F The Police, and then what? A police/justice abolition thread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > F The Police, and then what? A police/justice abolition thread

Zoeb: Oct 8, 2023; Can't post for 4 hours!

Jaxyon posted:

Hey remember when everyone was being super gross about that police sex scandal because the only person getting meme'd was the woman, because misogyny?

Well it looks like her involvement might have been rape, or at least coercive.

https://www.scribd.com/document/628366568/Maegan-Hall-Complaint

I remember thinking there was something suspicious about the story

# ¿ Oct 8, 2023 07:56

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 18:45

Zoeb: Oct 8, 2023; Can't post for 4 hours!

I see a lot of YouTube videos because of what my mom likes to watch of courtroom outbursts or "Karens in the courtroom." People, often criminal defendants, will make asses out of themselves in court and more or less flush their case and credibility down the toilet, wind up being put in jail for contempt, or are given harsher sentences because the judge does not appreciate their lack of deference. Think of the case that was highlighted by Rick and Morty for instance or this guy or this other guy mentioned in the previous video who's family was lovely to the victim's family.

But there's a thought I had. Are these extra punishments for emotional outbursts particularly fair given so many defendants have trauma? I found this article.

https://ctmirror.org/2023/03/31/ct-ruining-mans-life-trauma/

quote:

�Charlie� is a client of mine whose situation should serve as a cautionary tale and hopefully an incentive for these systems to better understand how to work with trauma.

Charlie is no angel. He has been in prison and has a history of making threats, although no history of actual violence � unless he is physically restrained, but more on a that in a moment. He also has a tendency to loudly curse out anyone who he feels is threatening him, whether that person is a drug dealer, a judge, or a DCF worker. He has a young son in foster care, who he is working to be re-united with. He has been homeless for over a year, a situation which has caused a great deal of stress in his life.

Charlie spent much of his own youth in foster care, where he was at times bullied and abused by institutional staff and needed to fight off physical and sexual assault by other residents. Fighting sometimes got him in trouble, but it also kept him as safe as he could be in those situations, and gave him a sense of power where he would otherwise feel at the mercy of institutions far bigger and more powerful than he.

Charlie is also an intelligent person who has been very punctual and committed in his appointments with me for over a decade. He is an active volunteer at a local church that serves free meals to homeless people, and enjoys conversations about spirituality. Until the Department of Children and Families removed his child, (not because of any mistreatment of the boy but because of the way Charlie�s trauma history made him respond to adults who criticized his parenting) he was a devoted single parent. Since the removal, he has had twice- weekly visits with his son and has been working diligently to put his little family back together. Before the current crisis, Charlie worked for years as a restaurant cook � a job he loved. When he feels respected and listened to, he is capable of being calm, thoughtful and generous.

It is understood in psychotherapy, and particularly emphasized in trauma therapy, that when someone feels threatened, they will respond with either a fight, flight, or freeze reaction. This is not a cognitive process. In crisis situations, the �thinking part� of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, quickly becomes overwhelmed by the limbic system or �emotional part� of the brain. This is an evolutionary advantage that helps the body react immediately to imminent threats.

It seems like judges, with their black robes and high benches, who think they are the almighty God of the courtroom cannot tolerate breaches of decorum and take out their anger on these defendants. (They really bratty hate kids too) I used to work with "bad kids" before who had trauma. In many of these videos the judge makes no attempt to de-escalate the defendants, they just keep attacking, and well "judging" so that the defendants, who are not rational, often are not educated, and are acting upon behaviors they were taught in the school of hard knocks, get more and more charges placed on them. Maybe outside of that stressful environment, when they're not triggered, they can behave. There are judgements of "competency" but those judgements are more about maintaining the appearance of legitimacy for state power and state violence. I don't care what a competency hearing says, this guy is nuts. The process here wasn't fair.

# ¿ Dec 24, 2023 12:19

Zoeb: Oct 8, 2023; Can't post for 4 hours!

quote:

https://www.complex.com/life/a/brad-callas/215-bodies-buried-missippi-jail-investigation

215 Bodies Found in Unmarked Graves Behind Mississippi Jail, Ben Crump Calls For Investigation

Even better, the way the bodies were discovered was because the police struck and killed a man, knew who the man's family was, and tried to cover up the manslaughter they committed by burying him in this mass grave and never telling the family about it. It seems this is a regular occurrence, even standard operating procedure.

https://www.blackenterprise.com/215-bodies-found-mississippi-jail/

# ¿ Jan 7, 2024 18:40

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > F The Police, and then what? A police/justice abolition thread