• Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • Yale Law School Journals
    • Yale Law and Policy Review
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • Yale Law School Journals
    • Yale Law and Policy Review
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of openYLSCommunitiesPublication DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionPublication DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    Display statistics

    Police Power and the Scaring of America: A Personal Journey

    • CSV
    • RefMan
    • EndNote
    • BibTex
    • RefWorks
    Thumbnail
    Name:
    4_steinberg_policy_essay_final ...
    Size:
    241.6Kb
    Format:
    PDF
    Download
    Author
    Steinberg, Robin
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13051/17245
    Abstract
    For over thirty years, I have worked in the criminal justice world, representing people in several of America’s poorest congressional districts. As the Founder and Executive Director of The Bronx Defenders, a holistic public defender office in the South Bronx that serves over 30,000 of the lowest-income residents in America every year, I thought I had a clear view of over-policing and the rapidly fraying bond between police and the poor communities of color they patrol. I didn’t. Last year, I became embroiled in a controversy that both deepened my own understanding of the problem and inexorably brought me closer to those my office represents. The controversy concerned my office’s participation in a hip-hop video that became a flashpoint in the conversation about policing and racial justice. My experience at the center of the ensuing maelstrom taught me several valuable lessons: about the power of the “hero cop” narrative that pervades the United States today, about the fragility of the defense function, and about the profound racial fears that still suffuse the American experiment. And just as importantly, after more than thirty years in the criminal justice system, the experience gave me a long-overdue taste of what it might feel like to be a client—targeted by the raw, angry power of the New York City Police Department. This paper will argue two things: first, that until we begin to challenge and ultimately unravel the false narrative of heroic police officers engaged in a dangerous war against its own citizenry, specifically men of color, we will never be able to substantially advance the causes of social and racial justice in this country; and second, that the nature of holistic defense profoundly deepens attorney-client relationships, fundamentally entangling lawyers in the struggles of client communities. Challenging the hero cop narrative can come at great cost. It is a profoundly powerful worldview, and threats to it are met with extraordinary hostility.
    Collections
    Yale Law and Policy Review

    entitlement

     
    DSpace software (copyright © 2002 - 2023)  DuraSpace
    Quick Guide | Contact Us
    Open Repository is a service operated by 
    Atmire NV
     

    Export search results

    The export option will allow you to export the current search results of the entered query to a file. Different formats are available for download. To export the items, click on the button corresponding with the preferred download format.

    By default, clicking on the export buttons will result in a download of the allowed maximum amount of items.

    To select a subset of the search results, click "Selective Export" button and make a selection of the items you want to export. The amount of items that can be exported at once is similarly restricted as the full export.

    After making a selection, click one of the export format buttons. The amount of items that will be exported is indicated in the bubble next to export format.