Getting arrested for Trivialities? The Criminalization of Everyday Life

[MikeWB]

Unbelievable.....

Getting arrested for Trivialities? The Criminalization of Everyday LIFE


The Criminalization of Everyday LIFE

Are anyone's days entirely free of "offenses"
that can get you arrested?

By Robert Neuwirth

http://www.citylimits.org/content/artic ... le_id=3718

I spent 24 hours in the slammer the other day.

My crime?
Well, the police couldn't tell me when they locked me up. The prosecutor
and judge couldn't either, when I was arraigned the following day.
I found out for myself when I researched the matter
a few days after being released:

I had been cited for walking my dog off the leash
– once, six years ago.

Welcome to the ugly underside of the zero-tolerance era,
where insignificant rule violations get inflated into criminal infractions.
Here's how it worked with me:
a gaggle of transit cops stopped me after they saw me walk
between two subway cars on my way to work.
This, they told me, was against the rules.
They asked for ID and typed my name into a hand-held computer.

Up came that old citation that I didn't know about
and they couldn't tell me about.
I was immediately handcuffed and brought to the precinct.

There, I waited in a holding cell, then was fingerprinted (post-CSI memo:
they now take the fingers, the thumbs, the palms, and the sides of both hands)
and had the contents of my shoulder bag inventoried. I could hardly believe it:
I was being arrested without ever having committed a crime.

I was held overnight in the Midtown North Precinct lock-up (shoelaces
and belt confiscated, meals courtesy of the McDonald's dollar menu).

In the morning, my fellow convicts and I were led, chain-gang style,
to the Manhattan Community Court next door.
The judge there dismissed the charge against me
– because no one ever does time for that kind of crime.
A few days later, at Brooklyn's central court,
my warrant was lifted for "time served" – again because
no one is ever locked up for breaking the leash law.

If the cops had simply written me a ticket, I would have paid it,
and I would have also had to pay to vacate my outstanding warrant.

But by cuffing me and holding me overnight, the city spent quite a bit of money
(it took two police officers approximately six hours each just to arrest
and process me), while the fines assessed against me were rescinded.

While I was inside, I was astounded by the kinds of things
 that take up police and court time.
A couple of people nabbed for being in various parks after dark.
One of them was walking his dog.
Two young men accused of riding their bicycles on the sidewalk.
Three people arrested for sleeping in a subway station.
My roommate in the lock-up was an articulate and self-aware
60-year-old whose sin was that he bought a bottle of booze
and had taken a swig on the street.
In the cell next to us:
two costumed Mariachis busted for busking on the subway.
They were repeat offenders.
Their weapons: a guitar and an accordion.

With zero tolerance, we have finally done it:
We have criminalized everyday life.

After all, in the course of their life people sometimes
ride their bikes on the sidewalks.

And once upon a time not too long ago,
it was normal to go into the parks after dark.
My friends and I did all the time, particularly if we had time to kill
before or after the opera, the symphony, or a jazz or rock concert.

We walked brazenly between subway cars.
Some of us even – horror of horrors! – played music on the street
or in the subway without a license.
And, though my parents would not be happy to know it even now,
we sometimes drank beer in public – making sure, in an important
but legally meaningless gesture, that the bottle was in a paper bag.

If I did any of this on a regular basis today, I'd probably
be considered a behavioral recidivist and sent to Riker's Island.

I can laugh away my time in a cell—my life suddenly turned into
an update of "Alice's Restaurant." But I get angry when I think
of kids in their teens or 20s being treated the way I was.

I'm not against hard time for criminal, violent or anti-social behavior.
But slapping young people behind bars and giving them an arrest record
simply because the normal things they do are trivial rule violations

is not only wasteful, it's downright criminal.

======================
- Robert Neuwirth
Robert Neuwirth, a longtime contributor to City Limits, is the author of
"Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World,"
and is at work on a new book about the global reach of the informal economy.
Editor's note:
The Giuliani administration highlighted its increase of "quality of life" summonses, but statistics from the annual Mayor's Management Report indicate that the Bloomberg administration has been just as zealous. The number of such summonses under Giuliani reached its height in fiscal 2001, hitting 523,000. After a dip in 2002, the number of "quality of life" summonses rose under Mayor Bloomberg to more than 700,000 in fiscal 2004.

They've declined since then to 527,000 in fiscal 2008—still higher than under the previous mayor. The city's courts, meanwhile, have registered an uptick in the number of people getting arraigned on minor charges: In 2007, the last year for which the court system published statistics, the number of arraignments for infractions and violations was the highest in 10 years – 20 percent greater than the previous year.

Got comments, tips, questions or corrections for City Limits editors? Contact mailto:editor@citylimits.org">editor@citylimits.org.
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[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Typical J*w Sh*t...

[Ognir]

Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 06:57:34 +0200 (CEST)
From: Robert M. Stockmann <stock@stokkie.net>
To: mailto:too@slingshot.co.nz">too@slingshot.co.nz
Subject: jail time



Hi Greg,

Hows things?

As i am running rather low on cash and income, i couldn't pay a
traffic fine of eur 600,=, and the coppers came with a van to
collect either cash or me. I was ordered to sit for 12 days, The
warden later explained : every day you sit will drop the fine with
eur 50,= . Amazing i thought. I told the guy that it was more money
as i had been making over the last couple of months. Anyway.

I collected cloths and stuff for 12 days and it was in the early
evening of Wednesday that i was locked in a cell. I did bring a tin
of beer with me, but wasn't allowed to drink it. My shue laces had
to be removed, every piece of iron , keys etc. was removed. I even
had to handover my hair come. So there i was sitting only with my
jeans and shirt. I never asked for my pullover as it was not too
cold. If i was thursty i could drink from the little fontain right
above the toilet. I drank one small plastic cup, but immediatly
stopped with that, as the water was not ok, so i sensed.

After a windy night in my cell, due to the forced air recycler at
nifty speed in my cell, i was rather cold. At 06:00 am on friday
the warden opened the peep locker to handover my breakfast.  You
want a cup of tee? Do you have coffee? no. Ok tee will be fine.  I
got 4 pieces of bread and cheese and lotsa chocolate hagel.  I eat
and drank of it and it was ok. Then i noticed at the fall of the
few daylight in my cell that my hands had changed with a reddish
color. Like i had become a redskin American Indian overnight,
luckily only with my hands. at 08:30h the warden came back and
asked if i wanted to go outside for a breath of outside air. I was
ok with me, as one was allowed to smoke as well.

I walked behind the warden  and he opened a wide door, and i
entered a small court place where there was a open roof with wire
on top. Fresh air. Two men were inside, one a bold guy heavy
weighted and the other i could not see properly as he was staring
down on the floor constantly, with his head pulled in beneath his
sholders. This guy was shaking and shivering constantly and was
also smoking a rolled cig. His hands were awkward as he had on both
a tatoo of a scorpion in green. He was not well, and he looked like
he had a virus infection or maybe even the first signs of Hepatitus
B. Dunno for sure.

I sat on the bench between the two guys and smoked and talked some
chitchat. Then i noticed that the scorpion hand guy had not only
red hands, but all of his skin was the same red color. Strange i
thought. I mentioned that I also overnight had gotten red colored
hands, after one single night in the cell. I mentioned " Wow thats
weird eh? I am here for one night, and i also got red colored
hands. I compared the color of my hands with his, and it matched.
Is there something strange inside the water here? The guy looked up
and looked as if that same water just had started burning. The key
had dropped with him.  He stood up walked a bit. Then it dawned on
me we were the only two ones with the strange red colored hands in
the cell block.

Shortly later a other warden came in from the opposite site and
asked me to please come with him, as the chief warden had received
a memo from Breda police head quarters that the conviction of 12
days jail was rather presume, as the evidence only existed of a
photo made with a speed camera. I was told to go.  I was advised to
go to Breda Police headquarters to see if a prosecution could be
started and the entire case be dropped due to lack of proper
evidence. Well i went home instead by bus.

At home recollecting of what had happened that night and early
morning, i concluded that the water fontein must have been spouting
contaminated water, just as with 'scorpion hand'. Then i remembered
him saying that he was just like me short in cash (140 euro) and
was enforced to do time in jail. Apparently the cell block has been
equiped with water fonteins which can be contaminated according
desired cell number. That's quite a conspiracy i must admit, but
that prison block was quite a grim run operation, for dutch
standards.

Here's a scenario. The state wants to get rid of a certain
individual. They hook him up with a collection of traffic
violations. Next they make sure, somehow, he cannot pay these off,
and next enforce him to do jail time as a alternative instead. Once
in the slammer they can play any game wich way they like.
Contaminate the targeted inmate's water fontein. Make sure he is
getting sick, and develop that into a serious disease. Transfer the
guy into the health department.


Anyways, Happy Easter

Best Regards,

Robert
PS.  Anzac Day is yur regions zionist declaration of indepence day?