Cruel Justice

"Cruel Justice was the book that I had to write. I felt like I had to explain how California — a liberal state in so many ways — could pass the most horrible, punitive three-strikes law in the country. To me, I could tell the story of the whole disastrous War on Drugs and the quadrupling of sentences by talking about how this law was passed. It was passed overwhelmingly, with no dissent, and then the people of California voted for it in a referendum, which was also overwhelming. I had to write that book because people were going to jail for 25 years to life for stealing a ten dollar pair of sunglasses, being in possession of tiny amounts of cocaine, walking into a store, going in to the back, clandestinely picking up a bottle of vodka, taking a swig and putting the cap back on. There were thousands of these kinds of prosecutions for petty thefts, which prosecutors — if you have a prior petty theft — can either prosecute as a misdemeanor or as a felony. To me this was such an extraordinary event that just as a human being I was outraged and as an America citizen, with the constitution that we have, I was also outraged. So that’s why I wrote that book. I follow one young guy in the book who got addicted to rock cocaine and the only crimes he ever committed were two burglaries of nearby houses where he lived, both of which he pleaded guilty to. He had two felonies on his record, and then he was caught allegedly selling a $5 of cocaine on the corner and that was his third strike. He went to jail for 25 years to life and the ironic thing was he was turned in by his mother. She thought that he would get some help, and he didn’t get that help and his mother became a great crusader to get rid of the three-strikes law and she did it for 15 years until the law was changed. This is why I was saying about the effect of the occupying force mentality of the police. People don’t want to call, they definitely don’t want to give any information because they fear for their lives, because it’s us against them, that’s how they feel. For the most part the police don’t live in the community. They live in white, suburban neighbourhoods. The police have no connection with the neighbourhood, they have no feeling for the people. Through 250 years of segregation these communities have developed a different culture that white cops can’t read. They can’t read the intentions of somebody that they’re talking to. That’s why it’s very important to have a lot more African-American cops. That’s not because good police departments aren’t trying to recruit them, it’s just that so many potential prospects are in jail or prison, or they’ve had prior records — as so many African-American men do — and they don’t like the police, so very few of them — relatively speaking — become police officers. It’s not because that kind of discrimination still exists in a lot of American police departments. It does in some, but not in others. They can’t find the men or the women. There are a considerable number of African-American women who are police officers. But there’s not that many women on a percentage basis in any police department. It can go to as many as 15-20%, but I’ve never seen it any higher than that. Up until about 1980 there were very few women on police forces in general. The police chief of Los Angeles during the 1970s, a guy named ‘crazy’ Ed Davis he said “I’ll have women on patrol when the Los Angeles Rams — the football team — have women on the defensive line.” That’s the way it was."