Policy
Choices: Policy
choices and priorities are largely behind GarnerÕs death. After all, the big looting is happening on Wall Street, not in poor black communities.
But the government has decided not to lay a glove on those committing
criminal fraud on Wall Street. Rolling StoneÕs
Matt Taibbi notes: After
yet another non-indictment following a minority death-in-custody, the police
suddenly have a legitimacy problem in this country. Law-enforcement resources are now distributed so unevenly,
and justice is being administered with such brazen inconsistency, that people
everywhere are going to start questioning the basic political authority of law
enforcement. And theyÕre mostly going to be right to do it, and when they do,
itÕs going to create problems that will make the post-Ferguson unrest seem minor.
The psychic impact of these policies on the massive pool of everyone
else in the target neighborhoods is a rising sense of being seriously pissed
off. TheyÕre tired of being manhandled and searched once a week or more for
riding bikes the wrong way down the sidewalk (about 25,000 summonses a year here in New York),
smoking in the wrong spot, selling loosies, or just Òobstructing
pedestrian traffic,Ó a.k.a. walking while black. This is exactly what you hear
Eric Garner complaining about in the last moments of his life. ÒEvery time you
see me, you want to mess with me,Ó he says. ÒIt stops today!Ó This is the part white Middle American
news audiences arenÕt hearing about these stories.
The press and the people
who donÕt live in these places want you to focus only on the incidents in
question. It was technically a crime! Annoying, but he should have complied!
His fault for dying – and he was a fat guy with asthma besides! But the real issue is almost
always the hundreds of police interactions that take place before that single
spotlight moment, the countless aggravations large and small that pump up the
rage gland over time. [The same is true in Ferguson.] This policy of constantly
badgering people for trifles generates bloodcurdling anger in Òhot spotÓ
neighborhoods with industrial efficiency. And then something like the Garner
case happens and it all comes into relief. Six armed police officers tackling
and killing a man for selling a
75-cent cigarette. That was
economic regulation turned lethal, a situation made all the more ridiculous by
the fact that we no longer prosecute the countless serious economic crimes
committed in this same city. A ferry ride away from Staten Island, on Wall
Street, the pure unmolested freedom to fleece whoever you want is considered
the sacred birthright of every rake with a briefcase.
If Lloyd Blankfein
or Jamie Dimon had come up with the concept of
selling loosies, theyÕd go to their graves defending
it as free economic expression that Òcreates liquidityÓ and should never be
regulated. Taking it one step
further, if Eric Garner had been selling naked credit default swaps instead of
cigarettes – if in other words heÕd set up a bookmaking operation in
which passersby could bet on whether people made their home mortgage payments
or companies paid off their bonds – the police by virtue of a federal law
called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act would have been barred from even
approaching him. There were more
cops surrounding Eric Garner on a Staten Island street this past July 17th then
there were surrounding all of AIG during the period when the company was making
the toxic bets that nearly destroyed the world economy years ago.
Back then AIGÕs
regulator, the OTS, had just one insurance expert on staff, policing a
company with over 180,000 employees.
This is the crooked math thatÕs going to crash American law enforcement
if policies arenÕt changed. When
that perception sinks in, itÕs not just going to be one Eric Garner deciding
that listening to police orders Òends today.Ó ItÕs going to be everyone. And
man, what a mess thatÕs going to be.
But donÕt listen to Taibbi É
heÕs a muckraking journalist. LetÕs
instead listen to one of the nationÕs top criminologists – law
school professor William Black, who led the nationÕs enforcement against
S&L executives who committed white collar crime, obtaining convictions on over 1,000 of them – who writes:
New York City exemplifies two perverse criminal justice policies that
drive many criminologists to distraction. It is the home of the most
destructive epidemics of elite financial frauds in history. Those fraud
epidemics hyper-inflated the housing bubble and drove the financial crisis and
the Great Recession. The best estimate is that the U.S. GDP loss will be $21
trillion and that 10 million Americans lost their jobs. Both numbers are far larger in Europe. The
elite ÒC SuiteÓ leaders of these fraud epidemics were made wealthy by those
frauds through bonuses that measured in the billions of dollars annually. The most extraordinary facts about the
catastrophic fraud epidemics, however, is New York
CityÕs reaction to the fraud epidemics. Not a single Wall Street bankster who led the fraud epidemics has been prosecuted or
had their fraud proceeds Òclawed back.Ó Not a single Wall Street bankster who led
the fraud epidemics is treated as a pariah by his peers or New York City elites.
New York CityÕs elected leaders have made occasional criticisms of the banksters, but Mayor Bloomberg was famous for his
sycophancy for the Wall Street banksters that made
him wealthy.
In 2011, Mayor Bloomberg attacked the ÒOccupy Wall
StreetÓ movement for daring to protest the banksters É. It is, of course, depraved to claim
that because banksters are made wealthy
through fraud and pays a small portion of that wealth in taxes they should
not be held accountable for those frauds because they are important to local
finances. The claim becomes all the more risible when we take into account that
under DimonÕs leadership JPMorgan became infamous for engaging in and facilitating
billions of dollars in tax evasion that cost many governments, including NYC,
enormous amounts of tax revenues. As a final indignity, most of the purported
amounts that JPMorgan paid in settlements with DOJ are actually paid by the
U.S. Treasury because DOJ allowed JPMorgan to treat large amounts of those
payments as tax deductible. ***
The reality was the Dimon
and Blankfein were leading two of the worldÕs
largest, most prestigious, and most destructive criminal enterprises.
Nevertheless, as their repeated, massive felonies become more evident every
month and as the Libor and FX conspiracies demonstrate that the CEOs of our
largest banks are running criminal enterprises, their elite peers have not only
failed to denounce the banksters but have instead
demonized those who try to restore the rule of law in America as Nazis. The crisis is marked by exceptional
recidivism by these banks and banksters, the rapid
progression of fraud in terms of severity and its spread through the elite
banks, and the creation of a massively corrupt culture in banking and their
political allies in which even the largest and most destructive frauds are
ignored and the perpetrators are shielded from even the mildest forms of
accountability.
To sum
it up, NYC exemplifies the moral depravity, endemic criminality, and resultant
breakdown of the criminal justice system that Òbroken windowsÓ theory predicts.
***This class-based rush to shield elite white-collar
criminals from even the mildest forms of administrative accountability (the SEC
uses Òbroken windowsÓ as a PR slogan, not a reality) while simultaneously
adopting an ultra-aggressive policy of arresting mostly poorer Blacks and
Latinos for the most minor of offenses (e.g., selling small numbers of
cigarettes from broken packs). The proponents of using Òbroken windowsÓ to
arrest large numbers of minorities for minor property offenses almost never
demonstrate any awareness of the obvious obscenity and disaster of allowing banksters to grow wealthy by defrauding with impunity. Eric
Garner ends up dead because the police arrest him for selling goods without
paying sales tax (amounting to several hundred dollars in lost government
revenue over the course of a year).
The fraud epidemics cost that drove the financial
crisis and the Great Recession cost our Nation $21 trillion –
and no senior banker who led the frauds in even arrested.***The
proponents of mass arrests of disproportionately poor Blacks and Latinos for
minor property offenses had a superb and unprincipled PR machine. Police
Commissioner Bernard Kerik, eventually admitted his guilt to a series of felonies.
The NYPD PR machine claimed that NYCÕs reduction in reported
crime was produced by Òbroken windowsÓ policing. The reality was that
most major municipal areas that did not employ Òbroken windowÓ strategies
reported substantial reductions in crime in the same time period. Further, the police in many cities were
employing new strategies during this same time period, so attributing causality
to the reported crime reductions (a) to police strategies in general or (b) any
particular police strategy is generally unreliable. (Criminologists also
know that reported crime levels are often unreliable. Local officials
frequently game the numbers and Kerik later confessed
to committing many acts of deceit in connection with other events.) In addition to arresting large numbers
of poorer, darker-colored citizens for mostly minor property crimes under the
rubric of Òbroken windows,Ó NYC followed a strategy of massively increased Òstop
and frisksÓ of disproportionately poorer Blacks (50%) and Latinos (30%). By
2011, the NYPD was conducting 684,000 humiliating Òstop and friskÓ actions in a
single year (nearly 1874 per day – with an average of 1500 of those being
Blacks and Latinos). Only a small percentage of these humiliations result in
successful prosecution. To its credit, the Cato Institute has excoriated the NYPDÕs stop
and frisk policies. The average large bankÕs C Suite has a dramatically
higher crime incidence than does a street in Harlem. All the property crimes
committed cumulatively by Black and Latino residents of Harlem over the last
400 years were exceeded in the typical minute of the Libor fraud and cartel.
To this
systematic anti-prioritization of criminal justice resources that causes the
NYPD to ignore the most destructive property crimes in history that are
(disproportionately) committed by elite whites and focus overwhelmingly on the
least destructive property crimes committed in parts of the city
(disproportionately) inhabited by Blacks and Latinos one must add Òstop and
frisk,Ó the outright racist effects of the sentencing disparity for powder v
crack cocaine, and the emphasis on arresting drug sellers overwhelmingly in
poorer areas inhabited disproportionately by Blacks and Latinos.
Collectively, the strategy means that policing in NYC is aimed overwhelmingly
at Blacks and Latinos, creates the constant humiliation of young Blacks and
Latinos, makes it inevitable that large sections of these communities will view
the police as the problem rather than the solution, and produces the
self-fulfilling prophecy of leading to grossly disproportionate numbers of
Black and Latino males having criminal records that impair their ability to get
jobs and form well-functioning families. The resultant hostility between the
police and much of the community means that both groups feel that they are
under siege by the other.***
Criminologists generally do not agree that research
has demonstrated any such Ònecess[ity]Ó [for a broken window
enforcement strategy]. Criminologists increasingly recognize the extreme costs
inflicted on society of applying the racialized and
class-driven counter-prioritization of Òbroken windowsÓ strategy in the manner
used by the NYPD. Ironically, the Òbroken
windowsÓ strategy worked far better in the context of elite white-collar, e.g.,
in our response to the control fraud epidemic that drove the savings and loan
debacle and our crackdowns on junk bond and liarÕs loan frauds. ÒBroken windowsÓ
strategies against elite white-collar crimes have far fewer drawbacks than they
do in the blue-collar sphere. Conservative proponents of Òbroken windowsÓ
strategies against blue collar crime, however, rarely
mention elite white collar crime.
Sadly, SutherlandÕs observations
about the unwillingness of elites to take elite white-collar crimes seriously
and the resultant enormous cost of such crimes remains largely true 75
years later. The Òbroken windowsÓ
strategy against blue collar crime and the related strategies that have made it
inevitable that criminal justice enforcement will be unjust and will fail
against elite white-collar criminals also makes it inevitable that large
numbers of Blacks and Latinos and the police will be largely unable to
understand each other and work together.***
How many Blacks and Latinos must we incarcerate and
even kill for trivial offenses in order to optimally improve the Òquality of
lifeÓ of Blacks and Latinos?
The Black and Latino communities have heard, ad nauseum, ÒpoliticiansÓ ÒexplainÓ why Òquality-of-life
enforcementÓ is supposedly ÒnecessaryÓ in their communities. They have heard the thunderous silence of
the proponents of this claim – the failure to even attempt to ÒexplainÓ
why Òquality-of-life enforcementÓ is not necessary on Wall Street.
They do not accept the validity of the explanations and they know full well why
the NYPD refuses to even try to enforce the rule of law on Wall Street.
Criminology can help. The mother of all serious crime Òhot spotsÓ in NYC
can easily be mapped using Geographical Information System (GIS) software. The
system would generate nice tight crimson circles around the C-Suites of the
twenty largest Wall Street banks and bank holding companies.
Questioning Authority May Get You
Killed GarnerÕs
real crime – the one that got him killed – was questioning the
police. Civil rights legal expert John Whitehead writes:
If you donÕt want to get
probed, poked, pinched, tasered, tackled, searched,
seized, stripped, manhandled, arrested, shot, or killed, donÕt say, do or even
suggest anything that even hints of noncompliance. This is the new Òthin blue
lineÓ over which you must not cross in interactions with police if you want to
walk away with your life and freedoms intact. ***
Eric Garner, 43 years old, asthmatic and unarmed,
died after being put in a chokehold by NYPD police, allegedly for resisting
arrest over his selling untaxed, loose cigarettes, although video footage of
the incident shows little resistance on GarnerÕs part. Indeed, the man was
screaming, begging and insisting he couldnÕt breathe. And what was New York
Mayor Bill De BlasioÕs advice to citizens in order to
avoid a similar fate? DonÕt resist arrest. (Mind you, the NYPD arrests more
than 13,000 people every year on charges of resisting arrest, although only a
small fraction of those charged ever get prosecuted.)***
Clearly,
when police officers cease to look and act like civil servants or peace
officers but instead look and act like soldiers occupying a hostile territory,
it alters their perception of Òwe the people.Ó Those
who founded this country believed that we were the masters and that those whose salaries we pay with our hard-earned tax
dollars are our servants. If
daring to question, challenge or even hesitate when a cop issues an order can
get you charged with resisting arrest or disorderly conduct, youÕre not the
master in a master-servant relationship. In fact, youÕre not even the servant—youÕre
the slave. This is not
freedom. This is not even a life.
This is a battlefield, a war zone—if you will—governed by
martial law and disguised as a democracy.
No matter how many ways you fancy it up
with shopping malls, populist elections, and Monday night football, the fact
remains that Òwe the peopleÓ are little more than prisoners in the American
police state, and the police are our jailers and wardens. There is obviously a giant racial component to the
overwhelmingly white grand juries in New York and Ferguson acquitting white
police officers who killed black men. But – given that peaceful protest, dissent or questioning government policy are now labeled ÒterrorismÓ
– it is really a power trip by the powers-that-be against anyone who would question them. After all, numerous top U.S. government officials have all said weÕre
in or very near to becoming a police state. Indeed, the militarization of police in modern America is the exact thing the Founding Fathers fought
the Revolutionary War to stop. The
question is whether weÕll stand up for one another.