NCJ Number
188327
Date Published
2001
Length
30 pages
Annotation
In critiquing how the New York City system of justice handles cases of police brutality, this paper cites a general pattern of unequal justice in applying the law to unjustified police violence and discusses the consequences of such injustice.
Abstract
There is a tendency in New York City for politicians and the criminal justice system to excuse hyperaggressive police behavior in the name of crime control. This tendency provides little incentive within these institutions to control or deter routine acts of citizen oppression undertaken to maintain order and sanitize public space. Additionally, there is a psychic cost to acknowledging that the guardians of the criminal law are themselves in violation of the law. In disenfranchising persons of color, women, homeless persons, and gays and lesbians (the frequent targets of police abusive practices), the law's failure to respond consistently and evenhandedly has its own inevitable costs. The failure to implement equal justice under law when it comes to police violations of the law undermines a society of laws. It deprives victims of police crime of the appropriate expectation that invoking the law will be enough to deter criminality. Criminal prosecution however should not be the only response to police brutality. A remedial system that emphasizes individual instances of past misconduct cannot counter the root causes of systemic racism or gender/sexuality bias. Yet the symbolic and deterrent effects of the criminal law are especially needed to repair the damage done in communities where there has been no sense of justice and no occasion for peace. 115 notes