Berastain: Domestic Violence in LGBT Communities

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This post by Friends of Justice intern Pierre Berastain originally appeared in the Huffington Post.

By Pierre Berastain

Every time a celebrity suffers from or commits intimate partner abuse, the media responds by writing op-eds, hosting panels of experts, and making the public aware of resources available to them. As someone who works in the field of domestic violence, I am glad these conversations take place, and I wish they would occur with more frequency. After all, the Center for Disease Control indicates that 1 of 4 women and 1 in 7 men over the age of 18 experiences severe physical violence in their lifetime. These conversations clearly need to happen.

The public, too, reads more and becomes more informed every time a celebrity tragedy takes place. What we see and hear, though, usually consists of advice to determine whether the man is abusing the woman, and once abuse is determined, conversations turn to how women can escape abusive relationships. But what happens in same-sex or LGBT relationships? In this short piece, I would like to cover how partner abuse manifests itself in the LGBT community, which experiences domestic violence at equal rates–and sometimes higher–than those of the rest of the population (25-33% of the LGBT population experiences domestic violence in its lifetime). True, any person–gay or straight–can be controlling of finances, hit another individual, or constantly make derogatory comments. However, intimate partner abuse in the LGBT population also manifests itself differently, thus presenting specific challenges our community faces when recognizing partner abuse and when trying to access services.

Here, then, are some things to consider: (more…)

Cohen: The Lies We Tell Each Other About the Right To Counsel

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Clarence Earl Gideon in 1963

By Alan Bean

Fifty years ago, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Gideon v. Wainwright theoretically gave criminal defendants an iron-clad right to effective legal representation.  But Andrew Cohen of the Brennan Center for Justice says it’s a lie.  Everything was fine until America raced headlong into a self-destructive tango with mass incarceration.  Suddenly, there were so many cases at bar that we faced a choice: either pump millions of dollars into the indigent defense system or whittle away at Gideon until the ostensible right to the services of a good lawyer meant next to nothing.  Guess which way we moved? (more…)

Canadians outraged by immigration raid staged for the cameras

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Diana ThompsonBy Alan Bean

Canadian activists are outraged by an immigration raid in Vancouver that they claim was staged for a reality show.  The folks with the cameras claim they are producing a documentary and only use footage after getting verbal permission.  A woman working across the street from the action claims to be deeply upset: “It doesn’t seem very Canadian,” she told the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) “It’s very sensationalized. I don’t like it. It’s just very creepy.”

This video is taken from the Vancouver Sun’s story on the raid.

http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/CBSA+raid+migrant+workers+complete+with+camera+crew+raises+concerns+Vancouver/8093462/story.html#ooid=huMzM3YTp5X9MjDEogQcyEYI834YBHGS

Canadians define themselves in opposition to the United States.  As Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau once explained to an American reporter, “Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant . . .  one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”  When Canadians say something “isn’t very Canadian” we usually mean it is very American.

Canadians have just recently gained a passion for deporting undocumented aliens.  True, the number of people deported from Canada increased by 50% between 1999 and 2009, but we’re talking about an increase from 8,361 deportations per year to 12,732.

Contrast that with the 400,000 folks the Obama administration deported last year.

Of course Canada is one-tenth the size of the US and doesn’t share a border with a less wealthy nation, so comparisons are precarious.  Still, I find the reaction of the populace gratifying.  People were generally outraged by the idea of staging an immigration sweep for the cameras, something that would hardly raise an eyebrow in the USA.  And the immigration people were quick to insist that they were really looking for a genuine baddie and just stumbled over the other people by accident.

Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, appears to be fascinated by all things American, including our war on drugs and our prison industrial complex.  Is he now taking an interest in mass deportation?  Will private detention centers soon be springing up along the border between British Columbia and Washington State?  Perhaps some of our Canadian readers can shed some light on these questions. (more…)

They shoot preachers, don’t they?

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By Alan Bean

In his book Don’t Shoot, criminologist David Kennedy identifies a disconnect between a criminal justice system built on the notion of personal responsibility and the fact that gang bangers think and behave as members of a group.  You can’t reduce gun violence by ratcheting up the penalties for individuals, Kennedy believes, you have to deal with entire neighborhoods at once.

Kennedy’s insight came to mind last week when I read Brent Younger’s post about “Preaching peace in a timid church“.    A few years ago, Younger moved from Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth to teach preaching at the McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta.

At the 2012 William Self Preaching Lectures at the McAfee School of Theology, “Preaching Peace in a Crumbling Empire,” Brian McLaren argued that the Bible is a call to speak God’s word of peace to an empire built on power.

“We preach the peace of one who was crucified, so we cannot preach power that crucifies,” McLaren said. “We preach a way of love and service, so we cannot preach conquest and domination.”

McLaren’s words in the chapel were challenging and inspiring. The words in the hall — not so much. Popular opinion seems to be that peace belongs in lectures, but not in sermons:

“That peace stuff wouldn’t fly at my church.”

“Now we know why McLaren isn’t a pastor anymore.”

“His last church must have been in Switzerland.”

“If I preach on peace, war will break out in the next deacons’ meeting.”

“I’ll preach against the war when McLaren agrees to pay my kid’s college tuition.”

In Jesus’ day prophets were run out of town, thrown off a cliff or stoned in the middle of the village. Now we dismiss prophets in the conversations between lectures.

The fear of social consequences largely determines what is said and remains unsaid in the pulpits of Christendom.  It isn’t just street punks who engage in group-think, it’s everybody.   (more…)

The Conservative Case Against More Prisons

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vgm8383 / FlickrBy Alan Bean

Vikrant Reddy and Marc Levin are unimpressed by arguments that associate high rates of American incarceration with white racism.  In fact, race hardly figures in their argument.  Liberals may not have created the high rates of violence that sparked a turn to punitive policies, they say, but liberals didn’t lift a finger to stop the killing.

Reddy and Levin aren’t even convinced that the shift to mass incarceration was a bad idea back in the day.  But with crime rates plunging nationwide, they ask, does it make sense to keep pumping billions of dollars into prisons that aren’t making us safer?

The authors attribute about a quarter of the drop in crime to high rates of incarceration, and I suspect they have it about right.  But that means 75% of the drop in crime has nothing to do with high rates of incarceration.  Let’s lock up the violent criminals, they say, but find less expensive ways of dealing with non-violent offenders that involve less tax money and less government.  To their credit, they realize that everybody suffers when felons who have served their time can’t find decent jobs. (more…)

Probing the subtleties of white racial bias

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By Alan Bean

I came across two columns this morning making the case that white people can be riddled with racial bias without feeling any particular ill will toward racial minorities.

In a guest column in the New York Times, Ta-Nehisi Coates uses a grotesque incident of racial profiling involving academy award-winning actor Forest Whitaker as his jumping off point.  The deli employee who accused Whitaker of shop lifting, and frisked him on the spot, claims to be a “good person” without a single racist bone in his body.  Coates doesn’t argue with this self-assessment, but disputes the assumption that racism necessarily involves a conscious dislike of a particular racial group.

In modern America we believe racism to be the property of the uniquely villainous and morally deformed, the ideology of trolls, gorgons and orcs. We believe this even when we are actually being racist. In 1957, neighbors in Levittown, Pa., uniting under the flag of segregation, wrote: “As moral, religious and law-abiding citizens, we feel that we are unprejudiced and undiscriminating in our wish to keep our community a closed community.” (more…)

With Immigration Reform Looming, Private Prisons Lobby Work to Keep Migrants Behind Bars

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Laura Carlsen

By Alan Bean

In this HuffPost piece, Laura Carlsen lays bare the idiot greed driving American immigration policy.  You will notice that most members of the eight-person bi-partisan team pushing the reform agenda in Congress (including all the Democrats) have received generous contributions from the private prison industry.  Why has a smart man like Barack Obama embraced a brain-dead immigration policy.  Well, consider this:

The inhumane and illogical step of pre-deportation detention was invented by the private prison industry. Last year, the Obama administration spent more money on immigration enforcement, including detention, than all other federal law enforcement agencies combined — a staggering $18 billion. The detention centers receive $166 per person, per day in government funds — an amount that would be a godsend to a homeless family or unemployed worker.

Please give this article the attention it deserves

With Immigration Reform Looming, Private Prisons Lobby to Keep Migrants Behind Bars

By Laura Carlsen

As the immigration reform debate heats up, an important argument has been surprisingly missing. By granting legal status to immigrants and ordering future flows, the government could save billions of dollars. A shift to focus border security on real crime, both local and cross-border, would increase public safety and render a huge dividend to cash-strapped public coffers. (more…)

Cliburn gives his regards to Broadway

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By Alan Bean

Last night, Nancy and I watched a taped version of the funeral service for pianist Van Cliburn.  Eight speakers, including George W. Bush and Texas Governor Rick Perry, addressed the 1500 people seated in the theater-style “pews” of Broadway Baptist Church.  A choir of 300 belted out hymns handpicked for the occasion by the great pianist himself.  I have no intention of checking out in the near future, but if I do, I’ll go with Van’s hymn picks without exception: Love Divine All Loves Excelling, Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah, All People that on Earth Do Dwell, When Morning Guilds the Skies, and Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.  (You can find the complete bulletin for the service here.)

These are all old hymns, the kind that churches like Broadway keep alive.  Broadway is known as “the liberal Baptist Church” but there’s nothing liberal or avant garde about the congregation’s musical tastes.  In fact, the l-word doesn’t define the church at all, unless feeding the hungry and ministering to the homeless have suddenly become “liberal” activities.   (more…)

Private prisons fuel growing controversy in Florida

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By Alan Bean

There’s nothing like a good scandal to get people talking about public policy issues that normally fly under the radar.  Take private prisons, for instance.  Like most people, Mary Jane Saunders knew practically nothing about the private prison industry until an alumnus of the school offered Florida Atlantic University a cool $6 million if they would name their football stadium after GEO group, one of the largest private prison companies in the world.  Fortunately, students at FAU knew more about private prisons than president Saunders.  They didn’t want their beloved Owls playing in a football stadium named after a company associated with blatant human rights abuses.    (more…)

Business writer wants more “good time” for federal inmates

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Walter Pavlo

Forbes Magazine is hardly a haunt of bleeding heart lefties and this piece by Walter Pavlo isn’t brimming with the milk of human kindness.  Pavlo writes for Forbes about white collar crime and talks primarily to business groups.  He thinks federal prisoners, who do not benefit from parole, ought to get 128 days of good time per year instead of the measly 54 days the federal system presently allows.  If prisoners could cut their sentences by one-third by acting like model prisoners, a lot of them would.  Moreover, when they return to the free world, as 97% of them will, they will be better prepared for what lies ahead.

The idea of radically reducing the prison population makes sense even if you don’t care about the human dynamics of the issue.  It saves tax payer money.  But here’s the question; if we don’t have jobs for these people, and if we refuse to hire ex-offenders with marketable skills, what’s to keep them from re-offending?  It will take a combination of compassion and common sense to answer this question.  If there is no work for felons in the free world we must make work for them–and that could cost almost as much as locking everybody up for everything.   (more…)