The Berkeley Blog » Jonathan Simon

Lessons from the ‘sordid decades’: Miscarriages of justice in NY’s ‘War on Crime’ in the ’80s and ’90s

Jonathan Simon — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:11:36 +0000

Any reader of the paper of record will be impressed with the series of impressive features dealing with various aspects of county level justice in the five boroughs that make up New York City. While not all of them have cast their gaze backwards (for instance the superb recent series on delay in the Bronx County courts). But many of them belong to what might be best understood as an effort to recover the real history of New York’s war on crime during the last twenty years of the 20th century when high homicide rates and tabloid journalism helped create a state ... More >

Living it up at the Hotel California: For Jerry Brown and California’s political leadership, it’s always 1977

Jonathan Simon — Mon, 06 May 2013 15:48:41 +0000

Watching California politics these days I can’t help feeling that I’m lost in the late 1970s, when I first moved to the Golden State (in August of ’77 with the Eagle’s hit released that March still riding high on the charts).

It’s not just that Jerry Brown is still governor. It’s that when it comes to prisons and crime policy, the Governor and entire political establishment are still acting like they are lost in the 70s. Then, the state was experiencing nearly20 years of escalating violent crime. Instead of being reinforced to address this frightening trend, the state’s major correctional institutions ... More >

‘Mass incarceration now, tomorrow, forever’: Gov. Jerry Brown and the politics of court bashing

Jonathan Simon — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 19:04:41 +0000

Just about two years ago, in May 2011, the US Supreme Court in Brown v. Plata 131 S.Ct. 1910 (2011) upheld what Justice Scalia called the “most radical court injunction in our nation’s history.” The injunction imposed by a special 3-Judge federal court in August 2009, required California to reduce its prison population by some 40,000 prisoners, to a level approximating 137% of its design capacity. The State responded with a package of legislation known collectively as “realignment” and has been bragging about its success in achieving court benchmarks since Fall 2011.

However, starting in January of this year, Gov. Jerry Brown, apparently ... More >

How not to govern through crime: Insights on bullying

Jonathan Simon — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 21:21:47 +0000

In her New York Times op-ed on bullying (and I presume her book), journalist Emily Bazelon provides a powerful critique of why not to govern through crime and more importantly, some keen insights on alternative ways to govern a problem that has some crime like properties, but other features as well (read it here).

Bullying among children and in schools, on-line, and in person, has become a recent focus of alarm by many parents, schools, and increasingly legislators, often fueled by media reports of children or young people who seriously harmed, or who have taken their own life, after aggressive treatment ... More >

Gated nightmares

Jonathan Simon — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 18:51:05 +0000

It has all the feel of a Twilight Zone episode, only in a setting that is unmistakably contemporary. The nightmare is framed by this setting, a house in a gated community. It could be a very posh house, like the one where Oscar Pistorious lived and admits he shot to death his girlfriend, the model Reeva Steenkamp, last week in South Africa [read the Guardian's coverage here]; or a more middle class one, like the South Florida community where George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin to death in 2012 [read the New York Times summary here].

Whatever you make of either mans’ ... More >

The myth of urban insecurity

Jonathan Simon — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 21:48:30 +0000

In March 1964, when 28 year-old bartender Kitty Genovese was stalked and murdered by an assailant as she tried to enter her Queens apartment in New York, America was just beginning the great rise in violent crime that would shape the next four decades. It was not so much her murder that unnerved New Yorkers and other Americans at a moment when America’s cities were only beginning to suffer the great suburban exodus that would see many of them lose as much half their population, as the widely circulated claim that her murder could have been prevented if the dozens ... More >

The turn-around state? Does California have one of the finest prison systems in the nation?

Jonathan Simon — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 21:26:58 +0000

As readers of this blog know, Gov. Jerry Brown of California has combined leadership on reducing California’s bloated prison population with relentless attacks on the courts whose orders have made that badly needed “realignment” political possible. Still even I was surprised by the air of unreality to the Governor’s dual press conference yesterday, backing up the state’s legal filings yesterday seeking an end to the federal court oversight of California’s prison health system, and a respite from its prison population cap (listen to the California Report’s coverage here).

We’ve gone from serious constitutional problem (sic) to one of the finest prison ... More >

‘Les Mis’: Why do we idealize Jean Valjean and act like Javert?

Jonathan Simon — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 21:41:22 +0000

Since it opened on Broadway in 1987, the musical Les Miserables has captured the American imagination, running until 2003; the fourth longest running show in Broadway history. The movie version, starring Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman, just opened and the show I saw last night was packed.

The story, based on Victor Hugo’s Emile Zola‘s 1862 novel of the same name, tells the story of Jean Valjean, a peasant condemned to 19 years of slavery in prison for the crime of stealing a loaf of bread to feed a starving nephew. Embittered and degraded by his prison experience, Valjean commits a property ... More >

Put a fork in it: Paper of record declares mass incarceration dead

Jonathan Simon — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 19:09:25 +0000

So forgive my mixing New York metaphors and class signifiers (I’ve never really lived in Gotham), but as cultural markers go today’s frontpage story in The New York Times, using the phrase “mass incarceration” and declaring it dead (or at least out of favor among everyone they know and like) is an important occasion in the life of those of us who want to see it so.

Transformative social policies, penal and otherwise, are primarily acts of imagination and John Tierney’s article, which spilled over into two full pages of the national print edition, offered a wide ranging and thoroughly critical ... More >

Penal trends: Strange weather or climate change?

Jonathan Simon — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 18:15:45 +0000

The most important political storm in recent history (was it the storm or the meme?), “Super-Storm Sandy” helped not only President Obama but to re-raise the question of whether unusual weather is a sign of profound climate change, in this case global average temperature rises caused by human carbon effects.

When it comes to our massive penal state, recent events have raised a similar question. Are recent changes in prison-growth patterns, judicial decisions, and electoral results variations within the norm, or evidence of a more profound change that could mark the end of our forty year experiment with mass incarceration?

I’m struck ... More >