: if it’s hip-hop’s fault, then nobody has to care, do they? Nobody has to question inherent biases in education, law enforcement, the judicial system—all areas that hip-hop artists, ironically enough, have been addressing for thirty years. You’ve gotta listen to hear that part, though.

author Adam Mansbach

more here, at NBM

the words are in response to this bit of specialness

December 7th, 2010

thesmithian

…”At the Dark End of the Street” is a story of courage. The women did tell, again and again. Many went to police before they went to the hospital and were supported by families and friends who corroborated their stories, at great risk. White control of the justice system meant that relatively few men were ever arrested and many fewer were ever convicted. McGuire reports that between 1940 and 1965, only 10 Mississippi white men were convicted of raping black women and girls. Although rape was a capital offense in many Southern states, no white man was ever executed for raping a black woman.

more, here.

…”At the Dark End of the Street” is a story of courage. The women did tell, again and again. Many went to police before they went to the hospital and were supported by families and friends who corroborated their stories, at great risk. White control of the justice system meant that relatively few men were ever arrested and many fewer were ever convicted. McGuire reports that between 1940 and 1965, only 10 Mississippi white men were convicted of raping black women and girls. Although rape was a capital offense in many Southern states, no white man was ever executed for raping a black woman.

more, here.

December 4th, 2010

thesmithian

'Since the 1980s, thousands of kids in Mississippi have been tried as adults, and hundreds are serving time in the adult system, says Sheila Bedi, deputy legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the former co-director of the SPLC’s Mississippi Youth Justice Project, based in Jackson…The state has no uniform tracking of kids tried as adults. In Mississippi, any child over 13 who commits a felony or uses a firearm in a crime automatically is tried in an adult court, often after a confession that may or may not be true.'

November 13th, 2010

thesmithian

The Congressional Black Caucus, counter to the widespread impression, is not a political monolith of knee-jerk, reflexive liberals. Its ranks also include moderates and even conservatives. At times its members have split votes on legislation. But no matter what their political differences, on some issues, they march in lockstep in support of President Obama and health care reform; affirmative action; increased government spending on education, jobs, and social programs; tight reins on Wall Street and the banking industry; an end to Bush tax cuts for the rich; a massive urban reconstruction program; and a wind-down of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. GOP leaders and the Tea Party stand for the exact opposite of those goals…Then there’s the CBC’s mostly black constituency. True, many African-Americans voice frustration, displeasure, and even anger at the Democratic Party for taking the black vote for granted and for saying little (and doing less) on issues ranging from criminal justice reform to the education crisis in inner-city schools. But black voters have been the bedrock of the Democratic Party for a half-century. They will not break ranks with the party at this juncture for two good reasons… [more, at the arrow]

November 10th, 2010

thesmithian

New Orleans: The Incarceration Capital of America?

Almost 60,000 people passed through Orleans Parish Prison in the last twelve months, a staggering figure for a city of this size. The average length of stay was 20 days. The largest portion of pre-trial prisoners in the jail are there for nonviolent, municipal offenses that even under conservative standards should not warrant jail time, including 20,000 arrests this year for traffic violations. “New Orleans is basically the incarceration capitol of the world,” says Kaplan. “You’re hard-pressed to find a resident of New Orleans—especially in poor communities—that hasn’t had their lives disrupted in some way by this institution.”

also:

A September 2009 report from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) found, “conditions at OPP violate the constitutional rights of inmates…a pattern and practice of unnecessary and inappropriate use of force by OPP correctional officers…several examples where OPP officers openly engaged in abusive and retaliatory conduct, which resulted in serious injuries to prisoners. In some instances, the investigation found, the officers’ conduct was so flagrant it clearly constituted calculated abuse.”

more, here.