Police Brutality

Tragic statistics from the NAACP. :( Inarguably, police brutality tears away at public confidence... it is corruptive of our system and SHOULD NOT be tolerated by city officials and supervisors.

Excerpt from :

TALKING POINTS: Excessive Use of Force, from http://www.naacp.org/advocacy/justice/force_points/index.htm

QUICK STATS

• A study of police use of force in Texas found that force was used
  against African-American citizens twice as often as against whites citizens.
• Hispanic citizens experienced 25% more incidents of police use of force.
• One study of police officers in Illinois found that 25% admitted having seen a
  fellow officer harass an individual "most likely" because of his or her race.
  

Any use of force among police is relatively rare, occurring in less than 1% of
all police contacts, but excessive use of force has been found to occur in up to
35% of all encounters that involved any force.

• 25% of police agreed with the
  statement that whistle-blowing against other officers is "not worth it" and 60%
  agreed that officers do not report even serious abuse of authority by their
  colleagues.
• 90% of police agreed that front-line supervisors could be effective
  in preventing the officers under their command from abusing their authority.
• A study of 6,447 reports of use of force in Austin, TX found only one incident
  where a supervisor suggested any wrongdoing by the officer.
• 50% of all officers and 65% of African-American officers believe that community policing is effective in reducing police abuse of authority.

Victims of police brutality have the right to submit a complaint online at the City of Fresno's website, at the City of Fresno's website at http://www.fresno.gov/Government/DepartmentDirectory/Police/IAComplaint.htm:

An excerpt from their website:

You have the right to make a complaint against a police officer for any
improper police conduct. California law requires this agency to have a procedure to investigate citizens' complaints. You have the right to a written description of the procedure. This agency may find that after the investigation, that there is not enough evidence to warrant action on your complaint. Even if that is the case, you have the right to make the complaint and have it investigated if you believe an officer behaved improperly. Citizen complaints and any reports or findings relating to complaints must be retained by this agency for at least five years.

It is against the law to make a complaint that you know to be false.
If you make a false complaint against an officer knowing that it is false, you can be prosecuted on a misdemeanor charge.

California Prisons to Desegregate?

Interesting.... The announcement that California would begin desegregation on July 1st of this year was first announced by the Christian Science Monitor. What has gone mostly unsaid is that the Supreme Court ordered desegregation in 2006, and things remained largely unchanged. The difference now being, that there's some indication that the California Department of Corrections intends to comply. It's certainly an interesting subject... akin to the proverbial chicken/egg argument. Will desegregation decrease racial animosity? Or will it foster further division? I tend to believe it might do the former, but it looks like we're about to find out either way.

Supreme Court: California Prisons Must Desegregate, from http://www.totalcriminaldefense.com (June 2008)

More than half a century after the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. The
Board of Education that educational facilities cannot legally be racially
segregated, three states still have segregated prison systems. But, as the
Christian Science Monitor reports, that number will drop July 1st when
California integrates its prisons.
Several decades after the civil rights
movement, it's somewhat shocking that the largest state prison system in the
United States still divides its inmates along racial and ethnic lines.
Apparently, that's what black inmate Garrison Johnson thought in 1995 when he
filed a lawsuit insisting that the racial segregation of California prisons
violated his constitutional
rights.
By 2004, Garrison's case had reportedly made its way to the
Supreme Court, where the justices agreed with him: the California prison system
would have to be racially integrated.


It seems the Court was
influenced by the desegregation of Texas prisons in the 1990s, which led to an
overall decrease in interracial violence after an initial spike. But some
skeptics are worried that, because of overcrowding
in California prisons, the violence won't drop off after it
surges.
Sources indicate that the Texas prison desegregation was successful
in part because prison authorities had the luxury of punishing inmates who
resisted by placing them in solitary confinement. Without adequate space to
discipline many inmates in such a way, some worry that California prison
officials won't be able to maintain control.
Others, though, are
hopeful.
According to reports, California inmates are currently placed with a
cellmate of the same race for their first 60 days of confinement. After that,
inmates are evidently allowed to choose an inmate, but most do so along racial
lines.
The strong presence of gangs, mostly formed by race or ethnicity,
apparently accounts for the choices of many inmates: to go outside ethnic lines
means risking retaliation from your own race.
In theory, California prisons
are desegregated beyond the initial cellmate assignment. In practice, though,
inmates in the dining hall, exercise yard and recreation areas reportedly choose
to interact mostly with others of the same race.
Sources report that
desegregation will involve screening new arrivals for histories of gang
affiliation, racial violence and willingness to integrate; members of rival
gangs won't be placed together. Current inmates will allegedly not be forced to
integrate, but will be punished with various sanctions if they refuse to do
so.
Both inmates and guards are hopeful but nervous about the integration,
according to the San Francisco Chronicle. It seems that many believe that racial
integration is ultimately the best move for the prison system, but may cause
small fights, which often escalate into much bigger events.