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C00002 00002	goetz.2[w85,jmc]		Suppressing crime, black crime, history
C00016 00003	Note the following points in the following news story.
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goetz.2[w85,jmc]		Suppressing crime, black crime, history

Some aspects of the black crime problem

	Here are some facts I consider relevant.

	1. The leading cause of death among young black males is
murder --- by other young black males.  Since middle class black
communities presumably don't have substantial murder rates, the
situation must be really dangerous in the ``ghetto''.  (I put
the word ``ghetto'' in quotes, because although it is in common
use, the analogy with the Jewish ghettoes is false, and the use
of the word presumes a false (liberal) diagnosis of the problem).

	2. While economic conditions contribute to ``ghetto''
unemployment, the basic problem is cultural.  The values of
this culture are violent and exploitive.

	3. While poverty and perhaps misguided efforts to combat
it may have helped cause the situation, there is no reason to
suppose that either increased efforts to reduce poverty or
the restriction or even abandonment of the welfare system will cure it.

	4. The phenomenon of a thuggish culture among young males
is common in history.  Consider the British upper class.  It is now
a model of peacefulness, but it is descended from the nobility that
conquered England in 1066.  English history from 1066 to the end
of the Wars of Roses is a story of upper class thuggishness.  They
got into fights with each other and anyone else at slight provocation,
and they robbed each other and anyone else at slight provocation.
Their invasion of England was a robbery attempt and so were their
repeated wars in France.

	Similar upper class phenomena existed in all Europe, lasting
longest perhaps in Germany.  It also existed in Japan before the
Tokugawa era and perhaps briefly afterwards.

	5. All these periods of thuggishness ended in about the
same way.  The strongest thug became king and responded to demands
for order.  Order was established but was often overthrown.  The
final establishment of order required a sequence of dictatorial
kings and often the death of a substantial part of the leaders
of the thuggish culture.  In particular, the Tudor dictatorship
starting with Henry VII, depended for its success on the fact
that the most turbulent nobility had killed each other off in
the immediately preceding period of the Wars of the Roses.

	6. There is no evidence that prosperity per se had much
to do with it.  Therefore, there is little hope that prosperity
per se will solve the black crime problem.

	7. England also had a lower class violent crime problem
that was solved by improvement of the police in the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.  Suppression and
disregard of civil rights were the method.

	We now turn to the present.

	1. Begin with a right wing paranoid fantasy.  Suppose the
most extreme ideas attributed to the ACLU and ``turn 'em loose,
Bruce'' prevailed indefinitely and nothing were done at all
to suppress ``ghetto crime''.  Here's what would happen if
past history were a guide.  ``Ghetto'' crime would develop on
a larger and larger scale.  It would be so profitable that
youth would not grow out of it.  Instead gangs on a larger and
larger scale would develop and eventually conquer the cities
and eventually the country.  The culture of violently fighting
for power would continue.  Eventually, a ``ghetto'' king would
develop and after centuries would suppress the ``ghetto'' barons.
Free enterprise youth crime by other than the families of gang
leaders would have been suppressed much earlier.  Civil rights
would not be part of this process at all.  They would be
re-established only after the ``ghetto king'' turned into a
constitutional monarch.

	The fantasy isn't realistic, because our society has
more of a sense of self-preservation than that.  The power of
the gangs would be minuscule in comparison with that of the
army or even that of the police who would be unleashed.

	There is no reason to suppose that the problem will
get very much worse without provoking strong reactions.  However,
it also is unlikely to get much better given present policies
or any seriously proposed policies.

	Here are some suggestions.  Most likely it wouldn't be
necessary to go quite as far in the directions indicated.

	1. We need long prison terms for offenders.  At present
it costs $40,000 per year to keep someone in prison, but this
is with getting no work out of the prisoners and with present
compromises on the civil rights of prisoners.  In order to
afford to keep criminals in prison till they grow out of it,
it may be necessary to reduce costs at the expense of civil
rights of prisoners and even their health.  The chain gang
came close to breaking even, because the prison system was
paid for the labor.  Brutal guards, (Nice people don't
flock to careers as prison guards), oppressed the prisoners.

Fantasy: Even now the Soviet Union finds concentration camp
prisoners an economic asset.  Perhaps detente will sometime
develop to the point where we can send them our prisoners
to be reformed by labor.  The Russians have the necessary
racism, and we would avoid exciting racist feelings in the
lower class prison guards we would otherwise require.

Non-fantasy: Perhaps improved technology can allow a reduced
ratio of guards to prisoners and reduce the amount of personal
contact required between guards and prisoners.  The anti-technologists
can develop their fantasies about this.

2. Technology can make crime more difficult.  Here are some
suggestions.

	a. Eliminate or reduce cash.  A robber cannot safely force a
victim to transfer money to his account, since there is a permanent
record of the transaction.

	b. Extend the notion of registered property from cars to
other items such as TVs, stereos, VCRs, cameras.  It would be
illegal to possess such property unregistered.  A transfer could
be registered by telephone.  This means that no person who wished
to remain legal would purchase stolen goods nor would any
repairman fix it.

	c. Put a VCR in every subway car and in other public
places.  The tapes would be recycled after being held long
enough to be sure that no crime was complained about.  The
information could be stored in an encrypted form and a court
order required for its decryption and inspection.

	3. A compromise of present notions of equality and civil
rights may be required.  Here are some possibility.

	a. Introduce a formal notion of ``respectable person''.
A respectable person is allowed onto airplanes without scanning,
cannot be hassled by ordinary persons.  Very respectable people
are permitted to visit the President without being inspected
too closely by the Secret Service.  Respectable people carry
electronic identification that is scanned.

	How does someone become respectable.  Simple.  A bonding
company with sufficient resources offers to pay $10,000,000 if
one of the people they have declared respectable hijacks an
airplane or robs a 7-11.  To be very respectable requires that
the bonding company agrees to pay $100,000,000.

	There will be competitive bonding companies.  Most grandmothers
will be able to achieve a high degree of respectability at very
low cost.  Young ``ghetto'' males will have to exhibit clean
police records and employment records, and even then may not
find it worthwhile to pay large sums.  Anyone who thinks he
can tell who is likely to go straight can back his judgment
by going into the bonding business --- even the ACLU or the
NAACP.

	c. It may be necessary to revive and expand the
notion of vagrancy and harass vagrants.  A policeman can inquire
about the employment and income source of someone hanging
around a street corner at 10am or 2am.  Respectable people
can tell the policeman to go away, but those who aren't
may be taken in and questioned about recent crimes.

	What is meant by ``necessary''?  I mean that it some such
infringement may be successful and required to break this predatory
culture.  Of course, thought may produce a better way.  Also
perhaps someone can find examples from the past where predatory
cultures disappeared without being suppressed (either with or
without first dominating society).

	I think that suppression is better than letting it continue,
and sooner is probably better than later.  The ``sooner is better
than later'' opinion is tentative, because research may develop
either technological or sociological means of overcoming the
problem at lesser cost.
Note the following points in the following news story.
1. the stuff about waiving immunity
2. the propaganda from the attorneys for the alleged alleged muggers.
3. the alleged alleged muggers have 10 bench outstanding bench warrants
for not showing up for trials.  One may conjecture that if each had been
kept in jail on being caught in a second crime after failing to show up
for trial on the first, they would not have been led into temptation to
try to mug Goetz.  Perhaps some attorney can get damages from
the city for this negligence.

n096  1839  08 Jan 85
AM-GOETZ
By MARCIA CHAMBERS
c.1985 N.Y. Times News Service
    NEW YORK - Bernhard Hugo Goetz, who is accused of attempting to
murder four teen-agers on a subway train last month, posted $50,000
cash bail and was released from a Rikers Island jail late Tuesday
afternoon.
    Edward Hershey, a spokesman for the city's Department of Correction,
said he believed that Goetz had used his own money to bail himself
out of the jail, where he had been held in a special unit since
Thursday.
    Goetz, a 37-year-old electronics specialist, had refused offers from
the public and from his family to help with the bail. He said he
wanted to take care of it himself.
    Frank Brenner, Goetz's lawyer, said he had been surprised by his
client's leaving jail. ''I don't know why he did it,'' Brenner said
from his office. ''I did not know about it.''
    Hershey said later that the Correction Department had helped to
arrange Goetz's release ''in a private manner.'' He said correction
employees processed the bail papers so that word of Goetz's departure
would be kept secret. ''We wanted to do this in an orderly manner,''
he said. ''It was his wish and it helped to avoid a security problem
for us.''
    Hershey would not give specific details, such as the transportation
Goetz used to leave the jail or who, if anyone, accompanied him.
    It was not immediately clear why Goetz decided to leave jail Tuesday
or where he went after he left. Goetz was scheduled to appear in
court Wednesday.
    Had he not posted the bail, a Criminal Court judge would have been
required to release Goetz in his own custody unless the Manhattan
district attorney either held a preliminary hearing on the charges
against him, announced that a grand jury hearing the case had acted,
or showed ''good cause'' why Goetz should not be released.
    In other developments in the case Tuesday, the district attorney,
Robert M. Morgenthau, refused to grant immunity from prosecution to
three of the four teen-agers who were shot by Goetz on an IRT No. 2
train last month after they asked him for money. As a result, they
refused to testify before a Manhattan grand jury Tuesday. The fourth
youth remained hospitalized.
    Morgenthau would not say so, but lawyers familiar with the case said
he did not want to run the risk that their having testified could
make the teen-agers immune from prosecution for other criminal
charges pending in Manhattan and in the Bronx.
    A witness who testifies before a grand jury in New York state is
granted automatic immunity from prosecution for the crime at hand as
well as for any other crime he may happen to mention, unless the
witness waives his immunity. All four of the victims of the subway
shooting have other court cases waiting.
    Goetz's lawyer, Brenner, said Goetz had also decided not to testify
before the grand jury. Brenner said Tuesday that Goetz made the
decision not to testify after Brenner explained the consequences of
testifying. If Goetz had decided to tell his story to the grand jury,
the prosecutor would have required him to waive his immunity from
prosecution.
    ''He made the decision,'' Brenner said. As a result, Brenner did not
notify the Manhattan district attorney's office that his client
wanted to testify.
    Although neither Goetz nor the three teen-agers are expected to
testify, indictments of Goetz or of the young men might still be
returned by the grand jury. The members of the grand jury are said to
be evaluating photographs taken at the scene of the subway shootings,
medical evidence and Goetz's lengthy statement and video-taped
interview that he gave to the police in New Hampshire, where he
surrendered.
    Three of the four teen-agers were subpoenaed to testify before the
grand jury Tuesday afternoon. The three were Troy Canty, 19 years
old, who has said he asked Goetz for $5, Barry Allen, 18, and James
Ramseur, 18, who was brought to the Manhattan Criminal Court building
from Bellevue Hospital. Ramseur was described by one of the attorneys
as being in ''excruciating pain.''
    The fourth teen-ager, Darryl Cabey, 19, is believed to be paralyzed
from the waist down and could not be moved from his hospital bed.
Cabey is under indictment in the Bronx, charged with armed robbery.
He faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted of that charge.
    During the grand jury session Tuesday, each of the three young men
was asked one question by Susan Braver, the prosecutor handling the
case: ''Do you wish to waive immunity?''
    Each said that, on the advice of counsel, he did not.
    Howard Meyer, Canty's attorney, said after his client emerged from
the grand jury room that it ''was rare for the District Attorney to
ask a victim to waive immunity.''
    ''I think it was unusual to bring them in knowing that they would
refuse to sign a waiver,'' Meyer said. ''James was in great pain,
moaning and holding his stomach when he walked in.''
    The four teen-agers, all from the Bronx,have criminal
records, mainly in the Bronx. They have had a total of 10 bench
warrants issued for their arrests because they failed to keep court
dates.
    The most serious felony charge is against Cabey, who is accused of
committing an armed rbbery last Oct. 13, with what the police said
appeared to be a shotgun. Cabey was indicted on that charge by a
Bronx grand jury but was released on bail and was awaiting trial when
he was shot in the subway incident last Dec. 22.
    
nyt-01-08-85 2135est
***************