Under Siege

Posted: October 20, 2015 in Police State
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My colleague who shares my office is black.  Most of my co-workers are black.  Detroit is a black majority city (almost 83% at last check).

This morning, my colleague told me about getting pulled over, twice, the day before.  Her son attends a private school in a suburb of Detroit, and each day she provides him transportation.  On the way to the school in the afternoon, she was pulled over for speeding next to a college (where the speed limit inexplicably drops to 20 from a 55).  Fair enough.

Later that day, she was driving home with her son and infant daughter.  She was on the freeway, in the right lane, driving slowly because of the earlier ticket.  She was pulled over, and the police behind her turned on their spotlights and loudspeakers, ordering her to roll down her windows and put her hands outside the vehicle.  Two more state police vehicles pulled up within seconds, and four policemen approached her car with guns drawn; after berating her for not lowering her windows fully (on a 40 degree day with a 10-month old baby in the car), they issued a ticket and told her to come to court for it to be thrown out.

Her crime?  Tinted windows.  Which are completely see-through.  Which were put in by her father, when he owned the vehicle.

Did I mention her father is a police officer?

Police no doubt have an image of who is driving a red Impala with tinted windows.  They have thoughts about who drives from Warren to Detroit, and why that trip is made.

Traffic stops are scary for cops.  There is always the chance someone can be dangerous.  However, most fatalities from traffic stops are from other vehicles on the road; of the 149 officers who died in the line of duty in 2014, 57 were traffic stop related, but only eight were killed by firearms during a traffic stop.*

In 2014, about 1,100 civilians were killed by police.  Most civilian contact with police starts with a traffic stop.

Terror connects police and civilians.  Police worry they will be killed by a dangerous civilian, but know if someone kills a police offer, the full weight of law enforcement will be upon them.  Civilians worry if they put a finger wrong, they will be killed without compunction or punishment.

Police may feel they are under siege, against a groundswell of public opposition.  People of color, in the wrong neighborhoods, driving the wrong cars, have felt under siege for decades.

Civilians are killed at about 21.5% the rate of police.  So far this year, about 922 civilians were killed by the police.  About 100 police officers were killed in the same period.  You’re almost 10 times a likely to die at the hands of law enforcement than vice versa.

And it’s likely the numbers are far greater; statistics about police violence are notoriously unreliable.

Any number of deaths is likely too many.  I’m sure some of these deaths are justifiable homicide.  And it’s horrendous that people die in the line of duty, many of whom are likely good cops doing the right things.

But the numbers don’t lie.  Police approaching normal, routine events as if they are life-or-death situations leads to unnecessary killing, increases civilian anger with law enforcement, and actually makes cops less safe; as people get angrier, the violence against the police will grow.

Both sides need to stand down.  But the ones with the legally sanctioned right to kill need to start.

*(In 2012, over 4,000 officers were wounded/assaulted during traffic stops)

TBT Song’O’The Week

Posted: October 17, 2015 in #TBT Song'O'The Week
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Ok…a bit late, but this week’s song:

“Stormy Monday” by Lee Michaels

Absolutely incredible! I grew up listening to this song, and though it’s often covered, this is the best version of it.  No wonder Lee Michaels went deaf young!

Juvenile Murder Sentencing – A Saner Approach

Posted: October 13, 2015 in evidence based policy, prison industrial complex
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A 70 year old man in Oklahoma is making headlines.

So is an 11 year old boy.

The first has been imprisoned since age 16, when he murdered a police officer.

The second murdered his 12 year old neighbor after she refused to show him her puppy.  Prosecutors are apparently considering charging this child as an adult.

The US Supreme Court ruled that children who commit crimes must have their circumstances considered.  In 2005, it ruled the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment.  In 2012, life sentencing was limited.  However, many young people are still locked up for life, over 3000 in the US alone.  This is absurd!  Here’s why.

The Biological Argument

The American Bar Association recognizes differences between adults and adolescents, based on new information coming from scientific advances in understanding brain development and function.

A brief explanation of brains.  Most of what we consider “common sense” and “adult choices” come from the frontal lobe; this is where our organization, planning, and impulse control are centered.  Juvenile brains are different; let’s get that out of the way right now.  Frontal lobe development doesn’t stop until the mid-twenties; to expect a teenager to make decisions as an adult isn’t accurate.  While the abstract reasoning in teenagers is likely the same as adults, the emotional maturity is much different.Hormones also differ as we age.  Adolescent boys have an enormous amount of testosterone to deal with, which is associated with increased aggression.  Behavioral changes, like hating your parents and demanding more privacy, also start around this time.

The biology of teenagers may serve to diminish their capacity/responsibility for crimes committed, but is still being debated.

The Behavioral/Environmental Argument

Children are products of their environments; few are bullies without violence at home, or delinquents without poor parental supervision.  Over 30% of juvenile offenders on death row had experienced 6 or more traumatic events in childhood.  Adult offenders are far more likely to come from traumatic backgrounds than normative samples.

Witnessing or being the victim of violence in the home can spark violent behavior in children and adolescents; what teachers or adults read as a “bad seed” is likely the result of a bad environment.

Labeling behaviors as criminal also serves to mask other underlying concerns, such as low IQ, mental health issues, and social struggles (i.e. living in poverty, having a parent in prison, living in a violence-prone neighborhood etc).

Criminalizing children through the school-to-prison pipeline reinforces structural inequality, especially for children of color; it makes it more likely people with mental illness will not seek treatment, that trust in authority is reduced, and that violence festers in neighborhoods.

When we put children in jail, we also put them at risk of further victimization. A traumatic history increases vulnerability for future trauma, and prison itself can be traumatizing.  Many children are assaulted by jail/prison staff and other inmates; over 13% suffer sexual abuse while incarcerated (mostly from staff members).  We are making it more likely these children will have future problems, or even stay in prison longer, in the name of punishment and protection.

The Rehabilitation Argument

At its heart, juvenile justice needs to focus on changing and improving a mind that is still malleable and developing.  Juvenile courts have an excellent qualitative track record of success, though recidivism data is gathered by individual states and is difficult to analyze.  We do know that the more times someone is incarcerated, the lower the chances of rehabilitation.  There are a number of alternatives to incarceration that have shown promise, are based on research and data, and show promise to improve outcomes for incarcerated youth as well as the communities they live in.

(Plus, incarceration is EXPENSIVE.  We shouldn’t forget the dollar dollar bills)

Nationally, our recidivism rates are abysmal.  Over 67% of people who are released from prison are re-arrested within three years; the number rises to over 75% after five years.  Obviously, what we’re doing isn’t changing minds, changing lives, or changing attitudes.  We shouldn’t subject children to broken systems that aren’t even effective for adults.

None of these arguments are meant to excuse those who commit crimes – we have to consider our response.  If a teen can choose to do wrong, they need to pay the consequences, but it’s our responsibility to ensure the consequences are appropriate to the crime.  With the new information at our disposal, it’s now up to us to create sane and humane punishments that will help protect society by rehabilitating these children, rather than locking them up without hope of redemption.

Children can do horrible things.  This doesn’t mean we should also do horrible things to them.

#TBT Song’O’The Week

Posted: October 8, 2015 in #TBT Song'O'The Week
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Starting a new feature – each Thursday, I’ll post a song that you might have liked back in the day, a nostalgia song, or a song I forgot about and discovered again.  Because this is the Shame Dynamic, and that’s what we do here,  it will definitely center around old punk, metal, electronic or underground rock songs.

yep, and this.

If you’ve got an idea for a song to feature, please shoot me an email – otherwise, enjoy.

Today’s Throwback Thursday song:

Disregard the Runner-Up, by Kicked in the Head.

This is one of those tunes you can only find on a Warped Tour comp (remember when those used to be good?!).  Back in two thousand aught three, this was my jam; it’s the best tune to be blasted with windows down, rolling fast down the street.  Too bad very little of Kicked in the Head’s other music was decent.

Party down!  Happy Thursday!

Guns, guns, and more guns.

Posted: October 6, 2015 in Uncategorized
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Back from hiatus, and already there is another tragedy to discuss.  To paraphrase On the Media’s Bob Garfield, last Thursday, an American exercising his constitutionally protected right to protect himself from tyranny and crime, decided instead to kill some college students and himself.

As after every tragedy, every event, the news and internet and blogosphere are full of think pieces, commentary, and cries for change.  Obama appealed to the media to list deaths from terrorism and gun violence side by side; they obliged.

via Business Insider

via the Washington Post

Much has been made of the importance of gun ownership by both the GOP and the NRA, for years.  They tell us we have to have guns to stop home invasions, that we need guns so the police trained professionals government overlords aren’t the only ones with guns, that women need guns to not get raped, that domestic violence victims need guns to protect themselves, that teachers need guns to stop school shootings, that retail workers need guns to not get robbed, that drivers need guns to not get carjacked.

(For those interested, these arguments are not ever supported by data.  Intimate partner violence is deadlier for victims when guns are introduced.  Rapes generally turn into murders when the victim has a gun – the perpetrator tends to use it on the victim.  Carjacking can turn deadly when an [untrained] hero rushes in.  Having a gun in your home increases the risk to your family while only six crimes are stopped each year, on average, by homeowners with guns.  Not to mention fear + lack of training + gun = accidental murder.)

On the Media had Tom Teves, of NoNotoriety, on to discuss media responsibility in reporting on these shootings; he emphasized how little a man’s name mattered, and pointed out that infamy and celebrity are almost interchangeable – to make a killer famous is to inspire future killers.

He ended by stating “when the ‘who’ starts becoming the ‘why’ you have a problem.”  These shootings cannot be simply about the people doing the shooting – there is something driving them, something making our president have to express condolences for the twentieth time since he gained office.

It doesn’t matter if this shooter was “mentally ill”, or “unstable”, or “awkward”, or “unpopular.”  It matters that we created the conditions in which he can take his anger and rage and kill people, and then get famous.

If you want to protect yourself from tyranny, get yourself a hunting rifle.  But get it through your head – handguns and assault weapons are killing Americans daily.  They are not helpful.  They are deadly.  If you want to protect America, start by caring about Americans.

 

Programming Note.

Posted: September 10, 2015 in Uncategorized
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Apologies, apologies, apologies all around.

I am going through some big personal changes right now, and have not had the energy or mental stamina to write.

Beginning the first week in October, I will be writing an article each Tuesday, along with a Throwback Thursday song post each week.

Thanks so much for your support, and I’ll see you in October.

“We Don’t Want to be Right, We Want to be Happy”: toward a new definition of mindfulness

Posted: July 28, 2015 in Uncategorized
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Mindfulness is one of the hottest catchphrases I’ve heard in a while; it’s been around forever, and is the cornerstone in multiple therapeutic modalities, but now it’s truly coming into fashion.

Yoga enthusiasts will be familiar with mindfulness; for those new to the idea, it’s being present in the moment, observing without judgement.  Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) rests on an assumption of mindful practice.  Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) encourages participants to observe their thought patterns and how thoughts impact judgement, emotions and behavior; one must be mindful to be able to identify thoughts.  Mindfulness is helpful for cancer patients, people with chronic pain, people with severe mental health concerns, sports stars, businessmen and politicians.

Mindfulness practice is just that – it takes practice, a LOT of practice.  Trying different techniques is not only encouraged, it’s necessary to create a strong mindful practice.

(if you want suggestions for how to try mindfulness, look here, here and here for examples)

During the yoga class I attend each Thursday, we practice mindfulness meditation at the beginning and end of the class; our cool-down meditation includes our instructor speaking softly, guiding relaxation through our bodies and different chakras, along with the energies these bodily areas control.  The stomach digests change, the liver is where we hold resentments.  Our instructor encourages us to release all old hurts and angers, so we don’t hurt ourselves or others with them; she reminds us we don’t have to re-experience these old events to let them go, and that this anger does not define us.  She says we don’t want to be right, we want to be happy.

Every Thursday, parts of this speech bother me.  The world is unjust and unfair; each day, people are being oppressed, tortured, discriminated against.  And I think it’s right to be angry and stay angry about these things.

Letting go doesn’t mean forgetting; it doesn’t mean going along as if we agree.  Acceptance does not mean agreement.

Acceptance is taking reality as it is, not as we wish it to be.  It’s accepting this is the world we live in, and understanding what we can and cannot control.  Anger is a helpful tool.  Anger is a useful, appropriate emotion; it can spur us to further action and encouragement of others to make change.  But we can’t internalize it, or it will kill us.

Many women and men have written about this, much more eloquently than I can hope to do.

Is it possible to be right and happy?

Until then, we need a definition of mindfulness acknowledging anger as reasonable, understandable, and something that defines people all over the world.  Mindfulness; to be angry, hopeful and understanding; to have compassion for yourself and others; to accept reality, while disagreeing with how the world exists.

Dylann Roof is NOT Mentally Ill (and it wouldn’t matter if he was)

Posted: June 19, 2015 in Uncategorized
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Let’s just get this out of the way.  The mass shooting in Charleston, SC was horrific, tragic, and totally unnecessary.  It was an act of terrorism, done to inspire fear, born of hatred and disrespect and entitlement.

But Dylann Roof is not mentally ill.

Anyone who looks at this event and blames one person’s [nonexistent] pathology is desperately trying to avoid addressing the systemic issues that cause these shootings.

The United States has more mass shootings than any other developed nation.  What is it about living in the United States that leads [white] people to kill those [blacks and browns] they hate?

Our personalities and our actions are products of our environments, the barrel of vinegar we’re soaking in from birth.  We live in a poisonous barrel, full of slavery’s legacy, white supremacy, stigma, loss, anger, but also fights for freedom, respect, civil rights, forward motion.

We live in a place where black lives are routinely and historically devalued.  We live in a place where guns are ridiculously easy to get (and can be made at home or printed out).

Mental illness has nothing to do with this.

People with mental illness are much more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators.  The vast majority of folks struggling with mental illness struggle with anxiety and depression.  Mental illness doesn’t make a murderer, any more than running shoes make a track star.

Looking at Roof as a mentally ill lone gunman entirely misses the point.  It’s lazy, factually incorrect, and perpetuates stigma that costs thousands of people struggling with mental illness their lives each year.

It’s not the person, it’s the person as they function within the system in which they live.

Dylann Roof learned that violence is an acceptable answer to dislike, misunderstanding, imagined wrongs and hatred.  He learned that black people won’t be as much of a loss as white people, that they are naturally inferior to his white skin, that they are inherently violent, that they are inherently them and not us.  It was this learning that led to this shooting – he learned it would be fairly okay, that this was somehow acceptable loss.

A caller to On Point this morning talked about living in the south; he said there were people there who would probably not see these shootings as tragic or horrifying, rather something to glorify.  This is a cultural issue as well as a personal issue – this was the barrel Dylann Roof was soaking in.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m aware it’s “not all white men” and “not all Southerners” and “not all young men” et. al.  But the combination of this personality and this toxic environment led to tragedy, and now nine people are dead.

Stop blaming these massacres on mental illness.  Blame them on our toxic culture that allows hatred to flourish, then kill.

Today, My Heart is in Kenya

Posted: April 3, 2015 in Uncategorized
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I started my morning off with tears today, after hearing a terrorist attack in Kenya yesterday has left 147 students dead.  An interview with the father of one of the victims started it; he talked with his daughter late Wednesday night.  She asked for money and they chatted about her anxiety over upcoming exams.  She was killed the next day, in an exam prep class.  Her father saw pictures of bodies under desks, lying in pools of blood.  He recognized the red dress she was wearing.

Death comes for us all.  It cannot be escaped.  We cannot protect ourselves from it.  We are vulnerable.

I’m expecting condemnations of the attacks from world leaders and world citizens.  We’re going to talk a lot about al-Shabab (the responsible party) and terrorism and fanaticism.  I’m sure, in some quarters, debates with devolve into a bitter debate about Islam, Christianity and extremism.

These are worthy issues, issues which should be addressed and discussed.  But we can’t protect ourselves from everything.

We are all vulnerable.

When I was a kid, all I wanted was a trampoline.  My mom actually bought me one once (thanks Mom!) and was forced to take it back because my dad feared me breaking my leg.  My new favorite thing that I want (and WILL HAVE) is the sunken trampoline.  Instead of being 3-4 feet off the ground, a pit can be dug so the trampoline is level with the ground, ostensibly reducing the chance of injury.

Here’s the thing – legs break all the time, for all sorts of reasons.  I still ended up breaking a bone (for non-trampoline related reasons).  I’m sure a leg can still break from a ground-level trampoline.

We can protect ourselves, sort of.  But we can’t protect ourselves from everything.

Victim-blaming is a huge problem in the sexual-assault world (and all criminal justice stuff, really).  It comes from a place of fear.  We want to believe a victim brought it on themselves, so we can reduce our own fear, that existential knowledge that we’re all vulnerable, that bad shit happens, no matter what.  If we can believe that by wearing the right clothes, or living in the right neighborhood, or guarding our drinks, we can prevent crime, then we are less afraid.  If we can start believing the victim is to blame, then we don’t have to worry – we’re much smarter, much more prepared, than that person.

There is no universal protection.  We are all vulnerable.

I want to live the kind of life that is so full, so full of hope and joy and passion, that I am less afraid to die.  That’s the only thing we have control over – our behavior.  I want to know, if I died today, that I wouldn’t have grudges, or unfinished business, or deep regrets.  Because it can happen to anyone.  It can happen at any time.

Instead of reacting to Kenya’s tragedy with posturing, anger and fear, I want to react with love and compassion.  Feel grief with the parents and friends of those students, whose only crime was getting an education.  Feel the sadness, and rage, and hope that we can prevent these tragedies in the future.

We can.  We can respect each other, love each other.  We can react to the unexpected with a smile and a question rather than a frown and fear.  We can live a life that’s full.  We can know that the only cure for hatred is powerful love; not a passive, wimpy love – love burning with righteous anger while holding empathy and compassion for the lost souls who cannot feel anything but hatred and rage.

Today, my heart is in Kenya.

Prison, Trauma and Empathy – a twisted loop

Posted: March 26, 2015 in Uncategorized
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I’ve been thinking a lot about empathy lately, both because of the upcoming presidential election, and because of some bad luck I had recently with property crime. Detroit Today had a segment yesterday about criminal justice; host Steven Henderson pointed out this might be one of those rare issues on which things actually get done, as liberals’ and conservatives’ views align.  It’s like seeing a unicorn.

The BIG ISSUE with criminal justice is the purpose and the results.  Or at least, that’s what I take from the endless debates about costs and treatments and outcomes and recidivism.  We need to know what we’re putting people away TO ACHIEVE, and if we’re actually achieving our goals.

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