Intolerant Justice. The London Riots Part Three

part one     part two   

If we think back just a month, the most common phrase coming from the lips of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was "second chance."

"...but I believe in giving people a second chance..."

"I decided to give him a second chance," David Cameron said about his former close advisor and press officer Andy Coulson on July 8, 2011, explaining his judicial philosophy, "with a single, often repeated phrase" (in the words of the Guardian).

Wanted? Looting of £7,000 from House of
Commons expenses fund. You might look for
him around No. 10 Downing Street.

And there is no reason to doubt the Prime Minister's sincerity. He himself had chosen to give himself "a second chance" rather than resigning when he was caught pocketing £20,000 he had no right to take in the "expenses scandal" of 2009 (as a young man Mr. Cameron escaped punishment for smashing a shop window... apparently no one drove a truck around with his photos on it... so this might be Cameron's "third chance"). And in Cameron's cabinet, his Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove is in his "second chance" after taking £7,000 he was not entitled to, and Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media, and Sport, also in his "second chance" after stealing £22,000 and then agreeing to give back half of that.

Even Cameron's favourite cop, Bill Bratton, late of the LAPD, is on - at least - his "second chance," having resigned after just two years as New York's Police Commissioner in 1996 for accepting outside income, and trips and gifts from corporations, which public employees are not permitted to accept. (This makes him perfect, in many ways, for this Tory cabinet.)

But, oh, times change... or maybe, lawbreakers get less wealthy and even less white, and just 36 days letter, in an interview with the Telegraph, Mr. Cameron sounds quite different:

"He pledges to support “zero tolerance” — a tough system of policing first popularised in the US which sees even minor offences prosecuted vigorously to send out the message that no form of law-breaking will be tolerated.

'“I will be saying much more about that because I think it is true,” Mr Cameron says. “We haven’t talked the language of zero tolerance enough but the message is getting through."' 

"Zero Tolerance." It is truly hard to imagine that any reasonably raised human would utter this phrase when not speaking of, say, rape, murder, child molestation - behaviors of that kind of extreme immorality. And yet, it has been a favorite term, this month, of the British Prime Minister, and over a lot of years, that ex-Los Angeles Police Chief, ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and way too many school administrators. Which is odd, because we are supposed to be tolerant societies.

"Constitutionally," in quotes because it is notoriously tough to pin down British constitutional law, the Anglo world believes in tolerant justice. Courtrooms have been filled, forever, with "guilty with an explanation," "affirmative defenses," "jury nullification," and people set free because of government/police misconduct in criminal investigations and prosecutions. We often let juries pick between higher and lesser charges, say, burglary and trespassing, or murder and manslaughter. And there is a centuries long tradition of judges sentencing those convicted based on a whole range of information about the defendant, the crime, the victims, the circumstances.

We developed these strategies because almost nothing about human behavior is 'black and white.' It makes a difference if you murder your abusive husband or kill your spouse for money. It makes a difference if you bring a knife to school because you are terrified, or if you bring a knife to school to terrify others.

Yet, this week, the Prime Minister continues to see intolerant justice as the model. "David Cameron," noted the Guardian, "who last week promised severe punishments for rioters, saying he hoped courts would use "exemplary" sentences to deter future riots, praised the sentencing decisions, which have included two jailed for four years each for inciting riots on Facebook – riots that never took place – and one person sent to prison for six months for stealing £3.50 worth of water. Asked about the Facebook case, the prime minister said: "They decided in that court to send a tough message and I think it's very good that courts are able to do that."'

And this echoes the pathetic "we're too stupid to make rational decisions" arguments from right-wing think tanks a decade ago. "More zero-tolerance policies run amok?" asked Manhattan Institute scholar Kay S. Hymowitz in 2001, when many schools were rushing to adopt "zero tolerance discipline," "It doesn't seem like it. Jeanne Milstein, child advocate for the State of Connecticut, says that her office had received many reports about "out of control" tots hitting, biting and throwing things in inner-city and suburban schools. Though there's little solid data, Kristie Kauerz, an official at the Education Commission of the States, claims that there's enough anecdotal evidence to conclude that a growing number of unmanageable babes is now a nationwide trend. In the end, zero tolerance may be more symptom than cure for the uneasy disciplinary climate of our schools. Certainly it's no final answer to out-of-control 5-year-olds or revenge-crazed teenagers. But as the threats continue and the bombs and guns appear, it's all we've got."

"Anecdotal evidence," "out-of-control 5-year-olds," "revenge-crazed teenagers," "slow-motion moral collapse," "Children without fathers. Schools without discipline. Reward without effort. Crime without punishment. Rights without responsibilities. Communities without control." It sure does sound might dangerous out there. If we don't have "zero tolerance" "the bombs and [the] guns appear," or the riots will come to your street next.

But, of course, here is the problem. "Zero Tolerance" does not work. Policing based on it does not work. Schools which use it as a discipline system do not solve their problems. If you enter '"Zero Tolerance" education" into Google Scholar you will find scores of pages of studies detailing these facts. If you dig into Bill Bratton's short tenure at the NYPD you will probably find that the introduction of more than 5,000 extra police officers - paid for by the Clinton Administration - during Bratton's tenure (plus another 5,000 additional cops in the next three years), and an improving New York City economy, surely had more impact on crime rates than the Giuliani/Bratton system of arresting black kids for loitering and violating their constitutional rights with illegal searches.

What intolerant justice does is teach people that there is no justice at all. Students learn that justice systems are unfair and cannot be trusted. Their own schools teach them that government and those in power aren't smart enough to figure things out logically.

What intolerant justice does is teach those at the bottom of society's hierarchy that they have no stake in that society, that they are not apart of it in any way. You think people didn't respect the British government and its traditions back in July? Wait till they see the way this kid was treated for steal a £3.50 case of water while Cameron's friend Andy Coulson got his "second chance."

One of our jobs, in education or in political leadership, is to bring people in, to let them understand why it benefits all of us if they join our society, if they share our community with us. "Zero Tolerance," intolerance, tells kids, tells everyone, just the opposite.

If anyone is sending that message, they should stop now.

- Ira Socol

Writing the Riots with Your Students... The London Riots Part Two

How do we deal with this in school?

After all, the riots in the UK this August are all about education and citizenship, learning networks and communities, technologies and responsibilities. These are things we deal with in our schools, right?

So can we deal with these riots? How do we bring them into our classrooms in ways which move our students forward?

I'll start with an immediate split, those whose students have been impacted, and those whose students have not. And in the "not" range, there is a vast gap. There will be a difference between those in West London, those in Wales, and those in North America, some of whom will not have any idea of what "England" or "the UK," or "London" means.

Yet the split is not as large as it might appear. The questions posed by these riots and the responses to these riots are global questions these days, touching on all that our students' lives will consist of.

Here are a couple of "pause, think, write" exercises for your students. You might consider creating groups writing within one big Google Doc so students can watch the thoughts of others. You should also absolutely write on these issues yourself, allowing your students to see you involved in the process. And don't forget, "writing" means many things. Allow students to dictate via Microsoft Speech Recognition or Dragon Dictate. Allow them to record themselves with Audacity, or video themselves. Allow them to interview others.

We can learn together when we write together.

One: Thinking about society, thinking about moral equivalency...

Societies are usually based in the idea that the basic rules and responsibilities apply to all. Everybody is supposed to - outside of certain kinds of emergencies - stop for red lights. Nobody - again, with a few exceptions - is supposed to kill another person.

Students everywhere might compare British Prime Minister David Cameron's Thursday speech, "In too many cases, the parents of these children – if they are still around – don’t care where their children are or who they are with, let alone what they are doing,” he said. "The potential consequences of neglect and immorality on this scale have been clear for too long, without enough action being taken.” 

with one of his critics columns from two days earlier... "
"Dear Mr & Mrs Cameron,
"Why did you never take the time to teach your child basic morality?
    "As a young man, he was in a gang that regularly smashed up private property. We know that you were absent parents who left your child to be brought up by a school rather than taking responsibility for his behaviour yourselves. Even worse, your neglect led him to fall in with a bad crowd. He became best friends with a young man who set fire to buildings for fun. And others:
    "There’s Michael Gove, whose wet-lipped rage was palpable on Newsnight last night. This is the Michael Gove who confused one of his houses with another of his houses in order to avail himself of £7,000 of the taxpayers’ money to which he was not entitled (or £13,000, depending on which house you think was which).

  "Or Hazel Blears, who was interviewed in full bristling peahen mode for almost all of last night. She once forgot which house she lived in, and benefited to the tune of £18,000. At the time she said it would take her reputation years to recover. Unfortunately not."

Might they then compare this prison sentence, with this one?

Here is a comment on the previous post about the riots in the UK:

"As someone who lives in Liverpool, It is interesting to see a view from afar. Today Mr. Cameron will outline his plans to sort out society, and deal with the absent fathers who he sees as being a reason behind the broken society. I heard two comments at the week-end that had more relevance than any of the rhetoric spouted by so called experts. Firstly "if politicians can 'give back' the expenses that they fraudulently obtained without punishment - would looters be let off if they gave back the trainers they took?" Secondly, "Cameron falsely claimed a grand in expenses - that's like two flatscreen TVs..."
 
"Both these comments were from teenagers who are from the sort of background extolled by Cameron and other politicians; they have good parents who have instilled morals, discipline and a work ethic. Those very morals that Cameron, Gove, the Press etc. are demanding, are distinctly lacking in those who lead society, and unfortunately our children can see all too clearly see this."

Your students need to be able to express themselves on these issues in ways their community will hear. And they need to extend the questions down into their own world. Might they find differential justice in their schools? In their communities? Do they believe that rights and responsibilities are given and shared equally?

What might they make of this story and video? The tale of the difference between the school Michigan's Governor sends his daughter to, and the schools he provides for the rest of Michigan's students.

Have any students gotten away with this line? I only did the illegal stuff within the law?

Students may want to write about this, or they might want to take their mobiles and do video interviews with their schoolmates.

Two: Going along...

When would you tell your friends to "stop"? When might you try to tell a crowd to "stop"?

 How would you react if you were here?

We all get carried away sometimes, and big groups doing things together often do things, good and bad, which "we" would never do on our own. Groups can be more heroic, more inventive, more accepting, but they can also be more destructive, more careless, meaner, and angrier than individuals often get.

Let's look at this story...

The Guardian LiveBlog 12.50pm: A mother of two has been jailed for five months for accepting a pair of shorts looted during the disorder in Manchester.

Ursula Nevin, who slept through the riots, took the shorts from a £629 haul of clothing and accessories stolen from the Vans store in the city centre by her housemate Gemma Corbett. Nevin picked out the shorts from the goods, which Corbett had brought back to their flat, the morning after and decided to keep them.

Nevin was arrested for handling stolen goods after police raided the flat in Stretford.
She was jailed for five months after pleading guilty at Manchester magistrates' court.
The court heard how Corbett, a call centre worker, had gone into the city centre after watching the riots unfold on TV. She then helped herself to stock from the ransacked Vans shop in the Northern Quarter. Corbett, 24, who admitted theft was remanded in custody and will be sentenced at Manchester Crown Court.

The judge told Nevin, also 24, that she was supposed to be a role model to her children, aged one and five. Khalid Qureshi, sentencing, said: "The first reaction you would expect some to have is 'get that stuff out of my house, I have two children that I'm responsible for'. You would expect decent people to speak up and say 'no, this is wrong, get that out of my house.' You are a role model to your sons, yet you decided to have a look at the goods and keep some for yourself."

The judge said, "You would expect decent people to speak up and say 'no, this is wrong.'" Is the judge right? Have you ever been in a situation where you felt that what a friend or friends, or even a family member, was doing something wrong? What did you do?

Might it be scary, or even dangerous to oppose a crowd, even if you were sure that what they were doing was wrong? What strategies might you use?

This isn't just something which happens to kids, or poor people. Why didn't anyone who worked for NewsCorp (which owns Fox, FoxNews, the Times of London, the Sun, the New York Post) say "no" when they were repeatedly getting their stories from "hacked" voice mail and email accounts? Why didn't anyone at the US energy firm Enron say "no" when they were lying about the company's finances?

Enron. No one at this giant corporation seemed to be willing to say "no" to theft and fraud.

The Ox Bow Incident (1943), even the good guys let innocent people get hanged

You might create an online conversation about this in TodaysMeet, and then let your students use that to build their own writings on the subject.

Three: Frustration, and what to do about it

If society is inherently unfair and unequal, if your chances in life have more to do with who your parents are than who you are, what can you do?

Do you accept your position in society? Do you try to create change? Do you do it alone? Do you organize as a group? Do you fight? What kind of fighting is OK?

For all time philosophers, politicians, religious leaders have wondered how to struggle against injustice. Those arguing for change are often labelled as dangerous. Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Menachem Begin of Israel, and Michael Collins of Ireland have all been labelled as "terrorists" by the governments of the United States and United Kingdom, though the first two would later be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and Collins is now considered one of the great national heroes of the 20th Century. Martin Luther King, Jr. was constantly watched by the American FBI because he was considered a "threat." All of these people spent parts of their lives in jail for their activities. Emma Goldman was permanently thrown out of the United States simply for speaking and writing.

Niccolo Machiavelli, an Italian writer of the 15th and 16th Centuries, said, "...in the actions of all men...when there is no impartial arbiter, one must consider the final result." This has often been simplified into, "the ends justify the means," or, in other words, what you need to accomplish is more important than the rules you will break accomplishing that. That belief is controversial, and it has allowed people and nations to justify their actions, from stealing food when you are hungry to dropping nuclear weapons on cities.

Your students might gather in groups and write out a debate on this issue. Not the simple two-sided question as often debated, but what ends justify what means? Allow the conversations to extend from global (Hiroshima, the murder of Czar Nicholas, Afghanistan) to the local and personal (fighting in school, refusing to do homework, taking something you need but cannot afford).

Now, get writing - Ira Socol

Raising amoral children... The London Riots Part One

I'll begin by saying that, in some ways, once a cop, always a cop. I watch the scenes in London, in Birmingham, in Liverpool and I want to go find a uniform and go after people with so little regard for their neighbors, their communities, their families. I imagine myself helping to at least compare photographs and identifying those so that they can be hauled out of their homes and brought to court.

And as I do this, I wonder. Hell, most animals are born with community sensibilities. I've spent a bunch of this year watching the eagles in Decorah, Iowa raise their children. I've watched my dog keep careful watch over our grand-nephew as he sleeps. I've watched swans negotiate territory on a frozen winter lake. So I cannot imagine - perhaps because I am not a Calvinist - that people are born bad. Somehow, they are made bad. They are taught to be bad.

"You've got to be carefully taught."

This week Nathaniel Tapley wrote, "Dear Mr. & Mrs. Cameron, Why did you never take the time to teach your child basic morality?" And in doing so, he taps into the basic, essential question of our time. How have we raised so many who are completely amoral? And he taps into the essential facts, since the 1980s the Anglo-Saxon world in particular, has revelled in amoral leadership. We have created a nightmare which is now just beginning to unfold.


For, argue all you might, but I felt exactly the same watching the riots unfold as I did watching Rebekah Brooks and James Murdoch in front of Parliament, as I did watching Republicans in the US Congress during the "Debt Limit" debate, as I have watching American Governors Scott Walker, Rick Snyder, Rick Scott, and Chris Christie perform "their jobs." In each case I stare at the television or computer and ask, "On what planet were such venal people raised?" "How does any human reach even adolescence not knowing anything of the difference between right and wrong?"

Is there a difference between the ways of stealing from the poor to enrich yourself and your friends... even if you don't need anything you took? Is Michael Gove, the UK's Minister for Education, less culpable for stealing £7,000 than any looter smashing a shop window? Is Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, shutting off housing support for the poor so that Dow Chemical can pay less taxes really any different than the rioter setting fire to a home? Is US House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, as he cuts health benefits for children (which will inevitably cause deaths), any different than the Audi driving morons who ran over three men in Birmingham last night?

Well, those elected leaders will not have gotten their own hands dirty in their vicious, amoral acts, but otherwise... ?

It is a rare leader, who other than late in life and wondering if the tales of Hell are true, will admit to moral equivalency. "LeMay said, "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals," said former US Secretary of Defense and World War II bombing planner Robert McNamara in Errol Morris's film The Fog of War. "And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"

"We chose to burn hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children."

What makes it immoral if you're poor but not if you're rich? Would be the version of that question to be asked today.

Michael White in the Guardian: "What we are seeing here, by general consent, is an urban underclass with little or no sense of a stake in society, few ties to their local communities or, very probably, to each other in their feral, fragmented families. "Darren, where did you get those three new bikes?" "Shurrup, mum, I'm listening to me new iPhone."

"Liberals can legitimately point to their marginalisation in the workforce and at school (some of these kids can barely speak proper English), in part the consequences of globalising economic forces and the evaporation of low-skilled jobs.

"Social conservatives can point to the collapse of family and discipline, happily unaware that capitalism can be pretty devastating to all but the strongest families, both in terms of depressed wage rates and raised expectations."

My US Representative, Bill Huizenga,
consistently votes against the best
interests of his district because he gets
his pay offs from Wall Street.

"...with little or no sense of a stake in society, few ties to their local communities or, very probably, to each other in their feral, fragmented families." This is true of an underclass, especially in America and the United Kingdom which have, via tax and social spending structures since the arrival of Reagan and Thatcher, shut the door on social mobility. But it is also a very true description of our American and British corporations, and those who run them, as well as the politicians who lead both nations. No member of the "Tea Party," or even the Republican Party as a whole, worries about local support or local contributions or even local campaign workers. If they vote the right way their campaign coffers will be filled by the Koch Brothers and NewsCorp and other super-rich groups, which will also make their television ads for them, and pay for their vacations and homes in Washington, and will guarantee them jobs if they happen to find themselves unelected. They indeed have, "few ties to their local communities," and their only "stake in society" is to profit from it.

What if we look at corporations, HSBC, one of the UK's biggest banks, just announced both greatly improved profits and the lay offs of over 30,000 employees. "...few ties to their local communities or, very probably, to each other." Michigan's Governor Rick Snyder, took over the Gateway Computer Corporation, fired all the workers, sold the name to a Taiwanese competitor, and pockets a hundred million or so for his efforts. "...with little or no sense of a stake in society." We need not look far to find a thousand more examples.

And all we had to do was to watch NewsCorp executive after NewsCorp executive throw their friends and associates under very large Routemaster buses, or see David Cameron's dismissive response to his own party's Mayor of London, to understand, "or, very probably, to each other in their feral, fragmented families."

All this, which our societies in their rush for wealth at all costs have allowed to happen to those born both rich and poor, simply sets the stage, however. Humans do not grow naturally to attack their own, this is taught.

It is taught to children, rich and poor by "role models," from parents up to priests, presidents, and prime ministers, who demonstrate that it is not only "all right" to abuse others, but personally profitable. It is all right, say many a wealthy parent, to cut off aid to the poor so our family can save a buck or a quid a week in taxes. It is all right, say too many poor parents, to take advantage of others because we are taken advantage of. It is all right, says the American Catholic Church, to ask our members to vote based on abortion and not health care for children. It is all right, say many American church ministers, for people to abuse Christ's words to get our support. It is all right, school leaders say, to forge and fake test results so we can get higher personal bonuses - and our Secretary of Education sees that as no big deal. It is all right, say British members of Parliament for us to lie and steal thousands of pounds as long as we apologize for it. It is all right, say too many rabbis, for the Israeli government to abuse Palestinians because Jews were once abused. It is all right, say many in homes, churches, schools, and newsrooms across the US and UK if innocents die in Iraq and Afghanistan because, "we were attacked, and we must be made safe." It is all right, say our "left wing" Presidents and Prime Ministers, if we do not stand up vigorously for what is right, because "politics is only about what is possible."

Where, oh where, might our children get the wrong idea?

NewsCorp: "We only do completely illegal things within the law."

After watching the absurdness of the US government during the "debt limit" debate, I suggested on Twitter that we make John F. Kennedy's book Profiles in Couragerequired reading in our schools this year.

I suggest it because it is about time that our schools begin to teach a counter-narrative to the past 30 years. That we begin to help students learn that humans are social animals, and that the health of the human community is dependent on the health of all those who are in that community. That we begin to help students understand that no human survives alone, or pulls themselves up by their bootstraps, but that we are all interdependent, and that we all have benefitted, and continue to benefit, enormously from the efforts of all those who have come before, and who live beside us.

But more than that, we have to begin to help our children understand that morality is not something chanted on a Sunday morning, but rather something courageously lived. That just as someone in David Cameron's cabinet, or the Republican caucus in Washington, needs to have the guts to act in the best interests of humanity, someone in each of those groups of rioters in London needed to have the guts to say "no."

And we have to begin to raise the next generation to believe that courage has rewards beyond a lobbyists job till retirement, a bigger vacation home, or a new pair of trainers...

This is work we must begin.

- Ira Socol