We Are All Workers

Last Thursday, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema screened Rocky I, II, and III on the steps of the Art Museum. It may have been the coolest event I’ve ever attended in Philly (which is saying a lot because I’m a regular at the Roots Family Picnic every June). Over the years, I’ve given a lot of thought about why Rocky means so much to the city and why there is no greater connection between a city and a film in contemporary American cinema. I’ve read what other writers have had to say on the topic and, of course, I have had countless conversations with my friends and neighbors in Philly. For all the reading, conversing, and thinking on it, I don’t think there’s any better way to sum it up than by the message that appeared just below the screen that night: WE ARE ALL WORKERS.

South Philly Shaolin

Flash Mobs and Felonies

In just two days of hearings, Administrative Judge Kevin Dougherty accepted guilty pleas from 17 boys and convicted 12 more of felony-level counts of rioting and conspiracy for their participation in “flash mobs.” Only one of the boys brought before him has managed to win an acquittal. He told one kid his mother’s conduct is “childlike” and that the family’s problem was not that they suffered from homelessness, but that his mother “… thinks of you as the man of the house.” He ordered Human Services to investigate the family. All of the kids are stuck with a felony crime on their records—something that will haunt them for the rest of their lives as they endeavor to pursue careers and higher education. They all face up to four years in a state facility, although those who plead guilty will likely end up in a boot camp, and receive electronic monitoring and probation (complete with twice monthly drug tests).

I don’t want to downplay the capacity of flash mobs to engage in criminal harm. Good grief, I’ve been to enough Philly sporting events to know better. However, I also don’t want to contribute to what seems to be a growing “mob mentality” (pun intended) on the part of police and prosecutors regarding youth groups converging and meeting in a given area. It happens all the time in Philadelphia… think of all the goes on along the sidelines of the Mummers parade, in the parking lots outside of Citizens Bank Park, and, most recently along the pub crawl route of the St. Patrick’s Day Erin Express. In each of these events, criminal damage to property, illicit drug use, and fights are not uncommon. In cases of serious criminal harm (like the beating death of David Sale that occurred during a fight outside the Phillies ballpark), prosecutors have responded swiftly and appropriately, making it clear that violence will not be tolerated in the city. In the case of non-violent crimes, however, prosecutors and police have largely endeavored to give drunken fans, exuberant two street revelers, and others a break. Doing so is an appropriate use of their discretion. They recognize that charging fans and others with felonies or even serious misdemeanors often does more harm than good.

Which brings me to the following question—are the flash mob incidents we’ve seen in Philadelphia really operating at the level of felonious riot? The origin of felony riot law in the US comes from Britain—in its earliest guise, felony rioting involved behavior that was of a “violent” and “turbulent” nature, carried out by three or more persons, and producing “terror” among the people. Groups of teenagers can be obnoxious and scary—I avoid malls for this reason. However, I think there is a qualitative distinction between what we’ve seen in Philadelphia and the kind of violence that is typically associated with felonious mobs (think of the LA riots in the wake of the Rodney King verdict). Frankly, I also think there is serious distinction between the Philly flash mobs and recent blog postings from Mike Vanderboegh in Alabama. In the latter case, Vanderboegh calls on his readers to break the windows of Democratic Party offices in response to the health care reform legislation. His internet hue and cry reads,

"So, if you wish to send a message that Pelosi and her party cannot fail to hear, break their windows…. Break them NOW. Break them and run to break again. Break them under cover of night. Break them in broad daylight. Break them and await arrest in willful, principled civil disobedience. Break them with rocks. Break them with slingshots. Break them with baseball bats. But BREAK THEM."

I raise this not for the purposes of drubbing on Vanderboegh (who has not been investigated by local law enforcement for his postings despite the fact that a number of Party offices have had their windows broken) or calling for restrictions on speech; rather, I just want to point out that the Philadelphia teens are not using twitter or facebook to encourage one another to converge for the purposes of engaging in criminal property damage or violence.

Police and prosecutors should not ignore teens behavior. Indeed, I think it’s important that the city take a clear and strong position on this kind of stuff. But let’s not succumb to hysteria. These are kids who did something stupid. Some of them caused harm. If the harm was serious, go ahead and prosecute. But for the lesser stuff, the petty stuff… stern warnings and restitution should suffice. Let’s not ruin their futures simply because they made use of relatively new technology (in the form of twitter) to do something that teenagers have always done.

PA Sentencing & Parole

This Friday (January 29, 2010) Villanova University School of Law will present the Ryan Law & Public Policy Forum on sentencing and parole in Pennsylvania. The forum will run from 8:45 am through 2 pm at the Law School. The event is co-sponsored by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the PA Department of Corrections, PA Board of Probation and Parole, and the PA Commission on Sentencing. For more information, go to http://www.law.villanova.edu.

As many of you know, Pennsylvania’s prison system is in crisis. We are incarcerating more prisoners than we can reasonably house (to the point that we’re now paying other states to house our prisoners) and we’re incarcerating prisoners for longer than ever before—indeed, “parole” is almost an antiquated concept in Pennsylvania. This means that prisoners are released when they “max out” on their sentences. The impact on the state budget and on the prisoner reintegration process has proven extremely problematic. If you’re concerned about these issues, I urge you to attend. It promises to be an excellent forum.

HNY

I momentarily forgot I had a blog. Apologies. I’ll endeavor to post more frequently in 2010.

Cocaine Blues

Today Congress is finally considering addressing the disparity in crack vs. powder-cocaine sentencing. Please take a moment or two out of your day to encourage them to do so by calling the US Capitol (202.224.3121) and asking to speak to your Congressional Rep. Ask him or her to support HR 3245, the Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act of 2009. In July 2009, the House Judiciary Committee voted favorably on the Act. This is the next step and it needs your support.

For those of you who have been living under a rock for the last 20 years (no crack-related pun intended, kids… heh), sentencing disparities in cocaine-related cases are a significant contributor to prison overcrowding, state budget crises, and racial disparities in the criminal justice system. The origin of all of this is the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 and 1988. In it, Congress created the notorious 100 to 1 rule. In essence, it takes 100 times the amount of powder cocaine to trigger the same mandatory sentence as a given amount of crack-cocaine. So, for example, getting caught with 50 grams of crack (approximately the weight of a candy bar) will net you a 10 year prison sentence. However, it would take a whopping 5,000 grams of powder cocaine to produce the same sentence. Now, here’s the catch. The dosage amount of crack (that is, the amount of crack you’d have to use to get high) weighs more than the dosage amount of powder cocaine. You with me? So it’s not as if 50 grams of crack is in any way analogous to 5,000 grams of powder cocaine in terms of how many dosage amounts it represents. Further, because crack actually weighs more, it’s not even the case that 50 grams of crack is the equivalent of 50 grams of powder. Think of the 50 ounces of beer vs. 50 ounces of whiskey. Not even comparable, right? Although it’s not a perfect analogy, it’s close enough to make the point. The 100 to 1 rule is utterly irrational in terms of dosage amounts.

It is also irrational with respect to other aspects of pharmacology. The only difference between crack and powder cocaine is that crack contains a number of impurities. It is, in essence, a dirty form of powder cocaine. Because it is smoked, the high is more intense and shorter-lived. A powder cocaine high builds gradually and lasts longer. But the drug is the identical. The body metabolizes it in exactly the same way. It is not the case that crack is “more addictive” than cocaine or that it transforms users into homicidal maniacs. These are myths that 23 years of scientific research has found absolutely zero support for.

Irrational laws are undesirable for a lot of reasons. In this case, though, it is an irrational law that has proven incredibly costly to American taxpayers. The vast majority of people getting sentenced under the law aren’t drug kingpins. They’re not even the major players who’ve got 5,000 grams of powder to tote around in their briefcases. Nope, they’re the poor saps shuffling around with a couple of grams of crack-cocaine in their socks. Let me tell you, a dude who has a few grams of crack isn’t a hustler or a player or a dealer. He’s still living with his parents and bumming cigarettes off strangers. And, in case you’re worried he’s going to rob you for cash to pay for the crack… don’t fret. Crack is such a cheap drug there’s no need for abusers to go to the trouble of robbery. Panhandling is often more than sufficient to generate the amount needed to buy a rock or two. Trust me, I know. I spent most of my time in graduate school interviewing crack users and hanging out with them on the street. And while crack users are a lot of things, they aren’t worth the $25,000 per year price tag it costs American taxpayers to keep them locked up.

In addition to the economic costs associated with funding an utterly irrational set of laws, there is also a very real set of social and political costs. African Americans represent about 82% of persons sentenced to federal prisons for crack-related offenses. Studies consistently find racial differences expressed across powder and crack-related arrests. Whites, for example, are more likely to be arrested for possession of powder cocaine while African Americans are more likely to be arrested for crack-cocaine. Because the penalties are much greater for crack-cocaine, it means African Americans are doing, on average, much more prison time than whites (about 37 months more, according to one study). That, my friends, is very clearly a form of de facto racial discrimination and one that is not consistent with 14^th Amendment protections or a democratic society.

Want more info? Check out the Sentencing Project’s website and read the US Sentencing Commission Report.

Can't Buy Me Love

It’s four hours before the start of Game One of the World Series and I thought I’d take this opportunity to offer up a sports-related chant rant. Here’s the chant part: LET’S GO PHILLIES!!

And now for the rant: I cannot stand the New York Yankees. It’s possible I might even hate the Yankees. Their payroll stats read like Soviet-era defense spending: bloated, bloated, bloated. In case you’re unfamiliar, their payroll tops out at over $200 million. The Mets, who come in second in salary expenditures, spend about $60 million less. And while the Philadelphia Phillies are hardly at the back of the pack (that honor belongs to our neighbor to the west, the Pittsburgh Pirates) they seem like downright frugal in comparison at just over $100 million.

With this much money on the table, it’s hard to feel like it’s “just a game.” I’ll spare you the what’s-it-all-for ramble (but, seriously, if you’re a middling, New York based bank in need of a bailout… well, you might consider courting A-Rod). Instead, I’ll say this: I hope the Phillies overwhelm the Yankees, win the World Series, and prove once and for all that money can’t buy love, victory, or national championships---err… I apologize. I was momentarily carried away in saccharine, sports-inspired euphemisms. What I meant to say was this: LET’S GO PHILLIES. Show those Yankees it only takes $100 million to win the World Series. We’ll beat you and we’ll save money doing it, son!