What do police do?
Three stories from NYC about "crime" and "criminals"
One of the clearest breakdowns of the flawed logic propping up mass incarceration that I have ever read was written by a lawyer named Alec Karakatsanis. In his essay, “The Punishment Bureaucracy: How to Think About ‘Criminal Justice Reform’” Karakatsanis lays out some key points to understanding mass incarceration in the United States.
Crime is socially constructed. In other words, what we legally define as crime changes over time. Furthermore, not all crime causes harm, and many forms of harm are not considered crimes.
The criminal justice system makes choices about which laws to enforce, where to enforce them, who to target for enforcement, as well as how to prosecute law breaking. We have chosen to incarcerate Black youth for the same drug offenses that generally go ignored on college campuses. We chose not to prosecute significant crimes committed by the Bush administration during the “War on Terror” and also the financial industry leading up the financial crisis in 2008.
Overall, the carceral system creates a caste system which creates and reinforces racial and economic inequality.
Reading Karakatsanis’ essay was eye opening for me. It’s not that I doubted the harm caused by mass incarceration. But, his essay helped me understand the myriad unspoken assumptions baked into our society’s commitment to mass incarceration. Karatkasanis’ essay and presence on Twitter have shifted the way I consume news about policing and mass incarceration.
There are three stories on my mind from the past week that illustrate Karatkasanis and other abolitionists’ point that the system is fundamentally structured to cause harm.
NYPD versus Tenants
Last week, Brooklyn Eviction Defense put out a call for neighbors to help a Crown Heights family keep their home. After 70 years in the home, the family’s deed was stolen. I joined neighbors for two short shifts of a “stoop watch” to protect the family from being locked out of their home.
One afternoon, shortly after I left, the landlord showed up with a gang of people to try to force the stoop watchers off the property. When they arrived, the police sprung into action, violently pushing the eviction defenders. Once they pushed my friends and the other defenders off the property, the police tried - with no legal basis - to force the defenders to the other side of the street. Thankfully through the legal support and activism of Brooklyn Eviction Defense, this case drew the attention of our city council member and eventually the New York State Attorney General. Sadly, there are thousands of other New Yorkers who aren’t so lucky.
In the meantime, The City reported that thousands of NYC landlords break the law through illegal evictions, and face no consequences. Just as they did in the case of the Crown Heights family’s fight against eviction, the cops and courts regularly use their power to protect and serve landlords.
NYPD versus Unhoused New Yorkers (Part 1)
Another story that drew national attention was the NYPD gloating about the arrest of twelve New Yorkers and seizing $1,800 of stolen property. Presumably, the NYPD shares tweets like these to show they’re doing their job. But in this case, they were a little too honest. After people pointed out that arresting people for stealing baby formula and diapers didn’t make them feel safer, the NYPD deleted the tweet. A reporter later shared that two of the people appeared to live in homeless shelters.
NYPD versus Unhoused New Yorkers (Part 2)
The third story to drive home the role of police in New York City and other communities was the news of Mayor Eric Adams’ new subway safety plan. Recently New York City’s subways have seen a visible increase in unhoused people riding. There has also been an increase in violent crimes. After Adams’ announced his plan, six people were stabbed over the weekend. There is a genuine crisis of safety.
But, similar to the NYPD’s tweet, Eric Adams said the quiet part of carceral logic out loud. “The system is not made to be housing. It’s made to be transportation, and we have to return back to that basic philosophy,” Adams said.
I could write a whole post about this quote alone, but I’ll spare you and keep my thoughts to bullet points:
Adams is acknowledging the increase of unhoused people on subways is the result of a housing crisis. His solution… kick unhoused people off subways using police.
Where is the evidence that unhoused people are responsible for the uptick, perceived or otherwise, in violent crime?
If there is in fact a link, why haven’t police kept us safe to this point? New York City is crawling with police. It spends more on police than some nations do on their militaries.
Each of these stories put a pit in my stomach. They each reinforced the ideas put forth by Alec Karatkasanis in their own way. Whether or not we believe that crime is a problem, we have to be honest about how we choose to define crime and who we define as criminals. These were just three stories from a potential mountain of evidence in New York City alone that illustrate the true nature of policing and incarceration. It seems that whenever given the opportunity, we choose cages for our most vulnerable community members rather than providing basic resources. In fact, as the Crown Heights story shows, sometimes we’ll even use police to rob you of the safety and stability you already have.
The system is sick to its core. We must rebuild entirely.
