Thora Institute: February 2007

2/26/2007

No to Giuliani

Selections from “A Legacy of Giuliani Years: Civil Rights Suits Against City,” New York Times, December 24, 2004.

In the three years since Michael R. Bloomberg succeeded Mr. Giuliani, the city has spent close to $2 million to settle lawsuits brought by residents and city workers who accused the Giuliani administration of retaliating against them for exercising free speech or other constitutional rights.

Among them is a limousine driver, James Schillaci, who had complained in a newspaper article about a red-light sting set up by the police in the Bronx. The same day, police came to his home to arrest him for a 13-year-old unpaid ticket. The next day, the mayor obtained -- illegally, Mr. Schillaci said -- the record of his arrests from decades earlier and discussed it, inaccurately, at a news conference. The city settled with him for $290,000 in 2002.

Dantae Johnson of the Bronx has charged in a lawsuit that after he was shot by a police officer in May 1999, Mr. Giuliani and the police commissioner, Howard Safir, falsely described him as a criminal to justify the shooting. The officer was convicted of assault. The city has denied responsibility.

A former member of the police Street Crime Unit, Yvette Walton, was fired in 1999 after publicly criticizing the unit's operations. The police commissioner, Mr. Safir, said she was dismissed for abuse of sick leave, but testimony showed that her commander had planned to punish her for that infraction simply by docking one day's vacation. When she began speaking out, the matter was abruptly transferred to the commissioner's office.

Mr. Safir "removed Walton's case from the jurisdiction of her commanding officer, and, without hearing or trial or consideration of her overall performance, dismissed Walton as a police officer," Federal District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled. "I find that Walton's dismissal was in retaliation for the exercise of her First Amendment rights."

Mr. Safir disputed that finding, but in November 2002, the city paid Ms. Walton $327,000 and allowed her to retire with her pension, according to Chris Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which represented Ms. Walton.

In March 2000, after Patrick Dorismond, a Times Square security guard, was shot to death in a confrontation with an undercover police officer, Mr. Giuliani responded to criticism of the shooting by releasing Mr. Dorismond's sealed juvenile record. In a wrongful-death suit against the city, his family cited Mr. Giuliani's release of the criminal records as part of a pattern of smearing people hurt by the police. The city paid $2.25 million to settle the suit in 2002.

Derek Sells, the lawyer who represented the family, could not say precisely what role Mr. Giuliani's release of the juvenile records played in the settlement. "It was an embarrassing issue for the city," Mr. Sells said. "It was very clear that it was a breach in the law."

People assign Giuliani responsibility for reducing crime in New York City, but most, if not all, of the crime decline in New York was the result of factors that produced a decline in crime in cities across the country in the 1990s.

People were impressed by Giuliani’s leadership ability after 9/11, but they were also impressed by George W. Bush’s leadership skills at the time. The emotions around 9/11 distorted perceptions.

The best measure of Giuliani is his record as mayor, and it not a good one if one values civil liberties and racial harmony.

--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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2/19/2007

End the War on Drugs

One of the 10 Best Black Books of 2006! --Kam Williams, Dallasblack.com

I taught Getting It Wrong to my undergrad black politics class. The book is a real tonic. --Adolph Reed, University of Pennsylvania

Purchase Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals
Are Failing Black America by Algernon Austin

Barnes & Noble.com Amazon.com

Algernon Austin speaks on The Covenant with Black America for The New Haven Black History Coalition’s Annual Black History Celebration, February 24th, 10am, Gateway Community College, Long Wharf Campus
________________________________________________________________________

The War on Drugs has been a 35-year long disaster. It has not significantly reduced the availability any drug, and it has been a cancer slowly eating away at the health and strength of black America. We desperately need a new approach.

A great amount of resources has been spent trying to reduce the availability of drugs, and, yet, it has been an utter failure. The Monitoring the Future Study of student drug use clearly reveals this fact. In 1975, 88 percent of twelfth graders said that it was “fairly easy” or “very easy” to obtain marijuana. In 2005, after thirty years and billions of dollars waging a War on Drugs, 86 percent of twelfth graders still reported that it was easy to obtain marijuana—essentially no change. (Monitoring the Future, Vol. 1, Table 9-8, 423-4.)

What about for other drugs? The numbers of high school seniors saying that cocaine is easy to get went from 37 percent in 1975 to 45 percent in 2005—an increase! For heroin, in 1975, 24 percent of seniors said that it was easy to get. In 2005, 27 percent said the same—basically no change. For the more recent drug on the scene, methamphetamine, in 1990, 24 percent of seniors said that it was easy to get. In 2005, 27 percent said the same—again, basically no change. What positive can we say that the War on Drugs has accomplished?

While the War on Drugs has done nothing about the availability of drugs, it has succeeded in producing a very large increase in the prison population. This increase in incarceration has been borne disproportionately by black communities. Young, black males with little education have very few job options. They are more likely to be unemployed in comparison to similar white males, and when employed, they tend to earn less than similar whites. The drug trade lures these young men in precisely because of their inferior legal job opportunities.

To address the problem of drug use in America, we need to focus much more on the demand for drugs and much less on the supply. Drug use has fluctuated over time and it varies by region and social characteristics. We need to better understand what causes these fluctuations and apply this knowledge to drug prevention. We need to more effectively market healthy living. The reduction in the rates of smoking over time shows that these messages can be effective. And we need to make sure that treatment for drug addiction is readily available and easily accessible.

A reduction in drug use prevents the harm caused by drug addiction, and it also reduces the harm caused by the violence around struggles over drug-dealing territory. The crack wars of the late 1980s and early 1990s ended not because of better policing and increasing incarceration, but because the demand for crack dropped and with it the price. By the mid-1990s, the crack trade was no longer worth fighting over.

Steven Levitt and Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh show us how we can effectively reduce young, black male involvement in the drug trade: jobs. Young men, like the drug dealers Levitt and Venkatesh studied, have an unemployment rate of about 50 percent. Levitt and Venkatesh show that most young, black men in the drug trade earn about minimum wage and that their “labor market participation responds to changing wages in the drug trade.” If low drug wages increase their participation in the legal workforce then more legal job opportunities with higher wages will likely reduce their involvement with the drug trade. Venkatesh’s interviews answer the question of what kind of job it would take to accomplish this result: being a janitor at the University of Chicago.

We can reduce the damage caused by drug addiction and by the violence around the drug trade in black communities by acknowledging that the War on Drugs has been a failure and that we need to do something different. After three decades of failure with an aggressive war on the supply of drugs, we need to try smarter and more intensive approaches to reduce the demand for drugs. We could significantly reduce black involvement in the drug trade by increasing the legal job opportunities and wages of less-educated young, black men. This approach would lead to an increase in the numbers of black males who are tax-paying, productive citizens as opposed to the current practices which have produced very large numbers of black males who waste their lives and billions of our tax dollars in America’s prisons.

--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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2/12/2007

Drug Dealing as a Low-Wage Occupation

One of the 10 Best Black Books of 2006! --Kam Williams, Dallasblack.com

I taught Getting It Wrong to my undergrad black politics class. The book is a real tonic. --Adolph Reed, University of Pennsylvania

Purchase Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals
Are Failing Black America by Algernon Austin
Barnes & Noble.com Amazon.com

Algernon Austin speaks on The Covenant with Black America for The New Haven Black History Coalition’s Annual Black History Celebration, February 24th, 10am, Gateway Community College, Long Wharf Campus
________________________________________________________________________

Before we can address the problem of drug dealing in black communities and craft a sensible criminal justice policy, we need be able to see it from its least discussed angle—as a low-wage occupation. The following is an excerpt from “Myths about Blacks and Crime” in Getting It Wrong. The footnotes have been deleted.

A study of a Chicago gang in the mid-1990s by Steven D. Levitt and Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh found that the leader made $100,000 a year, the three officers below him made $12,000 a year, and the 50 “foot solders” earned approximately minimum wage. Additionally, there were about 130 “rank and file” members who earned nothing for their gang affiliation but paid dues to the gang to be a member for protection, status or the rights to buy and sell drugs independently. In other words, only one man out of nearly two hundred became relatively rich from being in a street gang. Most of the rest remained in poverty or close to it. Many of the foot soldiers and rank and file actually did legal minimum-wage work to supplement their drug earnings; or, one could argue, they were drug dealers to supplement their meager or nonexistent legal earnings.

The wages earned dealing drugs for a street gang are particularly bad when one considers the dangers of the job. In the 1990s, gang members had a good chance of being injured, a very good chance of being arrested and an excellent chance of being killed. Their chance of being killed over a four-year period was 1-in-4. This risk of being killed made being a street-gang drug dealer 50 times more dangerous than the most dangerous legal occupation.

If street gang drug-dealing is so bad, why do many young black men do this miserable work? While the dream of winning the “tournament” and making it to the number one spot and earning $100,000 a year is no doubt part of the answer, it is likely only a small part. There are more immediate and realistic economic motivations.

The work options for a young, black, male, high-school dropout from a poor, urban community are not good. Street-gang drug dealers tend to be young, black, male high school dropouts from poor urban communities. In the mid-1990s, the employment rate for 16 to 24-year-old black men with a high school diploma or less was less than 50 percent while for comparable whites and Hispanics it was about 75 percent. Only about 45 percent of the foot soldiers in the Chicago gang were able to obtain legal work. Most likely those jobs paid roughly minimum wage.

For at least half of the young men in the Chicago gang, there are no visible options for legal work. For the half that have legal work, they can barely make more than minimum wage. We should also realize that a drug-dealing minimum wage may yield 10 to 20 percent more take-home money than a legal minimum wage because taxes and benefits are not withheld from illegal wages. There are clear financial incentives for these young men to earn some money or additional money in a drug-dealing gang.

The economist Steven D. Levitt emphasizes the “tournament” and “glamour profession” aspect of being a street-gang drug dealer, but he does not seem to fully appreciate how few options these young black men have. He argues:

Earning big money in the crack gang wasn’t much more likely than the Wisconsin farm girl becoming a movie star or the high-school quarterback playing in the NFL. But criminals, like everyone else, respond to incentives. So if the prize is big enough, they will form a line down the block just hoping for a chance.

But farm girls who are dreaming of becoming movie stars and high school quarterbacks dreaming of the NFL do not inquire about how they can become janitors.

When Venkatesh conducted his ethnographic research with the Chicago gang, gang members repeatedly asked him about how to obtain what they called a “good job”: working as a janitor at the University of Chicago. If they were truly focused on winning the drug-dealing “tournament,” they would not be so eager to become a janitor. One gang member stated plainly:

. . . everyday people struggling just to survive, so you know, we just do what we can. We ain’t got no choice, and if it means getting killed, well s---, it’s what n----- do around here to feed their family.

For this gang member, drug dealing feels like his only option, not a “glamour profession.”

Levitt and Venkatesh present other evidence that the foot soldiers are responding to their opportunities for earning money in the present, not in the distant future when they imagine they will win the “tournament.” Levitt and Venkatesh find evidence that the foot soldiers’ “labor market participation responds to changing wages in the drug trade.” In other words, when foot soldiers are making enough money dealing drugs, they leave their legal jobs, and when they are earning too little dealing drugs, they look for legal work.

These young men in street gangs are choosing working over not working or making extra money to supplement their legal low-wage work to try to lift themselves out of poverty rather that being complacent about being poor. It is a perverse type of work ethic, but it is still a work ethic. American society needs to provide these young men with better options. Certainly, they should have graduated from high school, but it is still the case that even with a high school diploma their unemployment rate would be higher than for white men with a high school diploma. The American labor market prefers white men over black men. Even white male high school dropouts are more likely to find a job and a better paying job than black male high school dropouts. This is part of the reason for the high rates of black street crime.

--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

Next Week: Putting It All Together for a Just Criminal Justice Policy

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