PSC 129 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Crack Cocaine, Siege Mentality, Rodney King
23 Aug 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
March 31, 2015
Police Brutality
•overall issue results: negative public opinion of the police
•among black americans: 70% said police are not held accountable for their actions, 72% say
police discriminate, 57% say police use force in and unreasonable manor!
- 51% of whites say that minorities are treated unfairly even though they usually are not
•police use of force stats are hard to get because there is not a uniform reporting standard but
we have these as the closest to a national portrait
•1.5% of all encounters result in police using physical force
•20% of all arrest in the US involve some level of force (not unreasonable force)!
- every time there is a complaint by a civilian about force there is an investigation
mandated (in house inv. usually declares it to be reasonable force)!
- turned over to DA is the person isn't ok with in-house decision and prosecutor will
conduct their own investigation. police in this case have the same rights as a civilian
and charges can be brought against police officer and can face
•disciplined within department (letter of write up, suspension, fired)
•criminal prosecution
•officer can be civilly sued
•during 1960-70’s, great amounts of ethnic and racial conflict between officers and local
citizens. this resulted in Civilian Review Boards
•made up of the local community and if there were complaints against police officers the
CRB would be the first group to analyze the conflict
•couldn't punish officers but could make a public decision and announce who's fault it was
•if the officer was at fault it initiates the DA’s office to investigate
•(a screening process)
•composed of men and women who were greatly hostile towards the police—overwhelming
% of the investigations led to reports blaming the officer
•because of this the unions gave police these instructions
•as soon as an allegation was made to be silent and lawyer up
•lawyers would say do not testify
•lead to siege mentality—there was mistrust and not good cooperation
•Police officers are allowed to use force consistent with the level of threat that they are facing in
a given situation (proportional) *most important when using lethal force
•every year 400-500 exercises of lethal force against citizens by police officers
•use of police lethal force is disproportionally used against young black men!
*textbook 221-222 and article on blackboard
•is this a lot of lethal force compared to how many encounters there are? is it justified?
•What factors explain the over all level of police officers not being cooperative with
investigations of they behavior? !
1. code of silence—unwritten, fellow police officers do not rat on their fellow officers and say
they have no recollections of what happened !
- (ex.) Rodney King (case study) 26 officers saw the beat down and only 2 were willing to
testify against the police officer under investigation
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
March 31, 2015
•The Blue Curtain: police tend to socialize, hang out, and work with other police officers
and creates a culture, community, closed society. This is the siege mentality. This results
in citizens not wanting to open up to them because “they wont understand” since they
aren't in the same culture!
*article on police brutality is prominent for the final*
Drug War/Issues Concerning Police
•History
•amendment 1919, the US officially ratified prohibition
•prohibition resulted of a constitutional amendment
•2 primary motivations that pressured politicians toward prohibition
•moral crusade by women (Woman’s Temperance Movement) alcohol was the drink of
the devil and contributed to husbands who used violence against their wives
•nativism (anti-immigrant) feeling
•outlawing liquor also struck against immigrants because the Irish and Italians were
seen as heavy drinkers
•making it an amendment (18th) was the only way to make this a nation wide rule !
- prohibited the manufacture, transfer, and sale of liquor!
- possession was not illegal !
- gave one year for the nation to be ready for the amendment (in place by January 1919 but
actually finalized January 1920)—during that time (Oct.1919) congress passed the Volstead
Act which was a federal law with the specifics of how prohibition would be implemented
•13 years later in 1933, The Noble Experiment, came to an end by passing the 21st
amendment which said federal gov no longer has the authority to prohibit alcohol !
- showed a great study on how this impacted America
•alcohol consumption over all decreased by about 30% ; the mere making something
illegal will decrease it
•decreases in diseases caused by alcohol
•dramatic increase in the # of people dying from alcohol poisoning because they made
their own liquor not well
•the government lost an enormous amount of money. tax revenues plummeted bc until
prohibition all the liquor companies and associated industries payed taxes and lead to an
enormous loss of revenue. This was also during the Great Depression so its part of why
they legalized it again so the gov could make money
•Black Market: gangs would sell alcohol without taxes (just an hour after legalization) !
- significant because organized crime was perfect for this!
- beyond the capacity of small street gangs, you had to have the ability to import liquor
from out of the country, distributed it across the country, sell it to speakeasies, pay off
gov officials and police officers
•this is why we can say prohibition turned gangs into organized crime by demand
•Al Capone “theres a great thirst in the nation and i simply quenched it”
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
March 31, 2015
•Price of liquor in the US during prohibition increased because of the crime tariff — when a
product is made illegal the price of it will increase because of demand, scarcity, the risks
associated with it being a crime (primary reason)
•resulted in alcohol being an enormously profitable enterprise and generated massive
amounts of money to crooks which they used for other criminal activities !
!
Nixon declared a “war on drugs”—the word war scares the public into agreeing with every
thing
April 2, 2015
•Comprehensive Drug Act — primary law fed government relies on when fighting the war on
drugs (1970) consolidated all of the drug laws and still used today
•creation of a “drug schedule” for the first time the government was creating a hierarchy of
drugs and which carry the most amount of crime
•enhanced criminal penalties for drugs
•creation of Mandatory Minimums: if you are caught trafficking a minimum level of any
drug the discretion a judge normally has is taken away and they are mandated to sentence a
defendant to the sentence. they take on the amount of the entire conspirator
•increased ability of the gov to seize any assets related to drugs (asset forfeiture: any $
directly resulting from drug dealing and anything used in commission of drug ; must be
proven at the civil level)
•you can cross examine this immediately, choose btwn giving up assets or exposing
yourself to cross ex.
•Drug Enforcement Administration
•investigation of all illegal drug trafficking
•Office of Drug Tzar: appointed by the president who coordinates all drug policy for the US
•new justices came in and were in favor of crime control and aided the war on drugs not giving
defendants much rights and giving police discretion
•Ronald Reagan inherited a public that had overwhelming support for war on drugs
•1980 only 6% of US people ranked drugs as #1 problem in the US, by 1989, 64% of US people
rated drugs as #1 problem
•Crack Cocaine Epidemic— white powder (white suburbia) crack cocaine (inner city
minorities) Congress agreed to come up with different penalties for them, crack worse, there
was a 100:1 ratio of crack to powder !
- part of the reason why the prisons where so full of minorities, those convicted would be
sentenced longer also !
- congress said 100:1 was ridiculous so they tried to fix it but it is now 18:1
•Demand Strategy- trying to reduce the american demand for drugs !
- about 30% of all drug money by gov is spent on this !
- programs do have some good results"
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Police brutality: overall issue results: negative public opinion of the police, among black americans: 70% said police are not held accountable for their actions, 72% say police discriminate, 57% say police use force in and unreasonable manor. Every time there is a complaint by a civilian about force there is an investigation mandated (in house inv. usually declares it to be reasonable force) Rodney king (case study) 26 officers saw the beat down and only 2 were willing to testify against the police officer under investigation. March 31, 2015: the blue curtain: police tend to socialize, hang out, and work with other police officers and creates a culture, community, closed society. This results in citizens not wanting to open up to them because they wont understand since they aren"t in the same culture. *article on police brutality is prominent for the final* Prohibited the manufacture, transfer, and sale of liquor.
