![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
December 3rd, 2009
November 13th, 2009
My IP RO 70920F
(M)
i m calling a man named john begg my name is richard thompson i m just trying to locate john beggs and i m out of state and i was given this telephone number to call and i d like to know if he s there and if he is i will stop and see
October 31st, 2009
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:39:35 -0700
To: nnsquad@nnsquad.org
Big Tobacco and the Fight Against Net Neutrality: Smoke in the "Heartland"
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/00
Greetings. Several years ago, at an Internet issues-related conference, I was pulled aside by an attendee who identified himself as being involved in high level lobbying "inside the Beltway" (Washington D.C. area). He offered me some free advice. In essence it was this:
"You guys are babes in the woods when it comes to the ways of Washington. If you don't learn how to play the game the way the big boys do, you're all going to be plowed under when it comes to the Internet issues that you care about."
He was right of course. Pro-Net-Neutrality Google has been around just more than a decade, but anti-Neutrality telephone companies have been playing the Washington game for a good century of so. And technologists (including myself) often tend to view issues in logical terms. After all, our stock in trade -- literally -- usually depends on logic. So we're not inherently prepared when opposing forces attack with an emotional kick to the groin.
This has all taken on renewed meaning in light of the recent attempts by some elements of the anti-Net Neutrality camp to portray Net Neutrality as some sort of "communist" plot and those persons and organizations who advocate Net Neutrality as Marxist inspired. This is red-baiting in the finest tradition of "Tricky" Dick Nixon, and the rise again of this despicable technique almost a full decade into the 21st century seems both remarkable and nauseating.
But perhaps it's not really surprising, especially in an age of Big Lie politics, particularly among some elements of the Far Right. "Health reform will create death panels!" "Obama wasn't born in the U.S.!" Now add to these false memes, created purposely to sucker in the right-wing political faithful, the new Big Lie: "Net Neutrality is a dangerous government takeover of the Internet and a communist plot by Marxist sympathizers!"
It was this latter nonsense that I was reacting to with my (apparently controversial) video satire that I released a couple of days ago: "Is Net Neutrality a Communist Plot?" ("Declassified DoD Film"): http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/00
But where are the accusations of communism and Marxist activities coming from in the first place? We know that "Mad Man" Glenn Beck (as "Time" called him) has picked up the refrain. But where did it all get started?
One source appears to be the "free market solutions" organization known as "The Heartland Institute." A recent Heartland paper by James G. Lakely, discussing Net Neutrality and the free software movement seems representative ( http://www.heartland.org/publications/p
The string "communist" appears in the paper no less than twelve times. Excerpts from that paper have appeared on various religious and right wing-oriented political sites around the Web.
It turns out that The Heartland Institute has been around for about 25 years, but only recently really aimed its guns at Internet issues. The write-up of the company at SourceWatch makes for fascinating reading ( http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?ti
According to SourceWatch, Heartland reportedly opposes the Kyoto Protocol to fight global warming, promotes privatization of public services and the deregulation of health care insurance, and perhaps most interestingly, has also apparently been heavily intertwined with the tobacco industry in various ways, including funding from Philip Morris for a number of years at least (more recently, Heartland's corporate funding has been very secretive and opaque): http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?ti
I'm certainly not saying that Heartland is doing anything illegal. They're welcome to their opinions, and politics isn't for lightweights.
But I am saying that the attitude of some persons in the pro-Net-Neutrality camp -- that logic and reasoning alone will convince regulators, courts, and legislators of the righteousness of Net Neutrality -- is extremely naive.
To use a dreaded Star Wars analogy, such attitudes are like pulling up in a tiny ship between the Death Star and a target planet, and transmitting "Can't we all just get along?"
The battle for Net Neutrality has now entered the realm of hardball politics at the most extreme levels. It's time to fish or cut bait. Either we play the game the way the Big Boys do, or we'll just be spinning our wheels with endless verbiage that in the end will probably amount to little or nothing.
If we truly care about the future of the Internet and the need for Net Neutrality, playtime is over. The war truly starts now.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
- Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstei
October 30th, 2009
also its for a bunch of other stuff i guess
October 17th, 2009
October 14th, 2009
October 2nd, 2009
From: "Bob Frankston" <bob19-0501@bobf.frankston.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:00:04 -0400
To: "'Lauren Weinstein'" <lauren@vortex.com>, <nnsquad@nnsquad.org>
This is yet another example of the dynamic in http://frankston.com/?n=AssuringScarcit
"We have had to be careful not to invest too much -- because the only thing that would happen if we did would be to increase in data traffic without an increase in our profits," he said
What about our “profits” in the economy, health, safety etc etc etc? And to add injury to injury they could invest far less and get more if they didn’t choose the highest cost (often self-dealing) approaches – but they have to do so so they could appear to spend a lot while still giving us so little.
This makes it very clear why the telecom industry is a problematic hangover from when we sold off our right to communicate to third parties because we thought it was our only option. It’s a repeat of the old modem crisis when they had to be banned lest they destroy the wired phone network. And again http://rmf.vc/?n=4GAgain.
I understand the desire for incremental neutrality rules but how many times do we need to go through the same thing again and again before it becomes obvious that we’re mired in repeating past mistakes again and again. At what point do we take responsibility and move ahead?
Can we shift from fighting over the dregs of telecom to looking towards ambient connectivity (http://rmf.vc/?n=IAC)?
October 1st, 2009
September 5th, 2009
September 4th, 2009
September 2nd, 2009
(08:33:11 AM) operative me: hahahahhaa
(08:33:14 AM) operative me: tahts such a good idea
August 27th, 2009
... i haven't heard anything about any insurance companies stepping up to say something like, "okay, we're sorry, we'll be good from now on, we'll keep our promises, etc ..."
so, like, either (1) profit-hunger, at least in this case, has no self-preservation instinct... or (2) the insurance companies aren't scared ... and that scares me ...
congress is so bought & paid for, it's been said a thousand times, and like, its a joke already. kind of like how prison rape is a joke.
August 4th, 2009
July 28th, 2009
July 27th, 2009
Subject: aha, ahadly ha
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:55:23 -0400
From: Tristan Lear <trissypissy@gmail.com>
To: brett jan <brettrjan@yahoo.com>
ha ha my phone battery died exactly when you were about to initiate our 3way with ben
July 25th, 2009
My little sister loves the show "The Secret Life of the American Teenager." I hate the show but felt too lazy to articulate why, especially to my mom (who hates the show I think for the opposite reason, she says "It's always talking about sex")
I looked up feminism "the secret life of the american teenager." Someone referenced "second-wave feminism."
So I went to Wikipedia's feminism and learned about the different waves of feminism:
Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, arising as a response to perceived failures of the second wave and also as a response to the backlash against initiatives and movements created by the second wave. Third-wave feminism seeks to challenge or avoid what it deems the second wave's essentialist definitions of femininity, which (according to them) over-emphasize the experiences of upper middle-class white women.
A post-structuralist interpretation of gender and sexuality is central to much of the third wave's ideology. Third-wave feminists often focus on "micro-politics" and challenge the second wave's paradigm as to what is, or is not, good for females.[24][36][37][38] The third wave has its origins in the mid-1980s. Feminist leaders rooted in the second wave like Gloria Anzaldua, bell hooks, Chela Sandoval, Cherrie Moraga, Audre Lorde, Maxine Hong Kingston, and many other black feminists, sought to negotiate a space within feminist thought for consideration of race-related subjectivities.[15][37][39]
Third-wave feminism also contains internal debates between difference feminists such as the psychologist Carol Gilligan (who believes that there are important differences between the sexes) and those who believe that there are no inherent differences between the sexes and contend that gender roles are due to social conditioning.[40]
Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, arising as a response to perceived failures of the second wave and also as a response to the backlash against initiatives and movements created by the second wave. Third-wave feminism seeks to challenge or avoid what it deems the second wave's essentialist definitions of femininity, which (according to them) over-emphasize the experiences of upper middle-class white women.
A post-structuralist interpretation of gender and sexuality is central to much of the third wave's ideology. Third-wave feminists often focus on "micro-politics" and challenge the second wave's paradigm as to what is, or is not, good for females.[24][36][37][38] The third wave has its origins in the mid-1980s. Feminist leaders rooted in the second wave like Gloria Anzaldua, bell hooks, Chela Sandoval, Cherrie Moraga, Audre Lorde, Maxine Hong Kingston, and many other black feminists, sought to negotiate a space within feminist thought for consideration of race-related subjectivities.[15][37][39]
Third-wave feminism also contains internal debates between difference feminists such as the psychologist Carol Gilligan (who believes that there are important differences between the sexes) and those who believe that there are no inherent differences between the sexes and contend that gender roles are due to social conditioning.[40]
Post-structural and postmodern feminism
Post-structural feminism, also referred to as French feminism, uses the insights of various epistemological movements, including psychoanalysis, linguistics, political theory (Marxist and post-Marxist theory), race theory, literary theory, and other intellectual currents for feminist concerns.[106] Many post-structural feminists maintain that difference is one of the most powerful tools that females possess in their struggle with patriarchal domination, and that to equate the feminist movement only with equality is to deny women a plethora of options because equality is still defined from the masculine or patriarchal perspective.[106][107]
Postmodern feminism is an approach to feminist theory that incorporates postmodern and post-structuralist theory. The largest departure from other branches of feminism is the argument that gender is constructed through language.[21] The most notable proponent of this argument is Judith Butler. In her 1990 book, Gender Trouble, she draws on and critiques the work of Simone de Beauvoir, Michel Foucault and Jacques Lacan. Butler criticizes the distinction drawn by previous feminisms between biological sex and socially constructed gender. She says that this does not allow for a sufficient criticism of essentialism. For Butler "woman" is a debatable category, complicated by class, ethnicity, sexuality, and other facets of identity. She states that gender is performative. This argument leads to the conclusion that there is no single cause for women's subordination and no single approach towards dealing with the issue.[21]
In A Cyborg Manifesto Donna Haraway criticizes traditional notions of feminism, particularly its emphasis on identity, rather than affinity. She uses the metaphor of a cyborg in order to construct a postmodern feminism that moves beyond dualisms and the limitations of traditional gender, feminism, and politics.[108] Haraway's cyborg is an attempt to break away from Oedipal narratives and Christian origin-myths like Genesis. She writes: "The cyborg does not dream of community on the model of the organic family, this time without the oedipal project. The cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust."[108]
A major branch in postmodern feminist thought has emerged from the contemporary psychoanalytic French feminism. Other postmodern feminist works highlight stereotypical gender roles, only to portray them as parodies of the original beliefs. The history of feminism is not important in these writings—only what is going to be done about it. The history is dismissed and used to depict how ridiculous past beliefs were. Modern feminist theory has been extensively criticized as being predominantly, though not exclusively, associated with Western middle class academia. Mary Joe Frug, a postmodernist feminist, criticized mainstream feminism as being too narrowly focused and inattentive to related issues of race and class.[109]
edit] Ecofeminism
Ecofeminism links ecology with feminism. Ecofeminists see the domination of women as stemming from the same ideologies that bring about the domination of the environment. Patriarchal systems, where men own and control the land, are seen as responsible for the oppression of women and destruction of the natural environment. Ecofeminists argue that the men in power control the land, and therefore they are able to exploit it for their own profit and success. Ecofeminists argue that in this situation, women are exploited by men in power for their own profit, success, and pleasure. Ecofeminists argue that women and the environment are both exploited as passive pawns in the race to domination. Ecofeminists argue that those people in power are able to take advantage of them distinctly because they are seen as passive and rather helpless. Ecofeminism connects the exploitation and domination of women with that of the environment. As a way of repairing social and ecological injustices, ecofeminists feel that women must work towards creating a healthy environment and ending the destruction of the lands that most women rely on to provide for their families.[110]
Ecofeminism argues that there is a connection between women and nature that comes from their shared history of oppression by a patriarchal Western society. Vandana Shiva claims that women have a special connection to the environment through their daily interactions with it that has been ignored. She says that "women in subsistence economies, producing and reproducing wealth in partnership with nature, have been experts in their own right of holistic and ecological knowledge of nature’s processes. But these alternative modes of knowing, which are oriented to the social benefits and sustenance needs are not recognized by the capitalist reductionist paradigm, because it fails to perceive the interconnectedness of nature, or the connection of women’s lives, work and knowledge with the creation of wealth.”[111]
However, feminist and social ecologist Janet Biehl has criticized ecofeminism for focusing too much on a mystical connection between women and nature and not enough on the actual conditions of women.[112]
Berkeley Marine Corps Recruiting Center controversy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Berkeley Marine Corps Recruiting Center Controversy began in September 2007 when a small group of protesters from Code Pink began periodically protesting in front of a United States Marine Corps Officer Selection Office located in Downtown Berkeley, California at 64 Shattuck Avenue by standing in front of the office holding banners and placing signs.[1][2] The recruiting center had been located in Berkeley since January 2007. The protesting has continued to the present. On October 17, 2007, the group Move America Forward held a counter protest.
On January 29, 2008, the Berkeley City Council passed a series of motions concerning the recruiting center. The most controversial motions ordered the city clerk to draft a letter calling the Berkeley Marines "unwelcome intruders" and another motion gave Code Pink a parking permit on Wednesdays and a noise permit. The motions drew national media coverage. Some veterans groups and conservatives were angered by the motions. National and state laws were drafted to remove funding for Berkeley. The Berkeley City Council changed the wording in the letter February 13, 2008 to remove the most controversial wording and communicate support for the troops but opposition to the war. On the previous day, 2000 protesters at its peak gathered outside city hall to protest against and in support of the motion. The national media coverage of the matter significantly declined following Berkeley's amended language. Legislation backed by Republican members of Congress concerning removing earmarks continued through the legislative process, though with little chance of passing, and Move America Forward launched a new advertisement criticizing the Berkeley City Council. Code Pink continues to collect signatures to put a measure on the ballot to remove the recruiting center.
City Council response
On January 29, 2008 the Berkeley City Council passed two motions regarding the controversy.[10] The first motion, passed 8-1, gave anti-war protesters Code Pink a reserved parking space in front of the recruitment and waiving the normally required noise permits so they could operate their loud speaker. Since passing this motion, Code Pink has had an almost daily presence outside the recruiting office.[10][11]
The Berkeley City Council 6-3, passed a motion to have the city clerk write a letter to the U.S. Marine Corps to inform them that they were "uninvited and unwelcome intruders" in the city of Berkeley.[12][13][11] The motion stated that the United States had a history of "launching illegal, immoral and unprovoked wars of aggression" and that "military recruiters are salespeople known to lie to and seduce minors and young adults into contracting themselves into military service with false promises regarding jobs, job training, education and other benefits."[14] The Berkeley City Council also asked the city attorney to investigate the possibility of fining the Marines for violating the city's ordinance requiring equal-opportunity hiring without regard to sexual orientation because of the military's don't ask, don't tell policy.[14][10]
The Beauty Myth
In the early 1990s, Wolf garnered international public notoriety as a spokesperson of third-wave feminism[11][12] as a result of the tremendous success of her first book The Beauty Myth, which became an international bestseller.[13] In the book, she argues that "beauty" as a normative value is entirely socially constructed, and that the patriarchy determines the content of that construction with the goal of reproducing its own hegemony. Wolf posits the idea of an "iron-maiden," an intrinsically unattainable standard that is then used to punish women physically and psychologically for their failure to achieve and conform to it. Wolf criticized the fashion and beauty industries as exploitative of women, but claimed the beauty myth extended into all areas of human functioning. Wolf writes that women should have "the choice to do whatever we want with our faces and bodies without being punished by an ideology that is using attitudes, economic pressure, and even legal judgments regarding women's appearance to undermine us psychologically and politically." Wolf argues that women were under assault by the "beauty myth" in five areas: work, religion, sex, violence, and hunger. Ultimately, Wolf argues for a relaxation of normative standards of beauty.[14]
In her introduction, Wolf positioned her argument against the concerns of second-wave feminists and offered the following analysis:
| “ | The more legal and material hindrances women have broken through, the more strictly and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to weigh upon us...During the past decade, women breached the power structure; meanwhile, eating disorders rose exponentially and cosmetic surgery became the fastest-growing specialty...pornography became the main media category, ahead of legitimate films and records combined, and thirty-three thousand American women told researchers that they would rather lose ten to fifteen pounds than achieve any other goal...More women have more money and power and scope and legal recognition than we have ever had before; but in terms of how we feel about ourselves physically, we may actually be worse off than our unliberated grandmothers.[15] | ” |
The
Beauty Myth
· Beauty
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Beauty Myth, published in 1991, is a book by Naomi Wolf. It examines beauty as a demand and as a judgment upon women. Subtitled How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women, Wolf examines how modern conceptions of women's beauty impact the spheres of employment, culture, religion, sexuality, eating disorders, and cosmetic surgery.
Wolf argues that women in Western culture are damaged by the pressure to conform to an idealized concept of female beauty—the Iron Maiden throughout modern society, from Victorian Times to today. She argues that the beauty myth is political, a way of maintaining the patriarchal system. It allows women to enter the labour force, but under controlled conditions. She also claims that this system keeps women under control by the weight of their own insecurities. The beauty myth is sometimes viewed as succeeding The Feminine Mystique, which relegated women to the position of housewife, as the social guard over women. In this sense, Wolf claims that public interest in a woman's virginity has been replaced by public interest in the shape of her body.
It was republished in 2002 with a new introduction by Wolf.
Christina Hoff Sommers criticized Wolf for publishing the claim that 150,000 women were dying every year from anorexia.[1] Sommers claimed that the actual number is closer to 100, a figure which others, such as Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, claimed to be much too low. In the same interview, Sommers stated that Wolf had retracted the figure.
Wikipedia on sex-positive feminism
a
full pdf of The Ethical Slut:
http://happybadger.com/t/ethicalslut.pdf
Sex-positive movement
Sex-positive movement
Sex-positive feminism is a movement that was formed in order to address issues of women's sexual pleasure, freedom of expression, sex work, and inclusive gender identities. Ellen Willis' 1981 essay, "Lust Horizons: Is the Women's Movement Pro-Sex?" is the origin of the term, "pro-sex feminism"; the more commonly-used variant, "sex positive feminism" arose soon after.[159]
Although some sex-positive feminists, such as Betty Dodson, were active in the early 1970s, much of sex-positive feminism largely began in the late 1970s and 1980s as a response to the increasing emphasis in radical feminism on anti-pornography activism.
Sex-positive feminists are also strongly opposed to radical feminist calls for legislation against pornography, a strategy they decried as censorship, and something that could, they argued, be used by social conservatives to censor the sexual expression of women, gay people, and other sexual minorities. The initial period of intense debate and acrimony between sex-positive and anti-pornography feminists during the early 1980s is often referred to as the Feminist Sex Wars. Other sex-positive feminists became involved not in opposition to other feminists, but in direct response to what they saw as patriarchal control of sexuality.[citation needed]
Scientific discourse
Some feminists are critical of traditional scientific discourse, arguing that the field has historically been biased towards a masculine perspective.[12] Evelyn Fox Keller argues that the rhetoric of science reflects a masculine perspective, and she questions the idea of scientific objectivity.
Many feminist scholars rely on qualitative research methods that emphasize women’s subjective, individual experiences. According to communication scholars Thomas R. Lindlof and Bryan C. Taylor, incorporating a feminist approach to qualitative research involves treating research participants as equals who are just as much an authority as the researcher. Objectivity is eschewed in favor of open self-reflexivity and the agenda of helping women. Also part of the feminist research agenda is uncovering ways that power inequities are created and/or reinforced in society and/or in scientific and academic institutions. Lindlof and Taylor also explain that a feminist approach to research often involves nontraditional forms of presentation. .[163]
Primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy notes the prevalence of masculine-coined stereotypes and theories, such as the non-sexual female, despite "the accumulation of abundant openly available evidence contradicting it".[168] Some natural and social scientists have examined feminist ideas using scientific methods.
Feminist
Sex Wars
· Sexuality
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Feminist Sex Wars and Lesbian Sex Wars, or simply the Sex Wars or Porn Wars, were the acrimonious debates within the feminist movement and lesbian community in the late 1970s through the 1980s around the issues of feminist strategies regarding sexuality, sexual representation, pornography, sadomasochism, the role of transwomen in the lesbian community, and other sexual issues. The debate pitted anti-pornography feminism against sex-positive feminism, and the feminist movement ended up deeply divided as a result.[1][2][3][4][5]
The Feminist Sex Wars are sometimes viewed as part of the division that helped end the second-wave feminist era.
Recently I argued with a douchebag on Crystal's facebook. In it I referred to myself as a "feminist." (he told me that I probably had a bad relationship with my father and I said that my relationship with him was great and that 'he was a feminist too.'"
I think people that make a stink about men identifying as feminists because "they can't fully understand the plight of women" do that thing that I hate that academics always do: they universalize or inflate claims in order to oppose something.
Of course I can't understand from a women's point of view. For example, in western religions class Heather noticed that our teacher (incidentally, female) always used male pronouns to describe positions of authority. I didn't notice this until Heather pointed it out.
I should still be able to refer to myself as a feminist while telling a douchebag to fuck off on facebook. Categories are pretend.
Speaking of fuck off, Bridgette just reminded me of this one time we were on mescaline in bowling green, and i was yelling at the cops and telling them to fuck off! I don't even remember this, except I just remembered it a little. I'm so proud of myself!
Pro-feminism compared to feminism
Some feminists and pro-feminists believe that it is inappropriate for men to call themselves "feminists". This argument takes a variety of forms, including the following: Feminism is a movement and a body of ideas developed by, for, and about women. Men can never fully know what it is like to be a woman. By calling themselves feminists, men could preempt and take over the feminist movement, thus stifling women's concerns and voices.[citation needed] There is also internal disagreement within this "movement", for example with pro-feminist me-wing and socialist movements, anti-racist struggles, and so on. Those who claim that "feminist" can apply equally to men and women often point out that the arguments made by advocates of the term "pro-feminist" are based in notions of biological determinism and essentialism, and are actually contrary to feminist principles. A clear distinction between "feminist" and "pro-feminist" is also troubled by transsexual and transgender people, whose bodies and performance of a gendered body (in the sense that Judith Butler defines performance) make even the most basic biological distinction between categories of men and women a difficult task.
Pro-feminists claim to be anti-sexist, and anti-patriarchal, but they argue that they are not anti-male. Some pro-feminist men believe that men have potential for good and believe that there is a potential for "backlash" within the men's movement, a potential for the movement to turn towards the defence of what they see as men's privilege and position, and some would say that this has already occurred.[7] While all pro-feminist men assume that men must act to dismantle gender injustice, some argue that a men's movement is not the way to do this.[8] They advocate instead that pro-feminists build alliances and coalitions with other progressive groups and movements (such as feminism, gay and lesbian liberation, left-wing and socialist movements, anti-racist struggles, and so on).
Atheist feminism asserts the equality of men and women in a faithless society. It cites organized religion as a main source of female oppression, gender inequality, and overall suppression of sexual freedom and basic human rights. For atheist feminists, joining a faith is a submission to patriarchy and an acceptance of the anti-female actions condoned by the organized religions.Principles of Feminist Therapy
1) Egalitarian relationships (a relationship which is based on equals) between therapist and client are key in therapy, utilizing the therapist’s psychological knowledge and the client’s knowledge of herself. The inherent power differentials between therapist and client are addressed, and the client must realize that the therapist is not giving her power, but power comes from within herself. This relationship provides a model for women to take responsibility in making all of their relationships egalitarian.Feminist therapists focus on embracing the client’s strengths rather than fixing their weaknesses and accept and validate the client’s feelings.[6]
2) Feminist Therapy Theory is always being revised and added to as social contexts change and the discourse develops. The client’s well-being is the leading principle in all aspects of therapy.[7]
3) The therapist always retains accountability.[8]
4) The feminist therapy model is non-victim blaming.[9]
5) The client’s well-being is the leading principle in all aspects of therapy.[10]
edit] Feminist Therapists' Responsibilities
1) Feminist Therapists must integrate feminist analysis in all spheres of their work.[11]
2) Feminist Therapists must recognize the client’s socioeconomic and political circumstances, especially with issues in access to mental health care.[12]
3) Feminist therapists must be actively involved in ending oppression, empowering women and girls, respecting differences, and social change.[13]
4) Feminist Therapists must be aware of their own situated experience (their own socioeconomic and political situations as well as sex, gender, race, sexuality, etc.) and is constantly self-evaluating and remedying their own biases and oppressive actions. As well as must be learning about other dominant and non-dominant cultural and ethnic experiences.[14]
5) A feminist therapist must accept and validate their client’s experiences and feelings.[15]
Radical feminism is a "current"[1] within feminism that focuses on the theory of patriarchy as a system of power that organizes society into a complex of relationships producing what radical feminists claim is a "male supremacy"[1] that oppresses women. Radical feminism aims to challenge and to overthrow patriarchy by opposing standard gender roles and what they see as male oppression of women, and calls for a radical reordering of society. Early radical feminism, arising within second-wave feminism in the 1960s,[2] typically viewed patriarchy as a "transhistorical phenomenon"[3] prior to or deeper than other sources of oppression, "not only the oldest and most universal form of domination but the primary form" and the model for all others.[4] Later politics derived from radical feminism ranged from cultural feminism[1] to more syncretic politics that placed issues of class, economics, etc. on a par with patriarchy as sources of oppression.[5]The term radical in radical feminism (from Latin rādīx, rādīc-, root) is used as an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the root or going to the root. Radical feminists locate the root cause of women's oppression in patriarchal gender relations, as opposed to legal systems (liberal feminism) or class conflict (socialist feminism and Marxist feminism).
The term militant feminism is a pejorative term which is often applied to radical feminism, but also to other currents within feminism.
Subject: Urgent: The Single Payer Moment Is NOW, If Only We Will Speak Out
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2006 01:25:33 -0800
From: The Pen <activist.thepen@gmail.com>
To: lilt@bex.net
We have a new "Single Payer Health Care" cap to mobilize the final
push for real health care reform. But first ...
Last night at his prime time health care news conference, President
Obama finally admitted what we have known all along.
"I want to cover everybody. Now, the truth is that unless you have a
-- what's called a single-payer system, in which everybody's
automatically covered, then you're probably not going to reach every
single individual."
There it is folks. Only single payer can fix the ills with our health
care system. He also talked about the critical importance of
"eliminating waste". Only single payer effectively does that, by
cutting out the massive overhead waste (31%) by paper churning
insurance industry bureaucrats, who line their own pockets to provide
LESS health care with the available resources.
Single Payer Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnu
This is the single payer moment. We have enough Democrats alone to
pass it. So why hasn't it been signed into law yet?
Why not a single payer system? Because the big insurance and drug
companies don't want that? Oh, really?? What about what we the people
want? What about what would be best for America? We need to tell our
members of Congress what we want, keep telling them, and remind them
that we told them.
So please submit the action page above. And when do you will have an
opportunity from the return page to get one of the NEW "Single Payer
Health Care" caps, touting the concept with the PEOPLE's talking
points, that it is the "economical and efficient" way to go.
It is time for us to seize control of the media marketing of
political policy. And with this new cap you can spread the meme that
single payer is not a "risky experiment" or "socialized medicine" or
"rationing care" or any of the other cheap shot smears that the right
wing has tried to pass off lately as a policy debate. No, the words
that need to come out of our mouth are "economical and efficient" and
then all will know what single payer is REALLY about.
aggravatedJuly 24th, 2009
The Revolution will be Read Out LoudThis past Sunday, an unusual prank happened at the Union Square Barnes & Noble in New York: a large crowd arrived for a book signing and reading that the bookstore had not scheduled. The Coming Insurrection was the text. The New York Times picked up the story:
By 5 o’clock a crowd of more than 100 had gathered. Their purpose: to celebrate the publication of an English translation of a book called “The Coming Insurrection,” which was written two years ago by an anonymous group of French authors who call themselves the Invisible Committee. More recently, the volume has been at the center of an unusual criminal investigation in France that has become something of a cause célèbre among leftists and civil libertarians.
The book, which predicts the imminent collapse of capitalist culture, was inspired by disruptive demonstrations that took place over the last few years in France and Greece. It was influenced stylistically by Guy Debord, a French writer and filmmaker who was a leader of the Situationist International, a group of intellectuals and artists who encouraged the Paris protests of 1968.
In keeping with the anarchistic spirit of the text, the bookstore event was organized without the knowledge or permission of Barnes & Noble. The gathering was intended partly as a show of solidarity with nine young people — including one suspected of writing “The Coming Insurrection” —whom in November the French police accused of forming a dangerous “ultraleftist” group and sabotaging train lines.
The Coming Insurrection has been published by Semiotext(e). Semiotext(e) editor Hedi El Kholti was interviewed for the article:
Semiotext(e), a Los Angeles publisher that specializes in works by French theorists like Jean Baudrillard and Michel Foucault, published an English-language edition of the book at the end of last month with a print run of 3,000. Hedi El Kholti, an editor at Semiotext(e), said that the book’s winding up as a key part of a controversial case added to the historical value of its message.“Everyone is dancing around this notion that publishing a book can take you to jail,” he said recently by telephone. “That a book is an element that can involve you in a trial.”
June 16, 2009 in Current Affairs | Permalink
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from http://www.aclu.org/police/gen/14614pub
Abuse by police continues to be a major civil liberties problem in the U.S., particularly for the poor and for people of color. Everyone needs and deserves effective and humane law enforcement in communities and courtrooms.
Fighting Police Abuse: A Community Action Manual (12/1/1997)
[...]
5. ORGANIZING STRATEGIES
Build Coalitions
Monitor the Police
Use Open Records Laws
Educate the Public
Use the Political Process to Win Reforms
Lobby For State Legislation
A FINAL WORD
RESOURCES
Bibliography
Organizations
ACLU Affiliates
CREDITS & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PREFACE
In the early hours of March 3, 1991, a police chase in Los Angeles ended in an incident that would become synonymous with police brutality: the beating of a young man named Rodney King by members of the Los Angeles Police Department. An amateur video, televised nationwide, showed King lying on the ground while three officers kicked him and struck him repeatedly with their nightsticks. No one who viewed that beating will ever forget its viciousness.
The Rodney King incident projected the brutal reality of police abuse into living rooms across the nation, and for a while, the problem was front page news. Political leaders condemned police use of excessive force and appointed special commissions to investigate incidents of brutality. The media covered the issue extensively, calling particular attention to the fact that police abuse was not evenly distributed throughout American society, but disproportionately victimized people of color.
But six years later, police abuse is still very much an American problem, as the following examples from three recent months demonstrate:
* In December 1996, two men in two weeks died in handcuffs at the hands of the Palm Beach County sheriff's deputies in Florida. Lyndon Stark, 48, died of asphyxia in a cloud of pepper spray while handcuffed behind the back in a prone position. Several days earlier, Kevin Pruiksma, 27, died after being restrained by a sheriff's deputy.
* In January 1997, Kurt DeSilva, 34, was shot and killed by a Pawtucket, Rhode Island police officer after a low-speed car chase. DeSilva, who was unarmed, was suspected of driving a stolen car.
* In February 1997, James Wilson, 37, an unarmed motorist, was kicked and punched by three Hartford, Connecticut police officers after a brief chase which ended in front of a Bloomfield, Connecticut police station. The beating was so severe that a group of Bloomfield police intervened to stop it. "They saw activity that appeared inappropriate," the Bloomfield Police Chief stated. "He didn't resist officers... He was struck."
The fact that police abuse remains a significant problem does not mean there has been no progress. In communities all across the United States people have organized to bring about change, and some of the most successful strategies are described in this manual, now in its 3rd printing.
This manual was not inspired by, nor is it intended to generate, animosity toward the police, or to promote the perception that all police officers are prone to abuse. They are not.
Rather, it arose out of our realization that, ultimately, it will take a strong and sustained effort by community groups to bring about real and lasting reform. And it is to those efforts that this manual is dedicated.
Ira Glasser
Executive Director
American Civil Liberties Union
August 1997
1. SOME OPERATING ASSUMPTIONS
THE BAD NEWS is...
police abuse is a serious problem. It has a long history, and it seems to defy all attempts at eradication.
The problem is national: no police department in the country is known to be completely free of misconduct. Yet it must be fought locally: the nation's 19,000 law enforcement agencies are essentially independent. While some federal statutes specify criminal penalties for willful violations of civil rights and conspiracies to violate civil rights, the United States Department of Justice has been insufficiently aggressive in prosecuting cases of police abuse. There are shortcomings, too, in federal law itself, which does not permit "pattern and practice" lawsuits. The battle against police abuse must, therefore, be fought primarily on the local level.
THE GOOD NEWS is...
the situation is not hopeless. Policing has seen much progress. Some reforms do work, and some types of abuse have been reduced. Today, among both police officials and rank and file officers, it is widely recognized that police brutality hinders good law enforcement.
To fight police abuse effectively, you must have realistic expectations. You must not expect too much of any one remedy because no single remedy will cure the problem. A "mix" of reforms is required. And even after citizen action has won reforms, your community must keep the pressure on through monitoring and oversight to ensure that the reforms are actually implemented.
Nonetheless, even one person, or a small group of persistent people, can make a big difference. Sometimes outmoded and abusive police practices prevail largely because no one has ever questioned them. In such cases, the simple act of spotlighting a problem can have a powerful effect that leads to reform. Just by raising questions, one person or a few people — who need not be experts — can open up some corner of the all-too-secretive and insular world of policing to public scrutiny. Depending on what is revealed, their inquiries can snowball into a full blown examination by the media, the public and politicians.
2. GETTING STARTED — IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM
You've got to address specific problems. The first step, then, is to identify exactly what the police problems are in your city. What's wrong with your police department is not necessarily the same as what's wrong in that of another city. Police departments differ in size, quality of management, local traditions and the severity of their problems. Some departments are gravely corrupt; others are relatively "clean" but have poor relations with community residents. Also, a city's political environment, which affects both how the police operate and the possibilites for achieving reform, is different in every city. For example, it is often easier to reform police procedures in cities that have a tradition of "good government," or in cities where racial minorities are well organized politically.
The range of police problems includes —
1) Excessive use of deadly force.
2) Excessive use of physical force.
3) Discriminatory patterns of arrest.
4) Patterns of harassment of the homeless, youth, racial minorities and gays, including aggressive and discriminatory use of the "stop-and-frisk" and overly harsh enforcement of petty offenses.
5) Chronic verbal abuse of citizens, including racist, sexist and homophobic slurs.
6) Discriminatory non-enforcement of the law, such as the failure to respond quickly to calls in low-income areas and half-hearted investigations of domestic violence, rape or hate crimes.
7) Spying on political activists.
8) Employment discrimination — in hiring, promotion and assignments, and internal harassment of minority, women and gay or lesbian police personnel.
9) The "code of silence" and retaliation against officers who report abuse and/or support reforms.
10) Overreaction to gang problems, which is driven by the assumption that those who associate with known gang members must be involved in criminal activity, even in the absence of concrete evidence that this is the case. This includes illegal mass stops and arrests, and demanding photo IDs from young men based on their race and dress instead of on their criminal conduct.
11) The "war on drugs," with its overbroad searches and other tactics that endanger innocent bystanders. This "war" wastes scarce resources on unproductive "buy and bust" operations to the neglect of more promising community-based approaches.
12) Lack of accountability, such as the failure to discipline or prosecute abusive officers, and the failure to deter abuse by denying promotions and/or particular assignments because of prior abusive behavior.
13) Crowd control tactics that infringe on free expression rights and lead to unnecessary use of physical force.
HOW MUCH BRUTALITY?
How common is police brutality? Unfortunately, measuring this problem in a scientific fashion has always been very difficult. In the first systematic study, The Police and the Public (1971), Albert Reiss found the overall rate of unwarranted force to be low — only about one percent of all encounters with citizens; even less than that by another calculation. But Reiss hastened to point out that individual incidents accumulate over time, and since poor men are the most frequent victims of police abuse, they experience both real and perceived harassment by the police.
In 1982, the federal government funded a "Police Services Study," in which 12,022 randomly selected citizens were interviewed in three metropolitan areas. The study found that 13.6 percent of those surveyed had cause to complain about police service in the previous year (this included verbal abuse and discourtesy, as well as physical force). Yet, only 30 percent of the people filed formal complaints. In other words, most instances of police abuse go unreported.
Community activists, take note: Your local police department or local news media may produce official figures showing a low rate of alleged abuse, but those figures do not reflect unreported incidents. Moreover, a low overall rate masks the higher rate of abuse suffered by poor men — poor men of color in particular.
3. GATHER THE FACTS
Obtaining the most relevant information on the activities of your police department can be a tough task. That's the first thing to bear in mind about the "homework" community residents have to do in order to build a strong case for reform. In answer to critics, police chiefs often cite various official data to support their claim that they are really doing a great job. "Look at the crime rate," they say. "It's lower than in other cities." Or: "My department's arrest rate is much higher than elsewhere." The catch is that these data, though readily available to citizens, are deeply flawed, while the most important information is not always easy to get.
Forget the "crime rate." The "crime rate" figures cited by government officials are based on the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) system, which has several serious flaws. To name only a few: First, the UCR only measures reported crime. Second, since the system is not independently audited there are no meaningful controls over how police departments use their crime data. Police officers can and do "unfound" crimes, meaning they decide that no crime occurred. They also "downgrade" crimes — for example, by officially classifying a rape as an assault. Third, reports can get "lost," either deliberately or inadvertently. There are many other technical problems that make the UCR a dubious measure of the extent of crime problems.
The National Crime Survey (NCS), published by another part of the U.S. Justice Department, provides a far more accurate estimate of the national crime rate and of long-term trends in crime. But it is a national-level estimate and does not provide data on individual cities. So the NCS isn't much help on the local level.
Forget the "clearance rate." A police department's official data on its "clearance rate," which refers to the percentage of crimes solved, do not accurately reflect that department's performance. The fact that one department "clears" 40 percent of all robberies, compared with 25 percent by another department, doesn't necessarily mean it is more effective. There are too many ways to manipulate the data, either by claiming a larger number of crimes "cleared" (inflating the numerator), or by artificially lowering the number of reported crimes (lowering the denominator).
Forget the arrest rate. Police officers have broad discretion in making and recording arrests. The Police Foundation in Washington, D.C., which conducts research on policing issues, has found great variations among police departments in their recording of arrests. In many departments, police officers take people into custody, hold them at the station, question and then release them without filling out an arrest report. For all practical purposes, these people were arrested, but their arrests don't show up in the official data. Other departments record such arrests. Thus, the department that reports a lower number of arrests may actually be taking more people into custody than the department that reports more arrests.
Forget the citizen complaint rate. Official data on the complaints filed by citizens regarding police conduct are important but present a number of problems. Many departments do not release any information on this subject. Some publish a smattering of information on complaints and the percentage of complaints sustained by the department. In more and more cities, a civilian review agency publishes this data.
Data on citizen complaints are difficult to interpret.
Some examples —
* In 1990, it was widely reported that San Francisco, with less than 2,000 police officers, had more citizen complaints than Los Angeles, which has more than 8,000 officers. What that may mean, however, is that Los Angeles residents are afraid to file reports or don't believe it would do any good. San Francisco has a relatively independent civilian review process, which may encourage the filing of more complaints. Also in 1990, New York City reported a decline from previous years in the number of citizen complaints filed. But many analysts believe that simply reflected New Yorkers' widespread disillusionment with their civilian review board. Citizen complaints filed in Omaha, Nebraska doubled after the mayor allowed people to file their complaints at City Hall, as well as at the police department.
* Another problem is that in some police departments with internal affairs systems, officers often try to dissuade people from filing formal complaints that will later become part of an officer's file. And the number of complaints counted is also affected by whether or not the internal affairs system accepts anonymous complaints and complaints by phone or mail, or requires in-person, sworn statements.
Thus, the official "complaint rate" (complaints per 1,000 citizens), rather than being a reliable measure of police performance, more than likely reflects the administrative customs of a particular police department.
WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW, AND WHY
A. Police shootings. You need to know about police firearm discharges, which refer to the number of times a police weapon has been fired. This information is more complete than statistics on the number of persons shot and wounded or killed. (However, information on the race of persons shot and wounded or killed is important.) Particularly important is data on repeat shooters, which can tell you whether some officers fire their weapons at a suspiciously high rate.
POLICE SHOOTINGS — A CLOSER LOOK
* Do some officers shoot more often than others?
* Do white officers shoot more often that black officers?
* Do young officers shoot more often than veteran officers?
The most detailed analysis of police shootings was produced by James Fyfe, a former police officer who is now a criminologist and expert on police practices. He concluded that the single most important factor determining patterns of shooting is place of assignment.
Fyfe's findings showed that: Black and white officers assigned to similar precincts fired their weapons at essentially the same rate; since new officers are assigned to less desirable, high crime precincts based on the seniority system, younger officers shoot more often than older officers; and since a disproportionate number of black officers are young due to recent affirmative action programs, black officers shoot more often than white officers — but as a function of assignment, not race.
Fyfe found significant differences in shooting patterns between police departments. The overall shooting rate in some departments was significantly higher than in others, a disparity that he attributed to differences in department policy.
SOURCE: James J. Fyfe, "Who Shoots? - - A Look At Officer, Race And Police Shooting." Journal of Police Science And Administration; Volume 9, December 1981; pp. 367-382.
With this information, you can evaluate the use of deadly force in your department. You can also evaluate the long-term trends in shootings. Are shootings increasing or decreasing? Has there been a recent upsurge? How does the department compare with other departments — are officers shooting at a significantly higher rate in your department than elsewhere?
B. Use of physical force. You need to know how frequently police officers in your city use physical force in the day-to-day course of their encounters with citizens. Do officers try to refrain from using such force against citizens, or do they quickly and casually resort to force?
In its report on the Los Angeles Police Department in the aftermath of the March 1991 beating of Rodney King, the Christopher Commission confirmed a long held suspicion: A small number of officers were involved in an extraordinarily high percentage of use-of-force incidents. Ten percent of the officers accounted for 33.2 percent of all use-of-force incidents. The Commission was able to identify 44 such officers who were not disciplined despite the fact that they were the subjects of numerous citizen complaints.
In 1981, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission found a similar pattern in Houston and recommended, as a remedy, that police departments establish "early warning systems" to identify officers with high rates of citizen complaints. Patterns in the use of physical force reveal a lot about the "culture" of a particular police department. Clearly, a department whose officers repeatedly engage in physically coercive conduct needs reform. Police officials often deny that their personnel are prone to using force inappropriately, so if your community believes it has a problem in this area citizens must be able to support their claims with existing data, or data they have gathered themselves.
C. Official policies. You need to know what your local police department's formal, written policies are on how officers are supposed to behave in particular situations. How does the department treat domestic violence complaints? What is the policy on how officers are supposed to deal with homeless people? Does the department use canine patrols and, if so, under what circumstances?
In examining official policies, you need to evaluate them in comparison to recommended standards.
D. Lawsuits. You need to know how many lawsuits citizens have filed against your local police department. You'll want to know what the charges were, the number of officers involved, whether certain officers are named repeatedly in suits, what was the outcome and, in the case of successful suits, how much the city paid in damages.
The number of lawsuits filed against a police department can be very revealing. For example, according to the Christopher Commission the taxpayers of Los Angeles spent $67.5 million between 1991 and 1995 to resolve lawsuits brought by victims of police abuse. In 1990 alone, New York City paid victims of police misconduct a record high of more than $13 million. This kind of information can be used to mobilize middle-class taxpayers and "good-government" activists, who can then be brought into a community coalition against police abuse.
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN POLICE SHOOTINGS
These data indicate a clear pattern of racial discrimination. The disparity between whites and blacks shot and killed is extreme in the category of persons "unarmed and not assaultive."
POLICE SHOOTINGS IN MEMPHIS 1969-1974
Person Shot and Killed Number Shot and Killed
White Black
Armed and Assaultive 5 7
Unarmed and Assaultive 2 6
Unarmed and Not Assaultive 1 13
These are classic "fleeing felon" situations in which, prior to 1985, Memphis Police Department policy and the common law of many states permitted officers to use deadly force. In 1985, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional for a police officer to shoot a suspected felon in flight who does not pose an immediate danger to the officer or public. The case — Tennessee v. Garner— involved Edward Garner, a 15 year-old black youth who, though unarmed, was shot and killed while trying to flee the scene of a suspected burglary.
SOURCE: James J. Fyfe, "Blind Justice: Police Shootings in Memphis," Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 73 (1982, No. 2); pp. 707-722.
E. Minority employment. You'll need to know how many African Americans, Latinos, Asians, other minorities and women are employed by your police department and their distribution throughout the department's ranks. This information is useful in assessing, again, the "culture" of your local police department — is it internally diverse, fair and equitable? It also suggests how much value the department places on the "human relations" aspects of its work, and how responsive it is to community concerns.
WHERE TO GET INFORMATION, AND HOW
Police business is generally shrouded in secrecy, which conceals outdated policies and departmental inertia, encourages cover-ups and, of course, breeds public suspicion. But remember: Police departments are an arm of government, and the government's business is your business. Police policies, procedures, memoranda, records, reports, tape recordings, etc. should not be withheld from public view unless their release would threaten ongoing investigations, endanger officers or others, or invade someone's personal privacy.
Demanding information about police practices is an important part of the struggle to establish police accountability. Indeed, a campaign focused solely on getting information from the police can serve as a vehicle for organizing a community to tackle police abuse. Regarding all of the following categories, one of the tactics your community could employ is to interest a local investigative journalist in seeking information from the police for a series of articles. Once in hand, the information your community has collected or helped to expose is a tool for holding the police accountable for their actions.
ON DRUGS, GANGS AND POLICE OFFICER SAFETY
Police work remains dangerous, and many police officers contend that they need greater freedom to use deadly force today because of the increase in heavily armed drug gangs.
But in fact, police work is much less dangerous than it used to be. The number of officers killed in the line of duty is half of what it was nearly 20 years ago. According to the FBI, the number of officers killed dropped from 134 in 1973 to 67 in 1990. That reduced death rate is even more dramatic considering the increase in the number of police officers on duty in the field.
Police officers are rarely the victims of "drive-by" gang shootings. Innocent by-standers and rival gang members have been the victims.
The police don't need more firepower.
A. Police Shootings. Virtually every big city police department has this information on hand, since officers are required to file a report after every firearms discharge. However, departments don't usually release the information voluntarily. Strong civilian review boards in a few cities now publish the information. As for repeat shooters, this information exists in police reports, but police departments vigorously resist identifying repeat shooters. There are several ways to proceed —
* As an organizing strategy, demand that the police department publish this data, identify repeat shooters and take appropriate remedial action (counseling, retraining, formal discipline, transfer, etc.)
* Alternatively, since it isn't essential that officers be identified by name, demand that they be identified simply by a code number, which can focus public attention on the problem of excessive shooters.
* Visit your local civilian review agency, if one exists. These agencies often have the authority to collect and release a range of information about local police conduct.
B. Physical Force. There are three potential sources of data on police use of physical force —
* Data developed by community residents.Community residents can make a significant contribution to documenting physical force abuses and, in the process, organize. They can bear witness to, and record, abuse incidents, take information from others who have witnessed incidents, refute police department arguments that there is no problem and help document the inadequacies of the police department's official complaint review process. Police Watch in Los Angeles compiles such data. Police Watch can be contacted at 611 South Catalina, Suite 409, Los Angeles, CA 90005; (213) 387-3325. Check with your local ACLU to see if an organization in your community does the same.
* Formal complaints filed by citizens. Most police departments do not make this information public. Some publish summary data in their annual report, so consult that document. In a number of cities, civilian review agencies publish it, so check with that agency in your city. The annual reports of the New York City Citizen Complaint Review Board (CCRB) and San Francisco's Office of Citizen Complaints (OCC) provide fairly detailed summaries.
* Internal police reports. An increasing number of police departments require officers to fill out reports after any use of physical force. This is a larger set of data than the citizen complaints would provide, since many citizens don't file complaints even when they have cause to do so. Ask to see physical force reports.
C. Official Policies. Your police department has a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) manual (it may have another title) that contains the official policies of the department. The SOP manual is a public document and should be readily available. Some departments place current copies in local libraries.
Others treat it as an internal document not available to the public — a practice which is unacceptable. Demand to see the manual, if your department withholds it. As a last resort, you may be able to file suit under your state's open records law to obtain the SOP manual.
D. Lawsuits. Lawsuits brought against police departments are matters of public record. Records of suits brought in state courts reside at your local state courthouse; of suits brought in federal district court, at the nearest federal courthouse. The Lexis computer database is a source of published opinions in civilian suits brought against the police. However, collecting information from any of these sources is a very laborious task. It's better to contact your local ACLU affiliate and/or other relevant public interest groups, which may have done most of the work for you. In the back of this manual, find the name and address of your local ACLU and other organizations.
E. Minority Employment. Official data on this issue are generally available from your local police department. If the police stonewall, you can get the information from the city's personnel division. The point is to evaluate the police department's minority employment record relative to local conditions. Using current data, compare the percentage of a particular group of people in the local population with that group's representation on the police force. If, for example, Latinos are 30 percent of the population but only 15 percent of the sworn officers, then your police department is only half way toward achieving an ideal level of diversity.
4. CONTROLLING THE POLICE — COMMUNITY GOALS
GOAL #1 — A CIVILIAN REVIEW BOARD
Civilian review of police activity was first proposed in the 1950s because of widespread dissatisfaction with the internal disciplinary procedures of police departments. Many citizens didn't believe that police officials took their complaints seriously. They suspected officials of investigating allegations of abuse superficially at best, and of covering up misconduct. The theory underlying the concept of civilian review is that civilian investigations of citizen complaints are more independent because they are conducted by people who are not sworn officers.
At first, civilian review was a dream few thought would ever be fulfilled. But slow, steady progress has been made, indicating that it's an idea whose time has come. By the end of 1997, more than 75 percent of the nation's largest cities (more than 80 cities across the country) had civilian review systems.
Civilian review advocates in every city have had to overcome substantial resistance from local police departments. One veteran of the struggle for civilian review has chronicled the stages of police opposition as follows —
* The "over our dead bodies" stage, during which the police proclaim that they will never accept any type of civilian oversight under any circumstances;
* The "magical conversion" stage, when it becomes politically inevitable that civilian review will be adopted. At this point, former police opponents suddenly become civilian review experts and propose the weakest possible models;
* The "post-partum resistance" stage, when the newly established civilian review board must fight police opposition to its budget, authority, access to information, etc.
Strong community advocacy is necessary to overcome resistance, even after civilian review is established.
WHAT IS CIVILIAN REVIEW?
Civilian review systems create a lot a confusion because they vary tremendously. Some are more "civilian" than others. Some are not boards but municipal agencies headed by an executive director (who has been appointed by, and is accountable to, the mayor).
The three basic types of civilian review systems are —
* Type I. Persons who are not sworn officers conduct the initial fact-finding. They submit an investigative report to a non-officer or board of non-officers, who then make a recommendation for action to the police chief. This process is the most independent and most "civilian."
* Type II. Sworn officers conduct the initial fact-finding. They submit an investigative report to a non-officer or board of non-officers for a recommendation.
* Type III. Sworn officers conduct the initial fact-finding and make a recommendation to the police chief. If the aggrieved citizen is not satisfied with the chief's action on the complaint, he or she may appeal to a board that includes non-officers. Obviously, this process is the least independent.
Although the above are the most common, other types of civilian review systems also exist.
WHY IS CIVILIAN REVIEW IMPORTANT?
* Civilian review establishes the principle of police accountability. Strong evidence exists to show that a complaint review system encourages citizens to act on their grievances. Even a weak civilian review process is far better than none at all.
* A civilian review agency can be an important source of information about police misconduct. A civilian agency is more likely to compile and publish data on patterns of misconduct, especially on officers with chronic problems, than is a police internal affairs agency.
* Civilian review can alert police administrators to the steps they must take to curb abuse in their departments. Many well-intentioned police officials have failed to act decisively against police brutality because internal investigations didn't provide them with the facts.
TEN PRINCIPLES FOR AN EFFECTIVE CIVILIAN REVIEW BOARD
1. Independence. The power to conduct hearings, subpoena witnesses and report findings and recommendations to the public.
2. Investigatory Power. The authority to independently investigate incidents and issue findings on complaints.
3. Mandatory Police Cooperation. Complete access to police witnesses and documents through legal mandate or subpoena power.
4. Adequate Funding. Should not be a lower budget priority than police internal affairs systems.
5. Hearings. Essential for solving credibility questions and enhancing public confidence in process.
6. Reflect Community Diversity. Board and staff should be broadly representative of the community it serves.
7. Policy Recommendations. Civilian oversight can spot problem policies and provide a forum for developing reforms.
8. Statistical Analysis. Public statistical reports can detail trends in allegations, and early warning systems can identify officers who are subjects of unusually numerous complaints.
9. Separate Offices. Should be housed away from police headquarters to maintain independence and credibility with public.
10. Disciplinary Role. Board findings should be considered in determining appropriate disciplinary action.
* The existence of a civilian review agency, a reform in itself, can help ensure that other needed reforms are implemented. A police department can formulate model policies aimed at deterring and punishing misconduct, but those policies will be meaningless unless a system is in place to guarantee that the policies are aggressively enforced.
* Civilian review works, if only because it's at least a vast improvement over the police policing themselves. Nearly all existing civilian review systems —
o reduce public reluctance to file complaints
o reduce procedural barriers to filing complaints
o enhance the likelihood that statistical reporting on complaints will be more complete
o enhance the likelihood of an independent review of abuse allegations
o foster confidence in complainants that they will get their "day in court" through the hearing process
o increase scrutiny of police policies that lead to citizen complaints
o increase opportunities for other reform efforts.
* A campaign to establish a civilian review agency, or to strengthen an already existing agency, is an excellent vehicle for community organizing. In Indianapolis, for example, a civilian review campaign brought about not only the establishment of a civilian review agency, but an effective coalition between the Indiana ACLU, the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other community groups that could take future action on other issues.
Your community's campaign should seek a strong, fully-independent and accessible civilian review system. But even with a weak system, you can press for changes to make it more independent and effective.
GOAL #2 — CONTROL OF POLICE SHOOTINGS
Considerable progress has been made in the area of police misconduct in the use of deadly force. Although the rate of deadly force abuse is still intolerably high, national data reveal reductions in the number of persons shot and killed by the police since the mid-1970s — as much as 35-to 40 percent in our 50 largest cities. This has been accompanied by a significant reduction in the racial disparities among persons shot and killed: since the 1970s, from about six people of color to one white person, down to three people of color to one white.
This progress serves as a model for controlling other forms of police behavior. And was achieved though hard work and perseverance. In the mid-1970s, police departments began developing restrictive internal policies on the use of deadly force. They adopted the "defense of life" standard: the use of deadly force only when the life of an officer or some other person is in danger. In 1985, the Supreme Court finally upheld this standard in the case of Tennessee v. Garner (see table). However, the majority of policies adopted by police departments go beyond the Court's Garner decision, prohibiting warning shots, shots to wound and other reckless actions. Most important, these policies require officers to file written reports after each firearm discharge, and require that those reports be reviewed by higher-ranking officers.
To meet goal #2, your community must —
* Ensure that the police department has a highly restrictive deadly force policy (see sample policy). Most big city departments do. But the national trend data on shootings suggest that medium-sized and small departments have not caught up with the big cities, so much remains to be done there. Much remains to be done as well in county sheriff and state police agencies, which have not been subject to the same scrutiny as big city police departments.
* Ensure enforcement of the deadly force policy through community monitoring. To be accountable, the police department and/or the local civilian review agency should publish summary data on shooting incidents.
Citizens should also be able to find out whether the department disciplines officers who violate its policy, and whether certain officers are repeatedly involved in questionable incidents.
THE HOUSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT'S DEADLY FORCE POLICY (1987)
POLICY — The Houston Police Department places its highest value on the life and safety of its officers and the public. The department's policies, rules and procedures are designed to ensure that this value guides police officers' use of firearms.
RULES — The policy stated above is the basis of the following set of rules that have been designed to guide officers in all cases involving the use of firearms –
RULE 1 — Police officers shall not discharge their firearms except to protect themselves or another person from imminent death or serious bodily injury.
RULE 2 — Police officers shall discharge their firearms only when doing so will not endanger innocent persons.
RULE 3 — Police officers shall not discharge their firearms to threaten or subdue persons whose actions are destructive to property or injurious to themselves but which do not represent an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or others.
RULE 4 — Police officers shall not discharge their firearms to subdue an escaping suspect who presents no imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.
RULE 5 — Police officers shall not discharge their weapons at a moving vehicle unless it is absolutely necessary to do so to protect against an imminent threat to the life of the officer or others.
RULE 6 — Police officers when confronting an oncoming vehicle shall attempt to move out of the path, if possible, rather than discharge their firearms at the oncoming vehicle.
RULE 7 — Police officers shall not intentionally place themselves in the path of an oncoming vehicle and attempt to disable the vehicle by discharging their firearms.
RULE 8 — Police officers shall not discharge their firearms at a fleeing vehicle or its driver.
RULE 9 — Police officers shall not fire warning shots.
RULE 10 — Police officers shall not draw or display their firearms unless there is a threat or probable cause to believe there is a threat to life, or for inspection.
* The citizens of Houston have vested in their police officers the power to carry and use firearms in the exercise of their service to society. This power is based on trust and, therefore, must be balanced by a system of accountability. The serious consequences of the use of firearms by police officers necessitate the specification of limits for officers' discretion; there is often no appeal from an officer's decision to use a firearm. Therefore, it is imperative that every effort be made to ensure that such use is not only legally warranted but also rational and humane.
* The basic responsibility of police officers to protect life also requires that they exhaust all other reasonable means for apprehension and control before resorting to the use of firearms. Police officers are equipped with firearms as a means of last resort to protect themselves and others from the immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury.
* Even though all officers must be prepared to use their firearms when necessary, the utmost restraint must be exercised in their use. Consequently, no officer will be disciplined for discharging a firearm in self-defense or in defense of another when faced with a situation that immediately threatens life or serious bodily injury. Just as important, no officer will be disciplined for not discharging a firearm if that discharge might threaten the life or safety of an innocent person, or if the discharge is not clearly warranted by the policy and rules of the department.
* Above all, this department values the safety of its employees and the public. Likewise it believes that police officers should use firearms with a high degree of restraint. Officers' use of firearms, therefore, shall never be considered routine and is permissible only in defense of life and then only after all alternative means have been exhausted.
GOAL #3 — REDUCE POLICE BRUTALITY
Your community's principal aim here should be to get the police department to adopt and enforce a written policy governing the use of physical force. This policy should have two parts —
* It should explicitly restrict physical force to the narrowest possible range of specific situations. For example, a policy on the use of batons should forbid police officers from striking citizens in "non-target" areas, such as the head and spine, where permanent injuries can result. Mace should be used defensively, not offensively. The use of electronic stun guns should be strictly controlled and reviewed, since they have great potential for abuse because they don't leave scars or bruises.
* The policy should require that a police officer file a written report after any use of physical force, and that report should be automatically reviewed by high ranking officers.
Your community's second objective should be to get the police department to establish an early warning system to identify officers who are involved in an inordinate number of inappropriate physical force incidents. The incidents should then be investigated and, if verified, the officers involved should be charged, disciplined, transferred, retrained or offered counseling, depending on the severity of their misconduct. The Christopher Commission's report on the Rodney King beating ascertained that L.A. police leadership typically looked the other way when officers were involved in questionable incidents, a tolerance of brutality that helped create an atmosphere conducive to police abuses.
GOAL #4 — END POLICE SPYING
Police spying or intelligence gathering on legal but politically unpopular activities is a problem. And it's particularly difficult to deal with because spying, by definition, is a covert activity, unknown to either the victim or other witnesses.
During the 1970s, the ACLU and other organizations brought lawsuits against unconstitutional police surveillance in several cities around the country, including New York City, Chicago, Memphis and Los Angeles. The result was increased controls on police spying.
In 1976, Seattle residents discovered local police were spying on organizations of black construction workers, local Republican Party operatives, Native Americans, advocates for low-income housing and other activists whose conduct was perfectly lawful. In response to the revelations, the ACLU, along with the American Friends Service Committee and the National Lawyers Guild, formed the Coalition on Government Spying. After several years of hard work and lobbying, the coalition succeeded in bringing about passage of a comprehensive municipal law — the first of its kind in the country — that governs all police investigations and restricts the collection of political, religious and sexual information.
Called the Seattle Police Intelligence Ordinance, this law is a model for responsible police intelligence operations —
* "Restricted" information (i.e., about religious, political or sexual activity) can be collected only if a person is reasonably suspected of having committed a crime, and the information must be relevant to that crime.
* An independent civilian "auditor," appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the city council, must review all police authorizations to collect restricted information and have access to all other police files. The auditor must notify the police officers who are the subjects of the unlawful investigations if violations are found.
* Any individual subjected to unlawful surveillance can bring a civil action in court to stop the surveillance, and to collect damages from the city.
GOAL #5 — OVERSIGHT OF POLICE POLICY
Police policies should be subject to public review and debate instead of being viewed as the sole province of police insiders. Open policy-making not only allows police officials to benefit from community input, but it also provides an opportunity for police officials to explain to the public why certain tactics or procedures may be necessary. This kind of communication can help anticipate problems and avert crises before they occur.
The Police Review Commission (a civilian review body) of Berkeley, California, holds regular, bi-monthly meetings that are open to the public where representatives of community organizations can voice criticisms, make proposals and introduce resolutions to review or reform specific police policies.
The Police Practices Project of the ACLU of Northern California successfully pressured the San Francisco Police Department to adopt enlightened policies regarding the treatment of the homeless; the use of pain-holds and batons; the deployment of plainclothes officers at protests and demonstrations; intelligence gathering; the selection of field training officers, and AIDS/HIV education for police officers. The Project has also prevented the adoption of an anti-loitering rule, a policy that would have made demonstrators financially liable for police costs, and other bad policies.
In Tucson, Arizona, a Citizens' Police Advisory Committee was incorporated into the city's municipal code in July 1990. Composed of both civilian and police representatives, it has the authority to initiate investigations of controversial incidents or questionable policies, and other oversight functions.
CITIZEN-POLICE ADVISORY COMMITTEE TUCSON, ARIZONA
(Created by the Tucson Code, Sec. 10A-86)
FUNCTIONS —
1 — Consult with the governing body from time to time as may be required by the Mayor and [City] Council.
2 — Assist the police in achieving a greater understanding of the nature and causes of complex community problems in the area of human relations, with special emphasis on the advancement and improvement of relations between police and community minority groups.
3 — Study, examine and recommend methods, approaches and techniques to encourage and develop an active citizen-police partnership in the prevention of crime.
4 — Promote cooperative citizen-police programs and approaches to the solutions of community crime problems, emphasizing the principal that the administration of justice is a responsibility which requires total community involvement.
5 — Recommend procedures, programs and/or legislation to enhance cooperation among citizens of the community and police.
6 — Strive to strengthen and ensure throughout the community the application of the principle of equal protection under the law for all persons.
7 — Consult and cooperate with federal, state, city and other public agencies, commissions and committees on matters within the committee's charge.
8 — The committee may ask for and shall receive from the Police Department, a review of action taken by the Department in incidents which create community concern or controversy.
9 — The committee shall have the authority, should it so desire, to use a specific incident as a vehicle for the examination of police policies, procedures and priorities.
10 — At the discretion and express direction of the Mayor and Council, assume and undertake such other tasks or duties as will facilitate the accomplishment of these goals and objectives.
GOAL #6 — IMPROVED TRAINING
Citizens' groups in some communities have historically demanded more education and training for police officers as part of their efforts to solve the problem of police abuse. But today, this seems a less crucial issue in many police departments because the educational levels of American police officers have risen dramatically in recent years. In 1970, only 3.7 percent of the nation's police officers had four or more years of college. By 1989 that figure had risen to 22.6 percent, and a whopping 65 percent had at least some college experience. The levels of education are highest among new recruits, who in many departments have about two years of college.
The training of police personnel has also improved significantly in recent years. The average length of police academy programs has more than doubled, from about 300 to over 600 hours; in some cities, 900 or even 1200 hours are the rule. As the time devoted to training has increased, the academies have added a number of important subjects to their curricula: race relations, domestic violence, handling the mentally ill, and so on.
Unquestionably, a rigorously trained, professional police force is a desirable goal that should be pursued depending on local conditions. If citizens in your community feel that this is an important issue —
* You should aim for a first-rate police academy curriculum. The curriculum should be near the high end of the current scale — 800 hours or more. It should include a mix of classroom and supervised field training.
* It should include training in violence reduction techniques. In addition to being given weapons and taught how to use them, police recruits should also learn special skills — especially communications skills — to help them defuse and avert situations that might lead to the necessary use of force.
* It should include community sensitivity training. Training recruits to handle issues of special significance in particular communities can lead to a reduction in community-police tensions.
o In the early 1990s, the ACLU of Georgia, after a series of incidents occurred in Atlanta involving police harassment of gays, helped provide regular training at the local police academy to sensitize new recruits on gay and lesbian concerns.
o During the same period, the Police Practices Project of the ACLU of Northern California, working with other groups, organized a group of homeless people to create a video for use in sensitivity training at the San Francisco police academy.
o In response to complaints that state police were harassing minority motorists and entrapping gay men during an undercover operation in the men's room of a highway service area, in the late 1980s the ACLU of New Jersey joined the NAACP and the Lesbian and Gay Coalition in initiating a series of meetings with the new superintendent of the Division of State Police. The three groups now participate in a two-day seminar on "Cultural Diversity and Professionalism" introduced by the superintendent's office. Attendance is required by all employees of the Division.
Unfortunately, even the most enlightened training programs can be undermined by veteran officers, who traditionally tell recruits out in the field to "forget all that crap they taught you in the academy."
In San Francisco some years ago, men selected as field training officers (FTOs) were found to have some of the worst complaint and litigation records in the department. The evaluation scores they gave recruits revealed their systematic attempts to weed out minority and women officers. They labeled women recruits "bad drivers," gave Asians low scores in radio communication and unfairly criticized African Americans for their report-writing. The Northern California ACLU's Police Practices Project joined other community groups in successfully pressuring the police department to adopt stricter selection criteria for FTOs to ensure greater racial and gender integration, fairer evaluations of recruits and higher quality training.
GOAL #7 — EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY
Historically, police departments, like other government agencies, have engaged in employment discrimination. People of color have been grossly underrepresented, and women were not even accepted as full-fledged officers until the 1970s.
Some progress has been made in the last 20 years or so. Police departments in several cities now have significant numbers of officers who are people of color. A few departments even approach the theoretically ideal level of maintaining forces that reflect the racial composition of the communities they serve. Most departments now recruit and assign women on an equal basis with men.
Improvements in police employment practices have come about largely as the result of litigation under existing civil rights laws. However, the courts may not be hospitable to employment discrimination claims in the future. Therefore, community groups and civil rights organizations should prepare to fight in the political arena for the integration of police departments.
In the short term, the recruitment of more women and minority officers may not result in less police abuse. Several social science studies suggest that minority and white officers do not differ greatly in their use of physical or deadly force, or in their arrest practices. (Female officers, on the other hand, are involved in citizen complaints at about half the rate of male officers, according to the New York City CCRB.) Still, in the long term, an integrated police force is a very important goal for these reasons —
* Integration will break down the isolation of police departments, as they reflect more and more the composition of the communities they serve. A representative police force will probably be less likely to behave like an alien, occupying army. The visible presence of officers of color in high-ranking command positions engenders public confidence in the ability of police department personnel to identify, on human terms, with community residents.
* Integration demonstrates a commitment to the principles of equal opportunity and equal protection of the law. This is a crucial message for the primary enforcement arm of "the law" to send.
* Integration might, over time, reduce overtly racist/sexist activities such as brutality, harassment, and other discriminatory tactics.
GOAL #8 — CERTIFICATION AND LICENSING OF POLICE OFFICERS
Every state now has procedures for certifying or licensing police officers. These require all sworn officers to have some minimum level of training. This was one of the advances of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
An important new development is the advent of procedures for decertifying officers. Traditionally, a police officer could be fired from one department but then hired by another. As a result, persons guilty of gross misconduct could continue to work as police officers. Decertification bars a dismissed officer from further police employment in that state (though not necessarily in some other state). Between 1976 and 1983, the Florida Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission decertified 132 police officers.
Standardized procedures for state-level certification/decertification are a worthy goal to pursue. Be aware, however, that the state commission must have sufficient power and resources to investigate misconduct complaints, and must vigorously exercise its authority. And even if it has such power, certification/decertification is only one part of the comprehensive approach that's needed to achieve meaningful police discipline.
GOAL #9 — ACCREDITATION OF YOUR POLICE DEPARTMENT
One result of the increasing number of lawsuits brought against police departments by victims of abuse over the past 20 years came from within the police profession. It was a movement for an accreditation process, similar to that in education and other fields, whereby the police would establish and enforce their own professional standards.
In 1979, the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (COALEA) was established as a joint undertaking of several major professional associations. COALEA published its first set of Standards for Law Enforcement Agencies in 1985 and issues new standards periodically.
In deciding whether your community should press for accreditation of its local police department, keep in mind these basic points —
* Accreditation is a voluntary process. A police department suffers no penalty for not being accredited. (In contrast, lack of accreditation in higher education carries penalties that include an institution's ineligibility for student financial aid programs and non-recognition of its awarded credits or degrees.)
* Current accreditation standards represent minimum, rather than optimum, goals. They are very good in some respects but do not go far enough in covering the critical uses of law enforcement powers.
* Accreditation might make a difference in the case of a truly backward, unprofessional and poorly managed police department in that it could help stimulate much needed and long overdue changes.On the other hand, a police department can easily comply with all of the current standards and still tolerate rampant brutality, spying and other abuses.
Citizens in your particular community must decide whether, taking all of the above into account, accreditation would serve as an effective mobilization tool.
5. ORGANIZING STRATEGIES
Once your community has identified its police problems and decided what solutions to pursue, an organizing strategy for securing the desired reform must be developed.
In the 1960s and `70s, the most successful method of attacking police abuse was the lawsuit. During the tenure of Chief Justice Earl Warren, landmark Supreme Court decisions that imposed nationally uniform limits on police behavior were handed down in the cases of Mapp v. Ohio, Escobedo v. Illinois and Miranda v. Arizona. Respectively, those decisions extended Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures to the states, established the Sixth Amendment right to a lawyer during police interrogations and required the police to inform persons taken into custody of their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Today, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist demonstrates repeated hostility to individual rights. Many lower federal courts, the majority of whose presiding judges were appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, follow this trend. More and more, therefore, the task of opposing police abuse falls not to lawyers, but to the citizens in the communities.
The following profiles of successful organizing strategies can guide your community's attempts to effectively challenge police abuse.
STRATEGY #1 — BUILD COALITIONS
PROFILE: The Indianapolis Law Enforcement and Community Relations Coalition
The year is 1984. Galvanized by a series of brutal and unjustified police killings that have sparked tensions between the police department and the African American community, 19 civil rights, religious, professional and civic organizations form the Indianapolis Law Enforcement/Community Relations Coalition. Coalition members include the Urban League, Baptist Ministerial Alliance, Community Centers of Indianapolis, Hispano-American Center, Indiana Council of Churches, Jewish Community Relations Council, Mental Health Association, NAACP and the United Methodist Church.
The coalition, co-chaired by the Executive Director of the Urban League and a designee of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, was instrumental in the establishment of a civilian review board in 1989, despite considerable political opposition. Since that time, it has worked to strengthen the authority of that body, which still lacks jurisdiction over police shooting fatalities.
A recent series of highly publicized episodes of police misconduct, culminating in an incident in August, 1996, which newspapers dubbed "the police brawl" lent new urgency to the Coalition's efforts. Representatives of the Coalition were tapped by the Greater Indianapolis Process Committee to serve on a Working Group of citizens charged with reviewing the Civilian Review Process and recommending changes in jurisdiction and composition. A co-chair of the Coalition served as co-chair of the Working Group.
The broad-based Coalition is credited by many for drawing attention to management problems within the Indianapolis Police Department in addition to the tensions between officers and minority communities. The Coalition's research provided the basis for the deliberations of the Working Group; even more important, once the Working Group has delivered its recommendations, monitoring the resulting process will be the responsibility of the Coalition.
Key to the Coalition's success has been its broadbased composition and its commitment to participatory decision-making.
STRATEGY #2 — MONITOR THE POLICE
PROFILE: Copwatch, Berkeley, California
Copwatch is a community organization whose stated purpose is "to reduce police harassment and brutality," and "to uphold Berkeley's tradition of tolerance and diversity." Its main activities are monitoring police conduct through personal observation, recording and publicizing incidents of abuse and harassment, and working with Berkeley's civilian review board — the Police Review Commission.
Copwatch sends teams of volunteers into the community on three-hour shifts. Each team is equipped with a flashlight, tape recorder, camera, "incident" forms (see sample form) and Copwatch Handbooks that describe the organization's non-violent tactics, relevant laws, court decisions, police policies and what citizens should do in an emergency. At the end of a shift, the volunteers return their completed forms to the COPWATCH office. If they have witnessed an harassment incident, they call one of the organization's cooperating lawyers, who follows up on the incident.
Copwatch holds weekly meetings, and its activists attend public meetings of the Police Review Commission. It publishes a quarterly newsletter, Copwatch Report, which features a "Cop Blotter" column that describes examples of police misconduct "gleaned from Copwatch incident reports."
Although the group's impact has not been studied, Copwatch activists are convinced that their monitoring activities deter and, thus, reduce harassment and abuse.
COPWATCH INCIDENT REPORT FORM
Date Time Place
Officers (names & numbers)
Police Car License No.
Arrestee/Victim's Name
Other information
Suspected charge
Witnesses (names & phone numbers)
Injuries? If yes, describe
Photos or tapes?
Does arrestee need a lawyer?
Description of incident
Name of Copwatcher
STRATEGY #3 — USE OPEN RECORDS LAWS
PROFILE: The Seattle Coalition on Government Spying
The year is 1976. During confirmation hearings for a new Seattle police chief, it comes to light that the city's police department maintains political intelligence files on citizens who are not suspected of any criminal activity. Some time later, a local newspaper prints the names of 150 individuals that were found in police files.
A group of citizens, concerned about this clear violation of First Amendment and privacy rights, forms the Coalition on Government Spying.
-- continued @: http://www.aclu.org/police/gen/14614pub
June 18th, 2009
June 15th, 2009
June 8th, 2009
May 23rd, 2009
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May 15th, 2009
May 14th, 2009
May 7th, 2009
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