Geometries of Crime

How Young People Perceive Crime and Justice

Avi Brisman

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781137546197
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137546203
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminal Law
• Index: Social Sciences

This book explores how young people perceive the severity of crime and delinquency. It particularly addresses whom or what they consider to be the victims of crime and delinquency, how they analyze and assess appropriate responses by the criminal justice system, as well as their place within it. The book proposes tools for developing a more elaborate and robust understanding of what constitutes crime, identifying those affected by it, and what is deemed adequate or appropriate punishment. In so doing, it offers thick description of young peoples' conceptions of and experiences with crime, delinquency, justice and law, and uses this description to interrogate the role of the state in influencing - indeed, shaping - these perceptions.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

Avi BrismanGeometries of Crime10.1057/978-1-137-54620-3_1

Begin Abstract

1. The Corners of Crime: An Introduction

Avi Brisman¹

(1)

School of Justice Studies, College of Justice and Safety Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, Kentucky, USA

End Abstract

In the mock courtroom at the Red Hook Community Justice Center (RHCJC)—a multi-jurisdictional problem-solving court and community center located in the heart of the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York—a group of African-American and Latino/Hispanic teenagers, fourteen to eighteen years of age (although most are fifteen or sixteen), had gathered for a group interview. Each was hoping to earn a place in a nine- to ten-week-long unpaid training program for the Red Hook Youth Court (RHYC)—a juvenile diversion program designed to prevent the formal processing of juvenile offenders (usually first-time offenders) within the juvenile justice system. The teenagers who are selected from the pool of applicants must complete the training program and pass a “bar exam” in order to serve as RHYC members, where they will help resolve actual cases involving their peers (e.g., assault, fare evasion, truancy, vandalism).¹

All of the teenagers who had come for the group interview had done so voluntarily. In other words, while some of the teenagers may have been encouraged to apply to the training program by a family member, none of the kids in the group interview was there as a result of a court order or pursuant to a threat of punishment from within the criminal justice system.

Ericka, the RHYC coordinator at the time, had put up signs on the walls of the courtroom and had explained to the kids that she would make a statement and that they would have to walk toward and stand by the sign that best represented their position with respect to the statement. The signs, which Ericka had hung in the four corners of the room, read as follows:

Strongly Disagree	Strongly Agree
Disagree	Agree

“OK?” Ericka asked. The kids nodded and murmured their assent. “OK. Graffiti is wrong.” No one moved. “C’mon,” implored Ericka, pointing to the signs and corners and gesturing for the kids to pick up their feet.

The kids shuffled around the room. Once they stopped, Ericka began in the “strongly disagree” corner. One of the interviewees, Dandre, stated that graffiti is “antagonizing” and that “you can go to jail for doing it.” Another—Ronda—proffered that there is “no reason for tagging” and that “you could get arrested.” Neither kid seemed to be standing in the right place because both of these answers seemed indicative of a position that graffiti is, indeed, wrong.

Ericka jotted down their responses and then turned to the kids standing by the “disagree” sign. “[It’s] a way someone expresses himself,” the first boy, Jayden, said. Unlike Dandre and Ronda’s statements, Jayden’s answer seemed appropriate for the place where he was standing. Those near him under the “disagree” sign offered similar perspectives: “it’s art,” “it’s freedom of expression.”

Ericka noted these comments and then asked the kids standing by the “agree” sign why they thought “graffiti is wrong.” “I agree it’s art, but sometimes what you write can offend people,” Chandell said. “It’s wrong—it’s someone’s property,” the girl next to Chandell replied.

Ericka acknowledged these positions. “So, why is graffiti wrong?” Ericka asked the kids standing by the “strongly agree” sign. One of the kids volunteered, “Graffiti is art. As long as it’s not on someone else’s property.” Another kid ventured that graffiti was wrong because it “messes up someone’s stuff.” And Kirk asserted that “you can do graffiti in a positive way.”

Ericka looked around the room to see if anyone else wanted to volunteer an answer. Those who had not spoken looked at their feet or out the window or up at the ceiling—anywhere but in the direction of Ericka.

“Next statement,” announced Ericka, after a couple of moments. “People who commit crimes are bad.” Again, the kids stood still. “Let’s go,” said Ericka, and gestured as if she were ushering chicks out of a coop. Some of the kids remained in their corners, while others shifted to the “disagree” corner of the room and a couple positioned themselves near the “strongly disagree” sign.

“Why?” asked Ericka when the movement around the room had stopped. Ericka gestured in the direction of the “disagree” group.

“Because it means that what you did is bad, not who you are,” Kirk explained.

“What about you?” asked Ericka, looking at the girl next to Kirk “What do you think?”

“Yeah, I’m with Kirk,” the girl said. “Committing a crime is a bad choice. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, just that you made a bad choice.”

“It doesn’t mean that someone should judge you,” said Sean, who was standing next to the girl. Ericka frowned, as if trying to understand. Sean must have picked up on Ericka’s expression of confusion. Searching for the words, Sean added, “Just because you commit a crime doesn’t mean that they should call you ‘bad’.”

Ericka did not respond. She seemed to be weighing Sean’s response. Or perhaps she was trying to figure out what he meant. I, too, had initially been confused by Sean’s answer. But then it dawned upon me. The first two kids had interpreted the statement, “people who commit crimes are bad,” as a moral equation: “people who commit crimes” = “people who are bad.” Thus, the first two kids were trying to draw a distinction between people who are bad and people who do bad things or make bad choices. Sean, on the other hand, was approaching “bad” as a label. For him, “people who commit crimes are bad” had meant “people who commit crimes should be stigmatized as ‘bad.’”

I must have smiled as I reflected on Sean’s interpretation of the statement, for she nodded at me and then said, “OK. Good, Sean.” Sean breathed a sigh of relief.

“Who’s next?” Ericka said and, before anyone could answer, pointed to a heavyset boy, Walter, who had seemed completely uninterested in everything that had transpired at the group interview. “Kids are dumb; they want to be what they see,” Walter said rather nonchalantly.

Walter seemed to be referring to kids who imitate the criminal actions of peers or adults. At least that is how I interpreted his statement. But before I could gauge anyone else’s reaction—or do much more than wonder whether Walter considered himself to be a “dumb kid”—the girl standing next to Walter stated: “It depends on the crime you commit. You might not have enough money.”

A couple of people chuckled. The girl, blushing, backpedaled. “No, I mean, there’s a difference between stealing to raise a kid and stealing because you want something”—the implication being that the former was an acceptable reason for theft, while the latter was not.

“Yeah, OK,” said a couple of kids, and the girl who had just spoken smiled shyly and seemed to relax.

“Other perspectives,” Ericka called out.

“It don’t change your personality,” offered Ronda, who seemed to be standing in between the “disagree” and “strongly disagree” signs.

Ericka nodded and indicated that she wanted more answers. But I was not sure she had picked up on Ronda’s subtle distinction. Some kids had interpreted “people who commit crimes are bad” as a declarative statement, others as the conditional statement—“if you commit a crime, then you are bad.” Ronda, on the other hand, was offering a different type of conditional statement—“if you commit a crime, then you will become a bad person.” It was as if Ronda was disputing the perspective that transgressions have some sort of transformative power—that they change a person—that once a person commits a crime, he/she has gone over the edge (or gone over to the dark side).

“Some people have problems, and they need help, and they make the wrong choices,” said the next interviewee, a boy standing by the “strongly disagree” sign.

“Some people are pushed to do bad things,” blurted out a girl who stood by the “disagree” sign.

“What?” asked Ericka, but it was more “What do you mean?” than a request to repeat the statement or an expression of incredulity.

“Like if a guy is beating up his girl, and she can’t take it anymore, and she shoots him,” the girl explained.

“Oh, shit!” said one of the taller boys, who then immediately put his hand to his mouth.

“Ooooo,” the collective chorus crowed.

“Sorry,” said the boy.

Ericka smiled and shook her head in mock disapproval. Then, turning back to the girl, said, “That’s domestic violence.”

“Anybody else?” Ericka asked.

“They might need money,” said Mark, who had been standing near Walter. The two of them had been rolling their eyes at each other in response to various comments from the start.

“You might need to get something done,” asserted Ashley. Before I could wonder what “get something done” meant, the lanky boy who had just swore pounded his fist into his hand. “Yeah, beat-down,” said a voice that I could not identify.

A few kids giggled.

“Quiet, quiet,” said Ericka. “Last person.”

“You could be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said a girl.

“OK,” said Ericka. She had appeared to forget about the few kids standing on the side of the room with the “strongly agree” and “agree” signs. “People who commit crimes deserve to be punished.”

“Let’s go around,” said Ericka, once the kids had settled on their spots. It seemed more like a reminder to herself than an order or a plan.

Ericka asked for a volunteer from the “strongly agree” corner. Tavaris raised his hand and stated, “If they don’t get punished, they’ll keep doing it.”

“Good,” Ericka replied. She then nodded at Dandre, who had also raised his hand.

“When you do something wrong, you don’t think about it,” Dandre said. I could not tell whether he meant that people do not think about the consequences of their actions—that they do not engage in a cost–benefit analysis of committing a crime—or whether Dandre felt that people can commit crimes without feeling guilt or remorse. Either way, I was having a difficult time figuring out what Dandre’s statement had to do with the question of whether people who commit crimes deserve punishment. But Dandre then added, “If you make your bed, you have to lie in it”—a point that resonated with Ronda, who asserted, “You should pay your consequences.” She meant, “you should pay for the consequences of your actions,” but everyone seemed to understand.

Ericka nodded and then turned to the “agree” corner. “Let’s get someone from here,” she said.

April stepped forward and declared, “A whole bunch of people will start doing it over and over.”

Ericka acknowledged April’s response and asked the kids standing in the “disagree” corner why they did not feel that people who commit crimes should be punished.

“It should be based on who you did,” Precious explained. For a moment, I thought that Precious meant that whether one receives a punishment should depend on whether one has killed one kind of person (the president? a small child? an upstanding citizen?) rather than another (a homeless person?). But Precious clarified that the nature of the crime should determine whether one receives a punishment. I was tempted to inquire whether Precious believed that some crimes should not be punished—that perhaps one should simply receive ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. The Corners of Crime: An Introduction
• 2. Pyramids, Squares, and Prisms: Severity of Harm, Public Awareness and Perceptions of Severity of Harm, Power Relations, and Society’s Response
• 3. Red Hook, the RHCJC, and Youth Courts
• 4. Red Hook Youth Court Hearings and Youth Perceptions of Criminal Severity, Justice, Law, Punishment, and Remorse
• 5. Beyond Shape: An Open Conclusion
• Backmatter