So, it was the age of Rudy, the time of stop and frisk. Put everyone in jail, especially those who was windows on stopped cars. The PC was developing community policing which was bringing down crime, but the jails were burgeoning with poor people of color and druggies.
Who knows where the newly appointed ADAs were from or what their connection to criminal justice was or how much life experience they had. No much or any, I suspected. And the bench was packed with EX ADAs from the Bronx, one from Brooklyn who had recently returned from out West where he was a sheriff and a couple of strays, none of whom had ever tried a case or represented a person in custody. There was a politico from Queens whom I was forced to share chambers with and an ex-law assistant, also with no experience in criminal courts.
The newly appointeds knew nothing about the streets. First jobs. Who knows where they live or how many loves they had had. The women knew men through their fathers and none I guess knew anyone from the Woodstock generation. So they, the People (PSNY), were like the kids who had been trained using the Milgram method a program which investigated the conflict between personal conscience and obedience to authority by having participants (often referred to as “teachers”) administer what they believed were increasingly severe, painful electric shocks to another person.
They didn’t understand that alternatives other than jail had to be considered and if they did not exist, developed. And they didn’t understand this look I gave them after listening to their pitter patter following requests for bail and jail.
To be continued.
