Police Court Research Articles

Jane Heap and Her Circle

Late one morning in February, 1921, two women followed an Irish police officer through the corridors of the Jefferson Street Police Court of New York City. The men bustling about the offices lifted their heads to observe these two unlikely criminals on their way to be fingerprinted. One was a lady of high fashion, wearing a tailored blue suit and a cloche hat, a string of pearls looped upon her satin blouse, and a pale silk rose pinned to her lapel. She walked with self-confidence and poise, as if striding across a stage to take a last bow. Indeed, she was a gifted pianist accustomed to smiling down upon admiring audiences, but today her face was a mask of disdain: arched eyebrows finely tweezed, nose discreetly powdered, dark red lips. Her right hand was gloved, the left bare. Behind her walked a short squarish woman with close-cropped hair, sporting a man's jacket over a broad black skirt, a black bow tie, and deep scarlet lipstick. Led to a desk where another policeman awaited, the chic lady in blue balked at the ink into which she was invited to dip her fingers. All morning, on her lawyer's instructions, she had sat docilely through her trial, but now lighting a cigarette in her ungloved hand, she announced that she could not possibly comply unless they assured her no irremediable damage would be done to her person or her manicure. Her requests for fresh towels, scented soap, and a clean nailbrush sent the officers scurrying obediently. Her companion observed the scene with restrained amusement. Her own hands, calloused and muscular, the nails rimmed with printers' ink and oil paint, were certainly no stranger to stains, and managed carpentry tools or embroidery needles with equal skill. Perhaps she even sympathized with the men flustering about

From Redemption to Rehabilitation to Resettlement

There was a time when the purpose of rehabilitation was to provide offenders with the opportunity to examine their own behaviour in solitude and before the eyes of God, with the aim of engendering penance. Indeed, it could be argued that this belief in ensuring that the individual was given every opportunity to make amends for their behaviour drove the work of those responsible for rehabilitation for over a century, from the police court missionaries through to the probation officers of the present day. Today, this noble quest seems to have lost sight of its original aims, for whilst the government acknowledges the importance of addressing education, health and welfare, it seems that the individual is far removed from the debate.

The modern legal status of the Mount Athos

The modern legal status of the Mount Athos

Negative self-regard at work – Frustrating the need for self-enhancement and self-consistency

A positive and consistent sense of self is a key requirement for psychological well-being. Thirteen South African police officers and five police psychologists were interviewed to investigate the prevalence of negative social feedback received by officers and the consequences of such feedback on their sense of self. Negative social feedback and perceived lack of support from police management, courts, and government were widely prevalent and were seen to impact strongly on police officers. Officers had a largely negative view of themselves, their organisation, and the social context in which they operated. They engaged in dysfunctional and self-destructive behaviour and experienced significant discrepancies between their work and non-work selves. Opsomming Aanduidings uit die literatuur is dat navorsing aangaande bevoegdheidsevaluering gebrekkig is aan ’n teoretiese ondertoon. Ondersoek word ingestel na die kognitiewe prosesse wat plaasvind gedurende beoordeling wat aanduidend kan wees van die hoë persentasie variansie tussen evalueerders. Die beginsels van vyf verskillende kognitiewe teorieë word bespreek om moontlike verklarings te ondersoek, naamlik kognitiewe keuse-, kognitiewe evaluering-, sosiaal kognitieweteorieë, meta-kognitiewe- en die nuwe paradigma- benaderings.

Enforcement of the Sunday Closing Laws on the Lower East Side, 1882-1903

On Sunday, December 3 , 1882 , a day described by the New York Times as one "long to be remembered in the history of this City,"1 New York's finest took to the streets and with great zeal arrested 137 persons for various violations of the newly codified "Crimes against the Person and Against Public Decency and Good Morals," otherwise known as the Sunday Laws. Among those arrested in the crackdown were at least thirty-five Jews, including bootblacks, newspaper vendors, barbers, cigar vendors, ragpickers, fruit vendors, and truck-, butcher- and coal-cart drivers.2 While the police arrested cigar vendors, they allowed saloonkeepers to sell cigars and liquor, with customers entering the saloon through side or family doors, while the police continued their tradition of ignoring this infringement of the law. Because so many of the cases were dismissed by the magistrates sitting in the Police Courts open that day (the courts observed limited hours on Sunday), the New York Times predicted that the day's activities and the resulting unnatural quiet in the city's streets would not be repeated. During the week that followed, Jewish tradesmen, including grocers, dry-goods dealers, clothiers, bakers, and jewelers, obtained injunctions from one Judge Arnaux on the grounds that they were covered by an exemption which provided that the observance of another day of the week as "holy time" could be a defense against prosecution. These temporary orders enjoined the police from making arrests of those protected by the injunctions until a hearing scheduled for December 21 , 1882. Thus the following Sunday was relatively quiet: the injunctions were in effect (announced by signs in the windows), the weather was bad, and the police had decided to allow barbering and other activities related to personal grooming as well as baggage and newspaper delivery and the operation of telegraph offices.3 The police superintendent reacted positively but warily to the injunctions and the Jewish claim of exemption. The New York Times reported: [End Page 269] So long as Jews observe one day of rest and close up their place of business, the Police are not likely to molest them. There are a great many of this shrewd people, however, who are expected to play double, so say the police. In order that there may be no deception in the matter the Police, Commissioner Matthews says, have been quietly taking a census of those Jews who closed up their business yesterday.4 In what would appear to be an effort to maximize publicity for the case, Judge Arnaux invited notables to the December 21 st hearing, including David Dudley Field, the eminent jurist, famous for codifying the Penal Law (he declined the invitation), and organizations interested in the observance of the Sunday laws, such as the Sunday Closing League. The League, formed the month before in cooperation with local churches, included many merchants; and ninety of its members patrolled the streets during these December Sundays, looking for violators and then informing the police. The hearing turned out to be a disaster for the Jewish plaintiffs. Judge Arnaux rejected all their arguments, whether constitutional (that Jews had a right to choose their day of rest, and any interference with that choice diminished their First Amendment right to freedom of religion) or those based on statutory interpretation. Here the plaintiffs argued that observant Jews should be able to take advantage of the law's exemption for "works of necessity,"5 on the grounds that closing stores for two days would work a great economic hardship, and cited as well the specific statutory exemption for those who observed a different Sabbath.6 Judge Arnaux held that the exemption applied only to "servile labor" and not to trade; he also excluded from its protection those engaged in manufacturing behind closed doors, such as tailors and shoemakers. According to the judge, allowing such activities would seriously interrupt the rights of others and...

Juvenile Justice before Juvenile Court

Progressive Era campaigns to establish juvenile courts maintained that police and criminal courts failed to distinguish between children and adults. They suggested that law enforcement agencies either sentenced juveniles as if they were adults, imposing excessive punishments, or let kids go, failing to discipline them and encouraging them to commit further crimes. However, this case study of juvenile arrests in turn-of-the-century Detroit indicates that, before the creation of juvenile court, criminal justice institutions had more complex interactions with delinquent youth than has been recognized previously. Boys typically were arrested for very different offenses than were adults, and the police and courts often segregated children and adolescents from the harshest elements of the criminal justice system. The police sought every opportunity to decide the outcome of juvenile arrests themselves, without a court hearing, particularly if boys had committed only status offenses such as truancy or if crime victims decided not to prosecute. When juveniles did appear in criminal courts, judges found ways to soften their experiences, rarely jailing younger boys and instead sentencing some to reform school for ostensible rehabilitation. After 1900, efforts to protect young offenders from criminal justice institutions expanded as specially assigned police officers increasingly sought to discipline delinquents prior to arrest and the courts introduced an unofficial form of probation. Rather than constituting a break from the past, the creation of Detroit’s juvenile court in 1907 mainly made official juvenile offenders’ growing separation from the criminal justice system.

Brokering Playing Fields: Latinos and La Liga De Fútbol in Raleigh, NC

The 2000 US Census confirmed that North Carolina has been the recipient of a rapid increase in Latino residents since 1990. The explosion in Latino migrants (primarily from Mexico, El Salvador and Honduras) has been so sudden and rapid that many communities have not been able to respond fast enough to handle the needs and special problems presented by this new, young, ethnic population. Local institutions such as police departments, courts, schools, and medical clinics have had to hire bilingual police, find translators for courts, and to train English as a Second Language (ESL)-certified teachers. Much already has been written about these issues and problems in other areas of the United States. However, one issue that has been rarely mentioned and researched is how Latinos and US Americans accommodate regarding access to sports activities and facilities.

Barriers to Justice: Violations of the Rights of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing People in the South African Justice System

This article discusses the violation of rights of disabled persons in the South African justice system. Its particular focus is the infringement of rights of deaf and hard-of-hearing people as a result of communication barriers in police stations and courts. While deaf and hard-of-hearing people comprise a small percentage of disabled individuals who come into contact with the justice system, the violations that occur are endemic and symptomatic of a disregard by justice officials of the rights and needs not only of deaf and hard-of-hearing persons, but of all disabled people. It is argued that a scheme comprising three components can guarantee the rights of deaf and hard-of-hearing people in South Africa's justice system. The first and most fundamental component is a recognition by justice officials that the right of the deaf and hard-of-hearing to be treated fairly in the justice system is constitutionally required. The second component requires amended and augmented legislative provisions to flesh out the content of the constitutional rights. The third component is that practical guidelines should be disseminated among justice officials to direct their day-to-day white interactions with deaf and hard-of-hearing people. Such a scheme can prevent future violations of rights of the disabled and enhance the goal of equality for all South Africa’s citizens.

The Unintended Consequences of Efforts to Target Gun Violence: Changing the Incentives for Congress and Prosecutors, Shifting the Balance Between Prosecution and Defense

This paper explores how legislative attempts to crack down on gun violence have affected the behavior of courts and prosecutors in the federal system, putting pressure on the boundary between federal and state law, as well as the boundaries of the elements defining various federal offenses. Legislative efforts to expand the boundaries of federal criminal jurisdiction to deter and punish gun violence brought Congress to the threshold of a major shift in the federal/state boundary, as Congress came within a hair's breadth of making every crime involving a firearm that had crossed state lines a federal offense. At that point, the Supreme Court responded with its first decision in half a century limiting congressional power under the Commerce Clause, United States v. Lopez. Although the Court also has a broader federalism agenda, this paper argues that Lopez and United States v. Morrison were motivated, to a significant degree, by the Court's institutional concerns about a possible flood of federal gun prosecutions. From the viewpoint of positive political theory, Lopez and Morrison can be understood as the Supreme Court's effort to reshape Commerce Clause doctrine to protect the traditional role and status of the federal courts, and to prevent their transformation into police courts. At the administrative level, gun-related penalties have generated pressure on a different boundary, as federal prosecutors sought expansive interpretations of the elements defining the most commonly prosecuted federal firearm offense, 18 U.S.C. ? 924(c). Section 924(c) provides for super enhanced penalties that are severe, mandatory, and consecutive to all other penalties under federal and state law. This section of the paper explores the question whether prosecutors--like counsel for private plaintiffs in civil RICO treble damage cases-- press for extreme interpretations of the Section 924(c) and seek to bring many marginal cases within its ambit. A review of the litigation under Section 924(c) does seem to reflect a prosecutorial response to the incentive created by super enhanced penalties, including aggressive pursuit of extreme interpretations of various elements of the statute. On the other hand, a review of prosecutorial practices also reveals apparently conflicting trends: federal prosecutors bargain away or decline to bring charges under the enhanced penalties in the majority of cases. Ironically, though the penalties established in Section 924(c) are mandatory, they are imposed in less than one half of the federal cases in which the facts appear to fall within the ambit of 924(c). Thus the effect of enhancing the penalties applicable to gun related crime has been to greatly enlarge the scope of the discretion exercised by federal prosecutors, and the magnitude of the consequences controlled by their discretion, without the development of any additional checks against the abuse of this enhanced discretion.

Police Accountability in the Provinces: The Changing Role of the Police Authority

This article explores the changing role of local police authorities in England and Wales following the Police and Magistrates' Courts Act 1994, and seeks to ascertain the status and functions now accorded to the police authority. Using a range of reports from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), it considers the implications of new managerialism, particularly in relation to police planning processes. The impact of force strategic plans in relation to police authority local policing plans is then explored. The article also considers police authority responsibility for community consultation and comments on the continuing difficulties experienced by police authorities in developing effective channels of communication with their local communities. It then goes on to assess the impact of Best Value and decisions concerning the allocation of responsibility for this initiative with the police authority. Thereafter it looks at the effect of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. It is argued, given the clear weaknesses of police authorities as currently constituted that more effective and influential bodies might be developed around local (district) community safety committees.

Civic Picturing vs. Realist Photojournalism The Regime of Illustrated News, 1856–1901

The visual culture of the American press developed from the printerly newspaper of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, through the Victorian newspaper of the late nineteenth century, and to the modern newspaper which had emerged by the 1930s. Both printerly and Victorian newspapers used a design sense that we call “vernacular,” emphasizing apparent balance and symmetry, filling space with an increasingly varied typography. Newspaper design was not given to establishing hierarchy or categorization; the news was largely unsegmented, presenting an impression of an unmapped and perhaps unmappable world. At first, even the boundary between advertising and editorial content was not clearly demarcated. This syncretic presentation of content on paper expressed in visual form the habits of news workers. Newspaper design did not exist apart from the routines and practices of journalism, as it often does today, but as an extrusion of standard modes of news gathering. Thus, form followed practice. The active roles of reporting grew out of the more passive news-gathering tasks of colonial printers, who received correspondence and culled other sources, print or oral, to fill their pages. As the printerly age gave way to the age of Victorian papers, these roles coalesced, in fact if not in name, as the correspondent and the scavenger. The correspondent was a manly observer of events and personages in distant and (usually) powerful places; he (rarely she) was a persona, though usually pseudonymous, who conveyed subjective impressions with an air of authority and confidentiality, much like the colonial letter writer. The scavenger was not a persona, but a completely anonymous news hound, combing first the exchange papers then the police courts, the theaters, and the taverns for bits of information that might be conveyed in a sentence or a paragraph, or which might be turned into a story of a column or so. The correspondent was a gentleman, the scavenger a pieceworker, often paid by the line or the columninch. The content of the news was miscellaneous, matching its presentation. Typography was the dominant voice of news, and images were interlopers, useful as respite and also as information, 1 Kevin G. Barnhurst and John Nerone, “Design Trends in U.S. Front Pages, 1885–1995,” Journalism Quarterly 68 (Winter 1991): 796–804; John Nerone and Kevin G. Barnhurst, “Visual Mapping and Cultural Authority: Design Changes in U.S. Newspapers, 1920–1940,” Journal of Communication 45:2 (Spring 1995): 9–43.

What the probation officer expects from the psychiatrist

The origins of the probation service can be traced back to the late-Victorian era and the introduction of the so-called police court missionaries who supervised offenders on conditional release from the court. The service grew slowly, but mushroomed in the 1970s and 1980s when several major acts widened the scope of the service by introducing parole, aftercare of discharged prisoners, community service by offenders, and extended the scope of probation and bail hostels. Since the beginning of this decade the probation service has been working in an ever-changing legal and philosophical context. Public protection and the prevention of crime are our primary aims. Legislation and ministerial directives have necessitated increasing involvement of probation offices in work with offenders with mental disorder, and have brought into greater focus the relationship of the probation service with psychiatry.

"You Had to Be There" (And They Weren't): The Problem With Reporter Reconstructions

Newspaper stories that rely on reconstruction of events from police reports, court records, and recollections of witnesses often sacrifice attribution for the sake of immediacy. Such stories make compelling reading, but they mislead readers by erasing the line between information obtained via observation and information obtained from human or documentary sources. This article argues that the lack of attribution is more distracting than it presence--because readers wonder how the reporters know what they know--and calls on reporters to make clear when they have left the realm of observation and entered that of reconstruction.

Rum, Romanism, and Evangelism: Protestants and Catholics in Late-Nineteenth-Century Boston

On the morning of Wednesday, May 20,1885, Boston police arrested three Protestant clergymen for preaching on the Common. News of the outrage traveled quickly, and within hours the city's evangelical Protestants were in an uproar. When the preachers—A. J. Gordon, pastor of the Clarendon Street Baptist church; H. L. Hastings, editor of a locally popular evangelical periodical, the Christian; and W. H. Davis, superintendent of a mission in the North End—appeared at the Municipal Criminal Courthouse on Thursday morning, a crowd reported to be between four thousand and five thousand, “principally of the middle-class, well-dressed and well behaved,” thronged the steps of the building. “[I]t was clearly evident,” Hastings later wrote, “that something unusual was going on in the police court of the city of Boston.”

Huxley's bulldog: the battles of E. Ray Lankester (1846-1929).

Huxley's bulldog: the battles of E. Ray Lankester (1846-1929).

The Probation Career of Al Truism

The writing of Bill McWilliams on probation history and practice is briefly reviewed. Bill’s plea for a theoretical moral underpinning for practice would, if answered, make the service less vulnerable to the discrediting of its claims that probation is effective in increasing public protection. These claims are ill‐founded, and are only sustainable because of political and criminological disinclination to address the evidence or live with its consequences. The search for a moral underpinning might have led Bill to link probation with current concerns to combat social exclusion. This would involve detailed consideration of the distributive justice–retributive justice nexus and its implications for probation practice. It is argued that concern altruistically to give help to all those damaged by the criminal justice process, victims, witnesses, perpetrators and their families alike, would accord with a secularised but morally grounded version of the police court mission.

The Police and the New Magistracy: Independent Members and the New Police Authorities

Independent appointed members to police authorities were introduced as part of the reforms brought about by the Police and Magistrates' Courts Act 1994. This radical change to the make-up of police authorities was defended by government ministers as a necessary reform in order to broaden the expertise and experience available in such bodies. Critics, by contrast, saw the change as a move to further centralise control, and as a means of reducing local democratic input, over policing. Using data from a national telephone survey of police authority clerks, and case studies of three police force areas, this article examines the role of `independent' appointed members to local police authorities. We argue that the early signs are that the new members are becoming well integrated into police authorities, although such bodies have been significantly depoliticised as a result of this and other changes.

Book Review: Policing after the Act: Police Governance after the Police and Magistrates Courts Act 1994

Book Review: Policing after the Act: Police Governance after the Police and Magistrates Courts Act 1994

Risk Factors for Teenage Fatherhood

Fatherhood is the consequence of a series of decisions and interactions including those surrounding the initiation and maintenance of sexual activity the use of contraception and the continuation of a pregnancy to term. Fatherhood therefore results from a social process which began months or years earlier. Data from the Rochester Youth Development Study an ongoing panel study of urban youth were used to identify early risk factors for the likelihood of becoming a teen father. The Rochester study is an ongoing panel study investigating the development of delinquent behavior drug use and related behaviors among urban adolescents in Rochester New York. The prospective study has interviewed adolescents and the adults mainly responsible for their care in waves since 1988 beginning with a sample of 1000 public school 7th and 8th graders and their families. The sample was stratified to overrepresent youth at high risk for serious delinquency and drug use. Data on respondents are also collected from school police courts and social service agencies. Findings are based upon 615 young men of average age 21 years interviewed during 1995-96 in wave 11 of the study; 121 White 386 Black and 108 Hispanic. 7 men reported becoming fathers at age 15. From that age the rate of fatherhood increases steadily until 28.5% of respondents overall had become fathers before age 20. Teen fatherhood was found to be positively related to a variety of risk factors including low social class low educational performance early sexual activity and drug use. The probability of becoming a teen father increases exponentially as the number of risk factors increases.

Challenge and change: Police authority and chief officer responsibilities under the police and magistrates’ courts’ act 1994

The Police and Magistrates' Courts' Act (1994) is intended to give substantial new powers to local police authorities (LPAs). These bodies will be made responsible for developing local objectives and planning and monitoring police activity thereafter. Additionally it is intended that the LPA will in due course be made responsible for introducing fixed term appointments for chief officers. The FTAs, which will be effective for periods of between four and ten years, may alter the relationship between chief officer and police authority. This is because the LPA of the future is clearly expected to make a judgement about contract renewal, at least in part, upon the basis of performance and the extent to which local and national targets have been reached by the police force.