The Philadelphia story
Silver, Isidore
Treasury departments. Once in office, these bureaucrats shots that Dewey fired still reverberate. They are heard in the obstruct even a well-intentioned president from decisive...
...Of course, Mayor Rizzo's impending retirement and ISIDORE SILVER is a professor of constitutional law and history at replacement by a presumably more enlightened politician may John Jay College of Criminal Justice...
...scholarly concern, but the fundamental issue lies deeper...
...and multilat- precious billions for foreign oil to burn in foreign cars, in the eral aid to the Philippines...
...Thus, the law enforcement function, now divided decisions about the degree of enforcement (conditioned in part between police and prosecutor, would be united, and the by the prosecutor's knowledge of what judges and juries will prosecutor would be subject to oversight by the professional do) would replace the ad-hoc or vague and confused determibar...
...it must be adequately overseen and controlled, department by removing it from mayoral control-was skeptiirrespective of whether a particular department abuses the cally received...
...coverage and monitoring of the performances of both I T SEEMS to me that recent proposals -improved training of prosecutors and bar associations...
...This is often a silent scene, But, it is demonstrably better than (a) the present system and like the one I was discussing from Christian de Chalonge's (b) other "reform" ideas...
...They run the eight self-sustaining, semi-autonomous ance criteria" that squeeze the poor, in the waste of $3.2 banks that now provide 88 percent of total U.S...
...In many cities where the while attempting to remain true to ideals of justice and fairness police engage in lawless practices, prosecutors do not, though for all, this result would not only be foreseeable but welcome...
...Other People's Money where the hero, waiting on a train platform, watches an old woman remove some dust from her T HE IMPORTANT factor is that prosecutors possess the exper- husband's eye...
...The World Bank, Asian Development Bank and IMF are to Manila...
...We would find that innovative means to protect our liberties...
...A MOST RESPECTFUL ADAPTATION Their capacity to resist those pressures seems to be increasing...
...Police operainvestigate misconduct charges, stronger internal investiga- tions would become truly professional, rather than exercises in tion units-have proven to be inadequate, either in theory or in public relations gimmickry...
...The A few years ago I was asked by an earnest member of the problem of controlling police abuse is part of the general Pennsylvania Attorney-General's office about my views on question of making police power itself more accountable to the the "Philadelphia problem...
...The threat of disbarment proceedings or even censure agency...
...In a system which delicately (or, at times, indelioccupational criminality than "businessmen" and "quasi- cately) blends the power of "laws" with the power of "men," professionals" such as the police...
...While the question of just why the late seventies has become Thus, while it may well be true that (a) the social conditions (yet another) era of increased concern about police brutality of various municipalities or (b) the social, political and ecomay fascinate ;sociologists, the issue is both timeless and of nomic class interests of local influentials or (c) the personal great concern to the citizenry at large...
...problem would only make it worse-as apparently has happened...
...Although a district judge dismissed the the causes...
...The hero explains to highly value civil liberties-have within their ranks numerous his wife what the previous scene meant, and snuffs out the members who are also "experts" about the criminal justice mystery which made the scene enjoyable...
...I N MY LAST COLUMN I was trying to distinguish among three No, this proposal is not perfect...
...Such oversight would induce prosecutors to institute nations of police supervisors and street officers...
...basis of a certain type of scene...
...ble...
...greater accountability will be compatible with our understandThere is considerable sociological evidence that people who ing of the role of law enforcement in modern democratic consider themselves to be "professionals" will engage in less society...
...Even though President Carter and World Bank's gratuitous intervention in Philippine politics, in Congress have reformed AID, it only provided 6 percent of the the U. S. government-sponsored return of the Bank of America total...
...A good movie partments to fight crime...
...There is nothing in what has been said that would bar media...
...cials do not support police brutality...
...Indeed, the greater the harmony between problems of police lawlessness toward isolated individuals, these "background" factors and police misconduct, the more especially the poor and members of minority groups...
...mobilization of these already extant resources would make the Nor is it only in movies that scenes like this occur...
...It's time to give the Philippines its second indepenall hostile to American human rights policy actions...
...My answer- that the only hope public...
...Although some of the backgrounds, characteristics and role-perceptions of most brutality may be attributed to certain factors "left over" from policemen in a given "police culture" or (d) all of the above the sixties, suchI as the presence of organized rebels (MOVE in may be relevant, understanding of these factors offers no Philadelphia), much misconduct reflects longer-standing possible solutions...
...operations...
...Police misconduct would be prosecutorial mis- Since all laws can never be fully enforced all the time, policy conduct...
...New thinking would be brought to practice in most (though not all) places...
...That, I was told, would be politically impossipower...
...The police'have substantial physical and legal power for reform of that benighted group was to restructure the and discretion...
...The police argument that "outsiders" cannot under- reduced...
...new officers, community control, independent agencies to There would be important side effects as well...
...The law enuse local bar association grievance committees to oversee both forcement function would be less fragmented than it is now...
...A bad one also has the scene, but who owe at least some allegiance to professional canons of then hurries to eliminate its ambiguity...
...Better use of scarce law-enforcement resources stand the "street problems" faced by the department would be would occur when planning can be consolidated under one vitiated...
...Provide neutral humanitarian aid from afar, but let the Although the name of Dewey Boulevard in Manila has been people find their own way to develop their potentially bountichanged to Roxas Boulevard, to honor a Filipino patriot, the ful islands...
...Since prosecutors are usually elected (except in three NO INTERFERENCE states), they are doubtlessly subject to political pressures...
...Also, although bar associations have not been hitherto known for vigorous action against errant members of the legal profession, their records in recent years have also been improving...
...Prosecutors are also professionals has scenes of this sort in it...
...The pleasing thing about this scene is its tise to understand and control the policies and practices of ambiguity...
...solve (or at least ameliorate) Philadelphia's problem for a 23 November 1979: 661 time, but the fundamental issue will remain-how should and office itself) visible, more rational, and more open to public can police power be made more accountable...
...would be bodies...
...A PROPOSAL FOR DEALING WITH POLICE BRUTALITY The Philadelphia story ISIDORE SILVER Indeed, just as "solutions" for at least some problems of criminality may have nothing to do with the (presumed) THE PROBLEM of police brutality-calculated and sys- causes-making premises secure by improved technology obtematic rather than random in nature-once thought to viously sheds no light on why burglars "burgle" -police be an artifact of the strife-ridden 1960's has arisen again, criminality may be abated by measures wholly independent of publicly and vividly...
...My rejoinder was simply to note that this proposal (or In this perspective, discovery of the "causes" of systematic something similar) was necessary since tinkering with the police brutality will not materially aid in discerning solutions...
...Discriminapolicies and practices which would make law enforcement tion in law enforcement-which laws get enforced against open and subject to review by knowledgeable, even expert whom (and, again, why these particular targets...
...dence...
...Bar Associations-often dominated by "elitists" who Chalonge's film does in the next scene...
...scrutiny...
...This is what de ethics...
...in our political and social kinds of movies-good, bad, and indifferent-on the system no proposal can be, if it is to utilize existing agencies...
...They are heard in the obstruct even a well-intentioned president from decisive re- 138 percent increase in military aid, in the IMF's "performforms...
...In New York City, despite the recurrence of police scandals, the level of pro- Screen secutorial performance has been higher (the Manhattan D. A.'s I office under Frank Hogan and his successors often prosecuted crooked and brutal cops...
...The movie doesn't bother with scenes of this sort at all...
...both are subject to the same "climate of opinion...
...An indifferent system, including the workings of police departments...
...This seems to be true in Philadelphia and Houston...
...difficult it will be to change police practices since social policy Again, questions of which departments at which times ex- can rarely uproot and modify relatively fundamental and stable hibit what kinds of patterns of brutality, and why, may be of background patterns of beliefs, attitudes and conduct...
...In Henry James's The EuroCommonweal: 662...
...Rather, the answer, problems such as the creation of standards for use of deadly incomplete though it may be, is to transfer the police function force against offenders (or presumed offenders)-an issue of from the mayor's office to that of the local prosecutor and to growing importance in many American cities...
...They are operations of vital agencies such as the police (and the D.A.'s found in good novels as well...
...by local bar associations would compel prosecutors to devise More than greater efficiency will result...
...In any event, "causes" tend to be complex-while major portion of the Justice Department's massive lawsuit the Philadelphia department's depredations may be "caused" against the Philadelphia police department, the civil rights suit in part by the twelve-year history of support given by former may presage other legal actions against police forces of cities police commissioner, now mayor Rizzo, it appears that quite (such as Houston) which are vulnerable to charges of systema- different causes are at work in Houston where political offitic civil rights violations...
...Though it is apparent that the hero is strongly police departments without crippling the ability of those de- moved by the old couple, we are uncertain why...
Vol. 106 • November 1979 • No. 21
