Editors Note: In response to the death of George Floyd and marches calling for significant police reform, Court Watch of Dutchess County has decided to post a multi-part series called Policing in America, to educate the public on the racist evolution of policing in America and reform solutions that put the welfare of marginalized communities first. Giuliani was re-elected in 1997 and extolled the virtues of broken windows policing until he left office in 2001. Below is a map of all 52 New York State prisons and the number of coronavirus tests conducted in each of them. Penalization was mostly fines, rehabilitative labor, or execution. Over a month ago a contact told us that his neighbor was removed from his cell and that his inquiries into why the neighbor was removed or whether he was still alive werent answered.
Another judge had handled the case. The colonies also employed for-profit-sheriffs, appointed by governors, who collected taxes, served subpoenas, and, to a small extent, prevented crime.
Most of the court's lesser functions, such as property recordkeeping, have been moved to an annex next door, built in the 1960s. The defendant was scheduled for an arraignment this morning for a littering charge. Whoevers phone it is, get out. In the following years, Giuliani and police commissioner William Bratton initiated a top-down crackdown on crime, beginning with fare beaters in the subway. The docket was full, but the courtroom was strangely empty thanks to capacity restrictions in response to the COVID pandemic. At the same time, police hunted down immigrants and African Americans for the same crimes or no crime at all. Unfortunately, the outcomes of a few cases seemed distinctly less rational and judicious. In response to police corruption and abuse, the federal government initiated police reforms beginning in 1929 and extending throughout the 1960s. However, after observing several court sessions, I am left wondering: who gets the benefit of the doubt? information displayed on this site may be out of date. That his path was predetermined as soon as he entered the institution? Watching this case, I had to think about the blunt racial divide in Poughkeepsie City Court. The defendant turned to walk back to his mother who was standing and shaking her head as the next case number was called. Even if we suppose that the evaluations are used for defendants who commit the crime that they have been arrested for, people of color will still be disproportionately targeted. Of those who were tested in prison, over 45% came back positive whereas for the rest of New York less than 19% came back positive. Both Eric Garner, who was killed by a police officer for selling loose tobacco cigarettes, and George Floyd, who was suspected of using a counterfeit bill, are tragically just two of the many victims of "broken windows" policing. Though the district attorneys office had agreed to the lower charge and conditions, the judge imposed a stiffer sentence. Clearly, some people are too important to follow arbitrary rules. But I paused at one defendant whose birth year was 2001..
Now is the time to contact mayors and city council representatives to demand their support for RTKA.
For those caught up in the criminal justice system, time is even more precious, since every missed court date is another mark of delinquency that wont be ignored. Below is a map of the number of positive coronavirus tests in each prison in New York. Judge Mora adjourned the case. On a more local level, ENJAN has also been working with NYCLU to support the passage of the Right to Know Act (RTKA). Looks like no one likes me today, remarked the city prosecutor after the defendant had exited the courtroom. Rolling back bail reform will only add to the already present racial inequality in our judicial systema situation that Michelle Alexander has famously called the New Jim Crow. The very first day I attended court, a man came in with an open container charge. This system provides past, present and future case information for New York State Civil Supreme Courts Only. The actions taken to prevent the coronavirus from spreading in prisons are just as atrocious as the absence of testing.
Perhaps worst of all, the "broken windows" theory discursively connects small crimes and misdemeanors to large ones, implying that those who commit small crimes must be stopped before they do something worse. I could not comprehend the overlapping of a college-aged boy and a criminal in my head until I had towhen the next day an ordinary looking 20-year-old Black man was brought into the court in chains and a bright orange jumpsuit.
The public defender agreed that it was a sad case in which the defendant was caught robbing and possessing weapons. Her top charge was read aloud petit larceny essentially shoplifting an item from a local Rite Aid.
Time is a commodity, and for many people not an abundant one. There are three different name "modifiers" available. It was Friday morning when a young, black male wearing chains and an orange county jumpsuit was escorted into court by two police officers and stood before Judge Volkmann. My time observing in court, while brief, has taught me that a defendant can often end up in court countless times for something as minor as loitering (in this case, supposedly for drugs). For the first ten or so cases, I felt that our hasty shuffling of the pages was loud and distracting I felt uncomfortable accidentally bringing any attention to us. Not vibrate. A couple of weeks ago I sat in on another littering case. The defendant desperately looked to his public defender and told him that he had just gotten a new job and needed the money. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, in 2019, over 48,000 youth in the US were confined in facilities related to juvenile or criminal justice. The coronavirus cases that do occur in facilities are also swept under the rug to protect officers privacy at the expense of inmates' lives. The initiative received bipartisan support, as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle saw it as a good way to effectively prevent crime. Every time I have to come to court I lose my job, said a 39-year-old black male defendant to Judge Mora, right as his case was about to be adjourned.
Justice for whom? Capitalization, special characters (periods, commas, apostrophes, etc), and spaces are ignored. I know the systematic ins and outs, whats cool and whats a dub. Ive also seen and experienced the role-playing, mocking and hierarchies of the halls based on others' exercise of power and personality. She was a black woman bound in chains, clad in an orange jumpsuit, and flanked by six police officers.
The first was authorized by the provincial assembly in 1717 and built in 1720, and would host New York's debate on ratifying the U.S. Constitution during the brief period when Poughkeepsie served as the state capital in 1788. Overall, this policing method has been shown to be deeply flawed, not only because it fails to deter larger crimes but because it has increased the numbers of arrests and fines for more marginalized populations, particularly for those who occupy public spaces, like homeless people and sex workers. Due to the uncertain amount of pages these documents may be, they are available by mail request only along with an amount NOT TO EXCEED $x.00 check payable to the Dutchess County Clerk. In a society where it seems we are becoming more and more isolated from one another, we shouldnt underestimate the value of having public spaces where people can come together over a beer. This new diversity was met with regular abuse and arrests of African Americans by police officers. There is also a lack of community support for youth who come back into society after their detention. Meanwhile, the young defendant seemed distraught, staring at the floor and shaking his head back and forth. For the criminal justice system, the possession of a childhood pet translated into a reason to potentially jail a minor, disrupt his life and take him away from his family. As one contact who is incarcerated said, You cant watch a bomb explode and then try to contain the explosion. Lets implement adequate testing and spread-reduction measures to stop the coronavirus before it completely explodes. You can only use your fists to fight back., Looking at my college sweatshirt, he sighed and said, just different lives. At a certain point, these postponements represent an onerous hardship. After one of the court officers repeated tirades, a person sitting behind me said, She needs to calm down. Her friend responded, They think just because they got badges I couldnt have interpreted it better myself. The defendant further remarked that it was very difficult for him to get a job because of his record. Risk assessment and dangerousness standard might sound good for public safety, but in practice they are in fact highly discriminatory and do little to increase the safety of our communities. Time and time again these thugs are targeted and over-policed because of the perceived deviant label associated with their skin color.
If a judge deems defendants a risk to society before they have been sentenced, they are no longer presumed innocent. Faced with red brick, the half-million dollar structure featured Palladian windows in the second and fifth-story center bays with stucco decoration above. But as a twenty-year-old American, what I do know is how a typical high school functions. Moreover, theres no evidence that open container laws actually correlate to, much less cause, a reduction in more serious crimes. At both Green Haven and Eastern Correctional Facility, infected officers' identities are being concealed from the people incarcerated in those facilities. If you are unsure of the status of a scheduled court appearance, you should consult My first time sitting in the courtroom I saw it happening right in front of me. This is the framework of justice that Mora evokes when he, frankly, punishes people for not having the time to show upthat is, for the circumstances of their lives. Because the Supreme Court determined that enforcement of these laws was overly subjective and unfairly targeted homeless and alcoholic men, they were struck down as unconstitutional in a string of rulings starting in 1964. Now that we have some understanding of some of the problems with contemporary policing, well turn to a few concrete solutions in our next post. Granted, seeing as I dont know the defendants income or housing history, all this is speculation. While Kelling has repeatedly emphasized that he intended for broken windows to be only a part of a more comprehensive community policing effort, that is not how the concept has been actualized. It was determined during the proceedings that he was going to plead guilty to the charges and serve 60 days in jail. Of the 52 prisons in New York, 34 of them have tested less than 1% of their population and 8 that havent tested anyone. The building's cornice is the only element that has been significantly changed from the original design. The city prosecutor made the offer of an ACD (Acquittal in Contemplation of Dismissal) if the defendant completed 15 hours of community service. Ive got a lot going on too, but I know where I live. And harsher pleas mean harsher sentences. It was destroyed in an 1806 fire. Although these changes were implemented to prevent police corruption, many police departments became "inward looking, isolated from the public, and militaristic (Walker, 1998). There may be other reasons behind probations recommendation and Judge Volkmanns decision, but it is something we all must consider when looking at the people whose lives are altered by our justice system. This 20-year-old was charged with assault in the 2nd degree, the most serious form of assault in NY. This is the life that some New York State prisoners have been facing during the coronavirus epidemic. Unfortunately, up to this point, the City of Poughkeepsie police have resisted including any such provision in their police conduct manual. These recurrent court appearances can be onerous, putting a defendants job at risk or making it difficult for them to balance childcare responsibilities. Thankfully, one defendant did not have to worry about that today, as the court acted in the interest of justice. In this epidemicand afterwardswe need more prosecutors to exercise their discretion to reduce the burdens our criminal justice system places on low-income members of our community. This defendant could very well be dealing with the difficulty of obtaining affordable housing. When I walked into the City of Poughkeepsie courtroom for my first session, I was surprised to see the court reporter keep up with the quick back and forth for each case. One might assume she was accused of a violent crime, but that was not quite the case.
However, after Judge Mora called out the prosecutor for the absurdity of his offer, he actually ended up issuing a bench warrant. Most days in court seem to go by in a flurry of arraignments, extensions on payments, and bench warrants issued for defendants who failed to appear. During the guilty plea, as is standard court procedure, the defendant raised his right hand to the best of his abilitywhich in and of itself is a spectacle when the defendants hands are chained to his waistand swore to tell the truth. Since then, other tough-on-crime measures led to the imprisonment of millions of people of color, leading to todays mass incarceration.
Its time to end this racist system. As a third-year student in college completing an internship as a court watcher, my only familiarity with the dynamics of a courtroom comes from episodes of CSI or Law & Order. The few tests that have been given, have often been administered too late. During a break, I tapped the public defender on the shoulder and told him how upset I felt about the case. The probation officer is the goodie-two-shoes within the courtroom, the judges pet, anticipating his needs and finishing peoples sentences with her insider knowledge. For each case, a court officer reads aloud the case number.
And while 97% of defendants spoke and understood English, 3% did not. It was unclear what exactly the item was, but still, it was only shoplifting. Fortunately, there are still steps that the ordinary citizen can take to improve the accountability of police. You have to follow the rules, Judge Mora asserted, cutting off the defendant. A number of possible reasons ran through my head. Im reminded of another case where a man was censured for missing a court date.
In addition, Black youth are overrepresented in juvenile facilities. If you were like me, high school did not feel like a place that valued justice. Despite their personal information and immediate future being front and center, the defendants themselves are often ignored, excluded from the deliberation on their own fate. And it is madness. It felt good to be back in the courtroom again. An LP, or Lis Pendens, is a notice that a lawsuit has been filed. The names of infected correctional officers and inmates are withheld from inmates- even if they were in direct contact with them. An example of this tactic is the redlining project. And Judge Mora may not have any more information than I do.
While court watching cant explain the causes of these data, by making this information public we hope to inspire further discourse about our legal system. He had been quiet up to this point, forced into silence as the details of his life were tossed around the courtroom. Starting in September 2018, 14 court watchers have observed 1,337 total cases in three courts: City of Beacon and City of Poughkeepsie courts and Dutchess County Court. Moreover, because the state fails to keep the mandated records on how this revenue is spent, this regressive system is entirely unaccountable. He would remain in jail at least through the weekend. The picture was pretty clear, defendant or observer: no phones allowed. As the judge began the proceedings for this case, a voice from behind me interjected: He doesnt speak English.. Lawyer, court officer, court reporter, anyone with power: scroll away. [1][4] It has also been joined to the Poughkeepsie Trust Company building to its immediate east on Main Street, which serves as the district attorney's offices. These results could be showing a pattern in the court scheduling that court watchers are not aware of. A Brief History of Slavery and the Origins of American Policing, The History of Policing in the United States, Less Crime, More Punishment: Violence, Race, and Criminal Justice in Early Twentieth-Century America, The War on Drugs and Prison Growth: Limited Importance, and Limited Legislative Options, The Growth of Incarceration in the United States. After a couple of court watching sessions, I instinctively began to empathize with defendants who were also walking into court for the first time but for whom the stakes were a lot higher. Drunkenness was decriminalized and reframed as a public health issue. Find New York State Civil Supreme Court cases by justice name. The court saw the care-taking of a family dog as grounds to physically confine a 17-year-old. Requiring officers to identify themselves and explain their actions promotes a more consistent, respectful, and community-minded approach to enforcement activities while also potentially reducing the likelihood that a routine police stop will turn violent. To counter the perceived threat that ethnic diversity posed to Americas social order, state governments created modern police systems to control the immigrants. So, court watchers may have observed the same judge, public defender, and even the same defendants returning week after week. Policing in America: Broken Windows Policing or Broken Policing?
To accommodate the growing number of inmates, congress passed the Three Prisons Act in 1891, which established the Federal Prison System. Racism and corruption in early 20th-century police agencies also aided the rise in incarceration. Later alterations were made under the direction of Charles Cooke, who designed the nearby offices of the Poughkeepsie Journal.
If individuals are unable to make payments on their fines and fees, they must reappear regularly (often monthly) before the court to explain their circumstances.
This helps keep citizens informed about the actions of law enforcement in their area. He said that the boy grew up in an institution without a father or mother. Many correctional officers at Fishkill have been stealing the hand sanitizer that has finally been delivered to the prison, while the units of 35 inmates only receive at max two bottles of watered-down bleach each day to clean their quarters with. Why did she, as someone who was accused of a nonviolent offense, require such excessive security?
Fines are supposed to punish people for their misdeeds but mandatory fees are in reality a revenue-generating mechanism for state and local government that extracts wealth from the poorest New Yorkers. The risk faced by incarcerated people is amplified by the lack of access to substantial news regarding the virus. Turn the phone off and put it away. In American society, popular media commonly portrays black males as criminals and deadbeat fathers. Contact your local prison, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision at (518) 457-8126 or on Facebook, and Governor Cuomo at (518) 474-8390 or on Twitter to keep our prisons accountable. To begin to understand modern policing and the rise of mass incarceration in America, we must begin at our country's colonial roots.
She concluded that jail time was simply unwarranted in this case. Would it be reasonable to conclude that this probation officer behind the report only viewed the defendant as a deadbeat father because black males are supposed to fit that criterion? Is there an over-policing of the Black community in the City of Poughkeepsie? He declared that he was unsure what he was going to decide today. The night before my first court watch, I was recording the preliminary demographic information on defendants for future data analysis. If youre sitting here in the court, you cannot be trusted: not with your phone, not with food or water, not with your own decisions. Due to the recent public support for police reform in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd and many other people of color, the New York State legislature recently passed both of these bills plus several others in the Safer NY Act. I still did not understand, though, why he was in chains and restrained by officers, when he could be eating with his friends or playing video games. The mean girl of the courtroom is the assistant district attorney, who maintains a stern face throughout the proceedings and deigns to only speak to those she deems worthy. I had the impression that he was frustrated with being there and just wanted to get it over with as quickly as possiblea pattern Ive noticed with a lot of defendants who want to avoid having to come in week after week to hash out the details of their cases. Imagine being locked in a cage and spit on by someone who may have the coronavirus; stripped of hand sanitizer, soap, and toilet paper while living in a hall with dozens of strangers; or fed misinformation and facing punishment for publicizing your dreadful conditions. The time for change is now. Assessing risk and dangerousness through a persons history of arrests and convictions is a proxy for racial bias. Our court watchers have seen six different judges in action.
Please click here The courts are making safe
Most importantly, what could we as a society do to avoid similar tragedies?
Another judge had handled the case. The colonies also employed for-profit-sheriffs, appointed by governors, who collected taxes, served subpoenas, and, to a small extent, prevented crime.
Most of the court's lesser functions, such as property recordkeeping, have been moved to an annex next door, built in the 1960s. The defendant was scheduled for an arraignment this morning for a littering charge. Whoevers phone it is, get out. In the following years, Giuliani and police commissioner William Bratton initiated a top-down crackdown on crime, beginning with fare beaters in the subway. The docket was full, but the courtroom was strangely empty thanks to capacity restrictions in response to the COVID pandemic. At the same time, police hunted down immigrants and African Americans for the same crimes or no crime at all. Unfortunately, the outcomes of a few cases seemed distinctly less rational and judicious. In response to police corruption and abuse, the federal government initiated police reforms beginning in 1929 and extending throughout the 1960s. However, after observing several court sessions, I am left wondering: who gets the benefit of the doubt? information displayed on this site may be out of date. That his path was predetermined as soon as he entered the institution? Watching this case, I had to think about the blunt racial divide in Poughkeepsie City Court. The defendant turned to walk back to his mother who was standing and shaking her head as the next case number was called. Even if we suppose that the evaluations are used for defendants who commit the crime that they have been arrested for, people of color will still be disproportionately targeted. Of those who were tested in prison, over 45% came back positive whereas for the rest of New York less than 19% came back positive. Both Eric Garner, who was killed by a police officer for selling loose tobacco cigarettes, and George Floyd, who was suspected of using a counterfeit bill, are tragically just two of the many victims of "broken windows" policing. Though the district attorneys office had agreed to the lower charge and conditions, the judge imposed a stiffer sentence. Clearly, some people are too important to follow arbitrary rules. But I paused at one defendant whose birth year was 2001..
Now is the time to contact mayors and city council representatives to demand their support for RTKA.
For those caught up in the criminal justice system, time is even more precious, since every missed court date is another mark of delinquency that wont be ignored. Below is a map of the number of positive coronavirus tests in each prison in New York. Judge Mora adjourned the case. On a more local level, ENJAN has also been working with NYCLU to support the passage of the Right to Know Act (RTKA). Looks like no one likes me today, remarked the city prosecutor after the defendant had exited the courtroom. Rolling back bail reform will only add to the already present racial inequality in our judicial systema situation that Michelle Alexander has famously called the New Jim Crow. The very first day I attended court, a man came in with an open container charge. This system provides past, present and future case information for New York State Civil Supreme Courts Only. The actions taken to prevent the coronavirus from spreading in prisons are just as atrocious as the absence of testing.
Perhaps worst of all, the "broken windows" theory discursively connects small crimes and misdemeanors to large ones, implying that those who commit small crimes must be stopped before they do something worse. I could not comprehend the overlapping of a college-aged boy and a criminal in my head until I had towhen the next day an ordinary looking 20-year-old Black man was brought into the court in chains and a bright orange jumpsuit. The public defender agreed that it was a sad case in which the defendant was caught robbing and possessing weapons. Her top charge was read aloud petit larceny essentially shoplifting an item from a local Rite Aid.
Time is a commodity, and for many people not an abundant one. There are three different name "modifiers" available. It was Friday morning when a young, black male wearing chains and an orange county jumpsuit was escorted into court by two police officers and stood before Judge Volkmann. My time observing in court, while brief, has taught me that a defendant can often end up in court countless times for something as minor as loitering (in this case, supposedly for drugs). For the first ten or so cases, I felt that our hasty shuffling of the pages was loud and distracting I felt uncomfortable accidentally bringing any attention to us. Not vibrate. A couple of weeks ago I sat in on another littering case. The defendant desperately looked to his public defender and told him that he had just gotten a new job and needed the money. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, in 2019, over 48,000 youth in the US were confined in facilities related to juvenile or criminal justice. The coronavirus cases that do occur in facilities are also swept under the rug to protect officers privacy at the expense of inmates' lives. The initiative received bipartisan support, as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle saw it as a good way to effectively prevent crime. Every time I have to come to court I lose my job, said a 39-year-old black male defendant to Judge Mora, right as his case was about to be adjourned.
Justice for whom? Capitalization, special characters (periods, commas, apostrophes, etc), and spaces are ignored. I know the systematic ins and outs, whats cool and whats a dub. Ive also seen and experienced the role-playing, mocking and hierarchies of the halls based on others' exercise of power and personality. She was a black woman bound in chains, clad in an orange jumpsuit, and flanked by six police officers.
The first was authorized by the provincial assembly in 1717 and built in 1720, and would host New York's debate on ratifying the U.S. Constitution during the brief period when Poughkeepsie served as the state capital in 1788. Overall, this policing method has been shown to be deeply flawed, not only because it fails to deter larger crimes but because it has increased the numbers of arrests and fines for more marginalized populations, particularly for those who occupy public spaces, like homeless people and sex workers. Due to the uncertain amount of pages these documents may be, they are available by mail request only along with an amount NOT TO EXCEED $x.00 check payable to the Dutchess County Clerk. In a society where it seems we are becoming more and more isolated from one another, we shouldnt underestimate the value of having public spaces where people can come together over a beer. This new diversity was met with regular abuse and arrests of African Americans by police officers. There is also a lack of community support for youth who come back into society after their detention. Meanwhile, the young defendant seemed distraught, staring at the floor and shaking his head back and forth. For the criminal justice system, the possession of a childhood pet translated into a reason to potentially jail a minor, disrupt his life and take him away from his family. As one contact who is incarcerated said, You cant watch a bomb explode and then try to contain the explosion. Lets implement adequate testing and spread-reduction measures to stop the coronavirus before it completely explodes. You can only use your fists to fight back., Looking at my college sweatshirt, he sighed and said, just different lives. At a certain point, these postponements represent an onerous hardship. After one of the court officers repeated tirades, a person sitting behind me said, She needs to calm down. Her friend responded, They think just because they got badges I couldnt have interpreted it better myself. The defendant further remarked that it was very difficult for him to get a job because of his record. Risk assessment and dangerousness standard might sound good for public safety, but in practice they are in fact highly discriminatory and do little to increase the safety of our communities. Time and time again these thugs are targeted and over-policed because of the perceived deviant label associated with their skin color.
If a judge deems defendants a risk to society before they have been sentenced, they are no longer presumed innocent. Faced with red brick, the half-million dollar structure featured Palladian windows in the second and fifth-story center bays with stucco decoration above. But as a twenty-year-old American, what I do know is how a typical high school functions. Moreover, theres no evidence that open container laws actually correlate to, much less cause, a reduction in more serious crimes. At both Green Haven and Eastern Correctional Facility, infected officers' identities are being concealed from the people incarcerated in those facilities. If you are unsure of the status of a scheduled court appearance, you should consult My first time sitting in the courtroom I saw it happening right in front of me. This is the framework of justice that Mora evokes when he, frankly, punishes people for not having the time to show upthat is, for the circumstances of their lives. Because the Supreme Court determined that enforcement of these laws was overly subjective and unfairly targeted homeless and alcoholic men, they were struck down as unconstitutional in a string of rulings starting in 1964. Now that we have some understanding of some of the problems with contemporary policing, well turn to a few concrete solutions in our next post. Granted, seeing as I dont know the defendants income or housing history, all this is speculation. While Kelling has repeatedly emphasized that he intended for broken windows to be only a part of a more comprehensive community policing effort, that is not how the concept has been actualized. It was determined during the proceedings that he was going to plead guilty to the charges and serve 60 days in jail. Of the 52 prisons in New York, 34 of them have tested less than 1% of their population and 8 that havent tested anyone. The building's cornice is the only element that has been significantly changed from the original design. The city prosecutor made the offer of an ACD (Acquittal in Contemplation of Dismissal) if the defendant completed 15 hours of community service. Ive got a lot going on too, but I know where I live. And harsher pleas mean harsher sentences. It was destroyed in an 1806 fire. Although these changes were implemented to prevent police corruption, many police departments became "inward looking, isolated from the public, and militaristic (Walker, 1998). There may be other reasons behind probations recommendation and Judge Volkmanns decision, but it is something we all must consider when looking at the people whose lives are altered by our justice system. This 20-year-old was charged with assault in the 2nd degree, the most serious form of assault in NY. This is the life that some New York State prisoners have been facing during the coronavirus epidemic. Unfortunately, up to this point, the City of Poughkeepsie police have resisted including any such provision in their police conduct manual. These recurrent court appearances can be onerous, putting a defendants job at risk or making it difficult for them to balance childcare responsibilities. Thankfully, one defendant did not have to worry about that today, as the court acted in the interest of justice. In this epidemicand afterwardswe need more prosecutors to exercise their discretion to reduce the burdens our criminal justice system places on low-income members of our community. This defendant could very well be dealing with the difficulty of obtaining affordable housing. When I walked into the City of Poughkeepsie courtroom for my first session, I was surprised to see the court reporter keep up with the quick back and forth for each case. One might assume she was accused of a violent crime, but that was not quite the case.
However, after Judge Mora called out the prosecutor for the absurdity of his offer, he actually ended up issuing a bench warrant. Most days in court seem to go by in a flurry of arraignments, extensions on payments, and bench warrants issued for defendants who failed to appear. During the guilty plea, as is standard court procedure, the defendant raised his right hand to the best of his abilitywhich in and of itself is a spectacle when the defendants hands are chained to his waistand swore to tell the truth. Since then, other tough-on-crime measures led to the imprisonment of millions of people of color, leading to todays mass incarceration.
Its time to end this racist system. As a third-year student in college completing an internship as a court watcher, my only familiarity with the dynamics of a courtroom comes from episodes of CSI or Law & Order. The few tests that have been given, have often been administered too late. During a break, I tapped the public defender on the shoulder and told him how upset I felt about the case. The probation officer is the goodie-two-shoes within the courtroom, the judges pet, anticipating his needs and finishing peoples sentences with her insider knowledge. For each case, a court officer reads aloud the case number.
And while 97% of defendants spoke and understood English, 3% did not. It was unclear what exactly the item was, but still, it was only shoplifting. Fortunately, there are still steps that the ordinary citizen can take to improve the accountability of police. You have to follow the rules, Judge Mora asserted, cutting off the defendant. A number of possible reasons ran through my head. Im reminded of another case where a man was censured for missing a court date.
In addition, Black youth are overrepresented in juvenile facilities. If you were like me, high school did not feel like a place that valued justice. Despite their personal information and immediate future being front and center, the defendants themselves are often ignored, excluded from the deliberation on their own fate. And it is madness. It felt good to be back in the courtroom again. An LP, or Lis Pendens, is a notice that a lawsuit has been filed. The names of infected correctional officers and inmates are withheld from inmates- even if they were in direct contact with them. An example of this tactic is the redlining project. And Judge Mora may not have any more information than I do.
While court watching cant explain the causes of these data, by making this information public we hope to inspire further discourse about our legal system. He had been quiet up to this point, forced into silence as the details of his life were tossed around the courtroom. Starting in September 2018, 14 court watchers have observed 1,337 total cases in three courts: City of Beacon and City of Poughkeepsie courts and Dutchess County Court. Moreover, because the state fails to keep the mandated records on how this revenue is spent, this regressive system is entirely unaccountable. He would remain in jail at least through the weekend. The picture was pretty clear, defendant or observer: no phones allowed. As the judge began the proceedings for this case, a voice from behind me interjected: He doesnt speak English.. Lawyer, court officer, court reporter, anyone with power: scroll away. [1][4] It has also been joined to the Poughkeepsie Trust Company building to its immediate east on Main Street, which serves as the district attorney's offices. These results could be showing a pattern in the court scheduling that court watchers are not aware of. A Brief History of Slavery and the Origins of American Policing, The History of Policing in the United States, Less Crime, More Punishment: Violence, Race, and Criminal Justice in Early Twentieth-Century America, The War on Drugs and Prison Growth: Limited Importance, and Limited Legislative Options, The Growth of Incarceration in the United States. After a couple of court watching sessions, I instinctively began to empathize with defendants who were also walking into court for the first time but for whom the stakes were a lot higher. Drunkenness was decriminalized and reframed as a public health issue. Find New York State Civil Supreme Court cases by justice name. The court saw the care-taking of a family dog as grounds to physically confine a 17-year-old. Requiring officers to identify themselves and explain their actions promotes a more consistent, respectful, and community-minded approach to enforcement activities while also potentially reducing the likelihood that a routine police stop will turn violent. To counter the perceived threat that ethnic diversity posed to Americas social order, state governments created modern police systems to control the immigrants. So, court watchers may have observed the same judge, public defender, and even the same defendants returning week after week. Policing in America: Broken Windows Policing or Broken Policing?
To accommodate the growing number of inmates, congress passed the Three Prisons Act in 1891, which established the Federal Prison System. Racism and corruption in early 20th-century police agencies also aided the rise in incarceration. Later alterations were made under the direction of Charles Cooke, who designed the nearby offices of the Poughkeepsie Journal.
If individuals are unable to make payments on their fines and fees, they must reappear regularly (often monthly) before the court to explain their circumstances.
This helps keep citizens informed about the actions of law enforcement in their area. He said that the boy grew up in an institution without a father or mother. Many correctional officers at Fishkill have been stealing the hand sanitizer that has finally been delivered to the prison, while the units of 35 inmates only receive at max two bottles of watered-down bleach each day to clean their quarters with. Why did she, as someone who was accused of a nonviolent offense, require such excessive security?
Fines are supposed to punish people for their misdeeds but mandatory fees are in reality a revenue-generating mechanism for state and local government that extracts wealth from the poorest New Yorkers. The risk faced by incarcerated people is amplified by the lack of access to substantial news regarding the virus. Turn the phone off and put it away. In American society, popular media commonly portrays black males as criminals and deadbeat fathers. Contact your local prison, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision at (518) 457-8126 or on Facebook, and Governor Cuomo at (518) 474-8390 or on Twitter to keep our prisons accountable. To begin to understand modern policing and the rise of mass incarceration in America, we must begin at our country's colonial roots.
She concluded that jail time was simply unwarranted in this case. Would it be reasonable to conclude that this probation officer behind the report only viewed the defendant as a deadbeat father because black males are supposed to fit that criterion? Is there an over-policing of the Black community in the City of Poughkeepsie? He declared that he was unsure what he was going to decide today. The night before my first court watch, I was recording the preliminary demographic information on defendants for future data analysis. If youre sitting here in the court, you cannot be trusted: not with your phone, not with food or water, not with your own decisions. Due to the recent public support for police reform in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd and many other people of color, the New York State legislature recently passed both of these bills plus several others in the Safer NY Act. I still did not understand, though, why he was in chains and restrained by officers, when he could be eating with his friends or playing video games. The mean girl of the courtroom is the assistant district attorney, who maintains a stern face throughout the proceedings and deigns to only speak to those she deems worthy. I had the impression that he was frustrated with being there and just wanted to get it over with as quickly as possiblea pattern Ive noticed with a lot of defendants who want to avoid having to come in week after week to hash out the details of their cases. Imagine being locked in a cage and spit on by someone who may have the coronavirus; stripped of hand sanitizer, soap, and toilet paper while living in a hall with dozens of strangers; or fed misinformation and facing punishment for publicizing your dreadful conditions. The time for change is now. Assessing risk and dangerousness through a persons history of arrests and convictions is a proxy for racial bias. Our court watchers have seen six different judges in action.
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Most importantly, what could we as a society do to avoid similar tragedies?