Eye of the Storm

Over 300 cases. This is our "justice" system. It sucks up the "poor," the marginalized, it targets people of color, people with mental health issues and substance abuse issues, and, of course, others as well. I simply cannot understand how something that is so cold and calculating and brutal can continue to exist. Reform is useless. Prison abolitionists, like the people at Critical Resistance, and others, like the Black Panthers, have the right idea.

From a recent Information for Delinquency, which is what a Probation Officer writes up when someone isn't doing what the Probation Officer thinks the person should be doing:

"He displays no fear of the criminal justice system."

This is a 17 year old kid we're talking about. He's a hero in my book. The PO said the defendant "needs to be shocked." Did you help him find a shitty wage-slave job at McDonald's? Did you enroll him in school? No and no. He has to abide by your rules. He has to adjust to your concept of the way a life should be lived. He went down for 120 days.

One set of people dominates another. If you don't live by our rules, we will totally destroy you.
Our rules are generalized abstractions that fail to take into account the particularities of your life. They are objective, reasonable, systematized, and apolitical. Applicable to all persons regardless of income, skin color, education, blah blah blah. Interesting that so much of Criminal Procedure is the product of violent racism. I would argue that the Criminal Procedure Law is thoroughly incapable of providing a structure by which a criminal case can be fairly adjudicated. Individual needs are ignored. The needs of judges and DAs running for election are catered to without regard to the impact on defendants. See "The Racial Origins of Modern Criminal Procedure," Michigan Law Review, Fall 2000, Michael Klarman; and "No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System," David Cole, (The New Press, 1999).

It is simply impossible to know what is going on with this many cases. That said, I do feel like I've managed to reach the eye of the storm. Everything swirls around me. Sometimes I grab something and hang on for dear life. Its like trying to jump on a bullet. There is so much that I don't know. There is so much that is fleeting, unpredictable, vague. Things are happening, but what are those things and what is happening? Things start to gather, pile up, and pretty soon there is a pronounced sense of impending doom. Ever seen footage of one of those monster tornados with all the debris flyin' around everywhere? That's what its like.