Recently I came across an article about a ridiculous
initiative of the Paterson NJ City Council – a local loitering ordinance
establishing a potential $2000 fine for loitering. Not
realizing the news was a year old I proceeded to write the following on it –
including commentary from local human rights / Decarceration activist Akbar
McEntyre who works with formerly incarcerated men and women to assist their
successful return to the community, local medical worker and medical marijuana
advocate Deb Madaio and a state steering committee member of the 15 Now
movement – fighting for full employment and livable wages for the lowest paid
among NJ’s working class Lizbeth Ramirez.
At the time of writing article, I did not think the
ordinance was much enforced. But now
there is a report on a major dragnet by the undercover Paterson cops – posing
as dope dealers, working with the Passaic County Prosecutor and apparently
using rudimentary entrapment methods to ensnare almost 100 people mostly
charged with “loitering to commit a drug offense” (purchase drugs) – the
ensnared including local Paterson residents and out of towners as well –
judging from the names – including multiple races and ethnicities.
The other charge of "obstructing a government function" seems like a made up charge just used to pump up a rap - the article does not describe what that offense consists of but perhaps it is nothing more than alerting people that cops are dragnetting.
While some might reasonably be sick of the street dealing
– including of both the sellers and the buyers – the decades of using these
sort of tactics and the fact that drugs are not prevented from being bought and
sold and abused – by these types of low level street operations demonstrates their ineffectiveness. All these operations do is raise revenue off
of some destitute and some middle class, create professional opportunities for
prosecutors, sheriff departments and local police, give cops overtime hours and
excise a tax against those dragged up by the operation – and per the charge of “loitering
to engage in a drug crime” some of those are likely innocent yet will be unable
to defend since they will be unable to afford the cost of an adequate attorney.
Paterson local government should know better – as should the
county of Passaic.
It is the impoverished, the Black and Brown of NJ that have
filled NJ prisons. Across the whole
state and nation there is clamoring for reducing the incarceration rates. In NJ, 66% of the incarcerated population in state facilities are Black. The US incarcerates an average of 4 times as
many people as the rest of the planet yet it calls itself a “free” country.
The local government of Paterson has the power to step it
back – to put a moratorium on the loiter law and then to roll it back. It also has the ability to oversee the
priorities of the local police force to shift away from the retail level of
crime. This type of enforcement and the
entrapment is low level bottom feeding at its worse. It is not the way to Decarceration.
HSBC is one of those huge financial institutions that is too
big to fail and too big to jail. Fairly
recently – the bank institution was so bad at money laundering (all of the
major banks do it and the Justice Department looks the other way) that it was caught red handed laundering billions of dollars for the top murderous drug cartels of Mexico and elsewhere. Did
anyone go to jail? Did anyone even get
criminally charged? No and no. The war on drugs is a farce and the US has no
intention of rooting it out because it would have to take down the major
financial institutions that own both political parties.
Yet local politicos can play up drag net attacks against
alleged small time would be users (and possibly those that just happened to be
in the wrong place while the cops were dragging the bottom) to attempt to win
political favor from voters while at the same time – when the opportunity
arises – espousing their view that there are “too many prisoners” and we got to
do “something” about it. Too bad that
the something and the doing never occurs but the round ups and amassing of the
caged continue.
Of those ensnared – some will likely beat the rap at the
cost of legal defense, some will likely get assessed hefty fines and court fees
that they can not afford and those on probation, parole or with a sheet could
actually end up with some time from this.
Those that get fined – some will likely be unable to pay and the fine
can lead to a lose – lose – go to jail for contempt for not paying or do
something to try to get the money to pay – get caught and go to jail for that.
Decarceration work is a national fight – we need to make
demands for national shifts in policies – a statewide fight – we need to fight
for sweeping initiatives like our NJ Decarceration Act and a local fight –where we need to hold local governments accountable for their “quality of life”,stop and frisk, broken-window – type policies (like Paterson’s loiteringordinance and now its enforcement).
