TO: Hardworking Students in Doing Justice, Fall 2007
FROM: R. B. Taylor
DATE: 10/22/07
RE: Your responses to the Nutter/Targeted Enforcement Zones (TEZ) Exercise last Thursday; responses to some ATTIC comments

TEZs

You all did a terrific job with the role playing exercise last Thursday. Each group came up with a lot of ideas, and City Council asked a lot of good questions.

Couple of Suggestions

If you were caught in a situation like this again, here are two minor thoughts for developing a better presentation. (1) Stick to fewer points. Put a main point out there, then take the time to elaborate on that point, and explain why you are in favor of it. There is a tendency in this kind of situation to just present folks with a list. You can make a stronger case if you make your point, then give the audience reasons why you favor this point. You make an argument, you try and convince them. (2) All the groups used the readings somewhat. That was good. You could have made even stronger points if you had used the assigned reading in a more integrated way. For example, giving a quote from a reading that supported your argument. Quoting from an authoritative source is a good way to make your point of view seem even more convincing. I still remember getting killed in a high school debate because of this.

What You Thought Was Most Important
I asked each of you on your way out to mention what you thought were the most important points you heard on the PRO side, in favor of TEZs, and the most important point you heard on the CON side, against the TEZs. I went through your answers and tried to group similar comments, and came up with the following counts of different points. This focuses just on the most popular points, not on all of the ones you folks mentioned.

Most important PRO
21    Violence/crime goes down
9        Senior officers could supervise line officers, thus helping prevent inappropriate police aggressiveness or discretion
5        Putting a curfew on youth probably will help keep them out of trouble
5        Citizens and police could work together, with citizens assisting police, keeping an eye on them
4        People might carry guns less / there would be less gun violence
4        Juveniles will have a curfew, which will be good.

Most important CON
18    Small businesses will be adversely affected, will lose customers, may have to close, this will hurt residents
14    There are greater chances for police profiling, or police inappropriately exercising their discretion
6        If police use a lot of (potentially excessive force) this may make residents angry at the police
5        The crime will just be displaced to a different location
2        The root causes of crime are not addressed
2        The sense of community locally will be adversely affected; it will be harder for residents to gather together, and the program may generate concerns

ATTIC MID SEMESTER REVIEW

I have looked at the comments you shared with the ATTIC mid-semester reviewers. There were many helpful comments. I will be bearing many of those in mind as the semester continues. Very useful and to those of you who took the time to comment: thanks!

There were a couple of points that I thought I would respond to in writing. Hopefully my response may make sense to those raising these concerns. Here goes.

* Syllabus. Some folks commented it was “absurdly long and it is hard to find things in it.” HINT: It is searchable! Here's how:

 - go to my main web page: www.rbtaylor.net. You will see a SEARCH box right in the middle of the lower portion of the page.

* Maps. A "number of them [you] said that they [maps] are hard to follow and that too much class time is spent on analyzing them." REPLY: remember early on I said that social space was mapped onto physical space? Looking at maps is a great way to get a quick view of the structure of society, which is part of what you are supposed to be learning about on the skill side. It is also a good way to get a snapshot of different features of Philadelphia, which is also something we are working on. Further, this is a skill that will stand you in good stead. If any of you all out there really really really want to be assured of a job when you graduate, learn GIS (Geographic Information Systems). Making and decoding maps like we have seen here are a key part of that.

* Readings. "A number of students expressed that the articles are long, and only a small part of any given article is discussed in class. They feel that they do not need to read the whole thing to understand the part that is discussed." REPLY: I have tried to be very focused in directing you to specific parts of articles. If you look at the sequence of topics page (http://www.rbtaylor.net/0060_fa07_sequence.htm) there are very specific page numbers  for most of the readings. YES, we can only get to a portion of each piece in class, because our time is limited, but you want to be able to answer the questions for the readings, even if we do not get to it in class. There is this thing called a final coming up....
* Census data. “I don’t get what census info has to do with 'Doing Justice.' "  The census data help us understand differences in the populations with which
justice agencies interact. These differences across populations are, we have been suggesting, critical determinants of how justice agencies act. Census data allow us to see where there are differences in status, nativity, and race, for example. Looking at the Hazleton City census data helped us put the locals' concerns in context. Were these census data perfect? No. Were they relatively accurate? Yes. Did they suggest numbers much lower than your "public" perceptions? Yes. Census data is one of our key windows into understanding how the society with which justice agencies interact is organized.
* Email. One of you remarked: “Never returned my email.”  REPLY: This may be true. But it would help me if you email me at the address listed on the syllabus tuclasses@fastmail.fm because I check that more frequently. Do NOT go to Cherry & White pages and use the email listed there because I do not scan that address as often during the semester.
* Old stuff.  One of you commented: “Some of the older readings are just too old.” REPLY: This is a great comment! These old readings were selected for a purpose. Consider this: if the materials covered in the older readings described issues that never happened again, then there would be no point to "older" readings. But if the points described in the older readings keep happening again and again and again, then don't you begin to suspect that there may be a pattern? There were corruption probes of the Philadelphia Police in 1928, 1938, 1980s, and 1990s. Lots of good things have happened during that time of course, but doesn't this suggest a pattern? The Wickersham Commission suggested that public opinion blamed foreign born for crime in the 1920s, but data from 1930 suggested they were more law abiding. Now we have many arguments about how illegal immigrants are causing a crime wave, at the same time we have (Sampson) data from Chicago suggesting foreign born are more law abiding. Further, if the pattern you see is really old but still current, because it is described in these older readings but is also still happening now, doesn't that make you want to look very carefully at proposals for reform? Remember, the subtitle of this course is, courtesy of Yogi Berra (not Yogi Bear): Deja vu all over again.