Man who stole $50 to be freed after 36 years in US jail

Scroll to see replies

Came here to say this after reading about it today. The level of misrepresentation is amazing.

'man serves 36 years for armed robbery' feels different, eh

It's utterly ridiculous. He must be Jesus because he was formerly a carpenter, whilst also being a felon committing at fewest two Class A felonies. Who knows what the other one was, but Class A is for ugly offences and I don't know we should be acting as this man were treated harshly.

But hell, it's a fun headline and we're all about fun.

Reply 41

z-hog

Original post by gjd800

The level of misrepresentation is amazing.

Yes but the juice is in the why of it, not just the realization of something obvious to everyone awake. Why is it misrepresented is the question.

Reply 42

gjd800

Original post by Notoriety

I think it was burglary (1st deg) (which apparently counts in Alabama) and probably means he was tooled up.

Reply 43

Notoriety

Original post by gjd800

I think it was burglary (1st deg) (which apparently counts in Alabama) and probably means he was tooled up.

Seemingly entered the place with a deadly weapon.

Should point out that the law change is that Class A, in combo with Class B, led to life imprisonment; whereas now you'd need to commit two Class As at min. He previously committed Class B (2nd degree burglary) for breaking into a place, at min, with a deadly weapon.

So 18 he enters a petrol station with a weapon/dangerous instrument and steals a decent amount. At 22 (as his suspended sentence for the burglary ends) he robs a bakery at knife point and gets a lacklustre $50. If he had got 10 years, who knows what he'd have got up to at 32. He should be thanking the State of Alabama for saving his soul from eternal damnantion.

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 44

z-hog

The BBC article is probably no more than a rearrangement of words for the american media making it a story, they take the lead from their ideological friends with no questions asked. They certainly don't ask any in this case, it's all about the keywords in it: race and anti-abortionist US state.

It's funny how they write them, though. Impossible not to give away that pervading self-righteousness, when they say things like...

Alvin Kennard, 58, was handed the harsh sentence...

They just can't see it, really. This stuff is everything journalism was never about, it's cod political activism carried out by young operatives at the behest of older people to whom Independent, Honest and Unbiased journalism is old-hat. Believe it or not, those are the stated values of the BBC and as credible as those of Pravda.

...under strict rules introduced in the 1970s to deter repeat offenders.

That's the three-strike rule, it sounds more of an injustice if they re-word it into something three times as long. Muddy waters make it easy to catch fish.

Reply 45

goggleyed

ffs LIFE sentence???!

Reply 46

Stiff Little Fingers

Original post by Napp

Remind me which 'western country' currently operates a concentration camp network with over a million people in it?

How many asylum seekers do ICE currently have locked up as encouraged by the carrot Caligula?

Reply 47

Napp

Original post by Stiff Little Fingers

How many asylum seekers do ICE currently have locked up as encouraged by the carrot Caligula?

Touche and totally digging the name there.

Reply 48

username3028808

Original post by z-hog

So this guy was serving a life sentence only because he's black, is that what you mean? It's impossible to have a conversation like this, if you so wholeheartedly believe that it's not for me to try and convince you of the contrary. To my mind, it remains a conspiracy theory that the colour of his skin has anything to do with the price of fish. We are indeed fed the 'story' because of that facile assumption but there's more to it: it's in Alabama, knocking the State is very much on the agenda too.

There's something odd in this game, situations like this one are there for people to approach from their preferred angle. From the News, there's nothing to suggest race is relevant and if we look at the story that way... there's nothing racist about it. No evidence whatsoever, it's a man in Alabama who has been released from a life sentence under penal laws that apply to everyone. If we tend to judge every situation where a non-white person is involved by putting it through the racial lens to begin with... you can see it at every instance and street corner. It is that open-ended. .

What's odd is that in cases like this it's the supposed 'racists' that make race irrelevant until some evidence pops up and the 'anti-racists' that insist on making an issue of it, even without anything to suggest it. At this rate, we'll never see the day when race isn't an issue anymore.

Nobody is saying that he served a life sentence on the basis of being black, the gripe is with the law. The three strikes laws have not reduced levels of violent crime (ACLU research), they disproportionally target black men in deprived neighbourhoods and derail any efforts to rehabilitate. The law itself shouldn't have a place in a civilised society, and the fact that it predominantly targets black men for lifelong incarceration is an issue. Black men are far more likely to encounter the police due to racist attitudes held by a predominantly white police force, far more likely to be involved in gangs due to the fact that 45.8 percent of young black children live in poverty, compared to 14.5 percent of white children, far more likely to stopped and searched, and as a result would be more likely to have the three felonies on their criminal record. Nobody is judging every scenario though a 'racial lens', it's calling a spade a spade and acknowledging the impacts of draconian legislation on minority groups.

The racists love to mention race when it suits their agenda, but will then act silent as though they can't see race when faced with the products of racism. Spare the double standard.

Reply 49

Notoriety

Original post by naem071

Back men are far more likely to encounter the police due to racist attitudes held by a predominantly white police force ... far more likely to be involved in gangs due to the fact that 45.8 percent of young black children live in poverty

It's weird. You on one hand acknowledge that black people are more likely to be involved in gangs -- and by implication involved in committing crimes as part of the gangs -- but attribute police encounters to racist attitudes in a predominantly white police force.

If we are interested in calling a spade a space, I think we must acknowledge that the increased criminality in the black community is part of the reason stops and searches and encounters with the police are so numerous in the black community.

I think we shouldn't be so arrogant as to tell Alabama how to conduct its internal affairs. It has unique issue which we cannot really conceive of. If they want to use a three-strike system, then they are completely entitled to do so. It's not the place of the law to move out of the way of ethnic minorities; the onus is on ethnic minorities to move out of the way of the law.

This law shouldn't be killed off just because it disproportionately affects black people; just as we shouldn't get rid of the offence of murder because it might also disproportionately affect black people.

Reply 50

username3028808

Original post by Notoriety

Yes, they are more likely to be involved in gangs, and that is a product of the socioeconomic situation that exists in Black America. The police would therefore be expected to proportionally target black people to match the scale of offending, but they don't and instead they blow it to epic proportions. In New York (2011), there were 350,743 stops of black people (53% of total searches). Between 2004 and 2012, weapons were found on 1% of the black people stopped, 1.1% of Hispanics, and 1.4% of white people. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45679050)

What does that tell you? The police have this preconception that, for the most part, a black male on the street must be a gang member or a criminal of some sort. Whilst a black man may be more likely to be involved in gangs, that is still a very small fraction of black people as a whole. Based on that, a stereotype forms that targets black men on a huge scale - 168,126 stops compared with a population of 158,406 young black men - without any real results. That is the racist attitude that the police force hold, and what leads to more encounters with the police. Any resistance to being unfairly targeted, well we know how that could end.

It would be all fine and dandy to allow Alabama to go about its affairs if the legislature was representative of the state's population, but it's not. There's a reason why a group of middle aged, Republican, white men voted to restrict abortion so vehemently, to say they were entitled to do so and restrict the reproductive rights of women across the state would be ludicrous. How can a legislature composed of such a demographic understand the situation of its black citizens, and even begin to work with the community rather than against it? "The onus is on ethnic minorities to move out of the way of the law" - that would be an awful state of affairs, that is oppression by majority.

Reply 51

Notoriety

Original post by naem071

Yes, they are more likely to be involved in gangs, and that is a product of the socioeconomic situation that exists in Black America.

Neither here nor there, is it? Doesn't change the fact that black males are involved in gangs; just tells us why.

The police would therefore be expected to proportionally target black people to match the scale of offending, but they don't and instead they blow it to epic proportions. In New York (2011), there were 350,743 stops of black people (53% of total searches). Between 2004 and 2012, weapons were found on 1% of the black people stopped, 1.1% of Hispanics, and 1.4% of white people. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45679050)

I think you'll find the rate of offending does match the stops and searches rate in NYC.

In 2011's NYC, 55% of the arrestees of murder or non-negligent manslaughter were black. For robbery, 63.5% of arrestees are black. Felonious assault 52.8%. Shootings 67.1%. Firearm arrests 72.5%. As you said, black people provided 53% of the stops and searches.

In 2018, 60.1% of the arrestees of murder or non-negligent manslaughter were black. Robbery, 60.5%. Felonious assault, 52.2%. Shootings, 68.3%. Firearm arrests, 69%. Stops and searches at 57%.

White police force: it was 47.8% non-white in 2011. It's 51.3% non-white in 2018. How come there is an increase in stops and searches (53% to 57%), even though the NYPD is now mainly non-white?

All stats are available here: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/stats/reports-analysis/crime-enf.page

Reply 52

username2393237

Original post by Aaryra

He’s black?

In Alabama. No doubt racism played a part, but he was given such a harsh sentence because it wasn’t his first offence. The title is extremely clickbaity.

Reply 53

username4889668

Original post by YaliaV

In Alabama. No doubt racism played a part, but he was given such a harsh sentence because it wasn’t his first offence. The title is extremely clickbaity.

100%, but black people are still much more likely to be charged and convicted in the first place.

Reply 54

Greywolf.

Original post by NoTearsLeftToCry

36 years though?

Yup

Reply 55

username3028808

Original post by Notoriety

Neither here nor there, is it? Doesn't change the fact that black males are involved in gangs; just tells us why.

I think you'll find the rate of offending does match the stops and searches rate in NYC.

In 2011's NYC, 55% of the arrestees of murder or non-negligent manslaughter were black. For robbery, 63.5% of arrestees are black. Felonious assault 52.8%. Shootings 67.1%. Firearm arrests 72.5%. As you said, black people provided 53% of the stops and searches.

In 2018, 60.1% of the arrestees of murder or non-negligent manslaughter were black. Robbery, 60.5%. Felonious assault, 52.2%. Shootings, 68.3%. Firearm arrests, 69%. Stops and searches at 57%.

White police force: it was 47.8% non-white in 2011. It's 51.3% non-white in 2018. How come there is an increase in stops and searches (53% to 57%), even though the NYPD is now mainly non-white?

All stats are available here: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/stats/reports-analysis/crime-enf.page

That isn't proportional. Those who commit those crimes form a small subset, of which a percentage are black. That doesn't mean that 60.1% of all black people are murderers, in 2010 the homicide rate was approximately 15 per 100,000 people in the black community (0.015%). I've tried to find figures like this for firearms arrests but haven't been able to do so, so for the sake of it let's say it's these murderers who engage in gang violence. You would expect the police to take action through stop and frisks to seize any illegal weapons they may have concealed, I'd say that to target 2% of the black community (2000 per 100,000) would be a sensible figure for such an approach.

But that's not what happens, instead NYPD stopped and frisked almost 17% of the entire black population (based on 350,743 stops in 2011 and the NY black population of 2,086,566). To target almost 1 in 5 black people is in no way appropriate, or remotely proportional to the level of offending. The number of young black men stopped in 2010 in NY exceeded the entire population of young black men with an astonishing 1.06 stops per individual.

From 2011 and 2018, the number of stop and searches has decreased. There were 685,724 (of those 88% innocent) in 2011 compared to 11,008 in 2018 (of which 70% were innocent). That's a vast decline, which shows more responsible policing but it still seems to unfairly target black men. The proportion has risen from 53% to 57%, but in the broader context of raw figures it shows a decrease of 98.2%.

If you disagree, then the federal judge Shira A. Scheindlin would disagree with you. She found that in 2013, observing that nearly 90 percent of those stopped were completely innocent, that stop-and-frisk was racially discriminatory and unconstitutional. If you're interested in her 195 page decision, you can read it here : https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/08/12/nyregion/stop-and-frisk-decision.html?module=inline

(https://www.nyclu.org/en/stop-and-frisk-data)
(https://eji.org/news/new-york-crime-falls-as-police-end-stop-and-frisk)
(https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/nyregion/stop-and-frisk-practice-violated-rights-judge-rules.html)

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 56

Notoriety

Original post by naem071

I am not talking about the efficacy. I made two points in response to the claim that black people have a high number of encounters with the police because of the racist attitudes of white police officers:

1. That the rate of offending in the black community should explain the high number of encounters with the police.

2. The police is not even mainly white in NYC.

Constitutionality and efficacy and detection rate, while fascinating to you, has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

Reply 57

Notoriety

Original post by Aaryra

100%, but black people are still much more likely to be charged and convicted in the first place.

And more likely to commit an offence.

Reply 58

Notoriety

Original post by naem071

But that's not what happens, instead NYPD stopped and frisked almost 17% of the entire black population (based on 350,743 stops in 2011 and the NY black population of 2,086,566). To target almost 1 in 5 black people is in no way appropriate, or remotely proportional to the level of offending. The number of young black men stopped in 2010 in NY exceeded the entire population of young black men with an astonishing 1.06 stops per individual.

In the US, it's predicted that 30% of black men have felony charges. Stopping and frisking 17% of the population of black people would, to my mind, be proportional.