Jan 1999
Back in 1990 or so I was publishing a newspaper-- The Mangrove NewsÉ maybe you were one of our six subscribers?-- in the Florida Keys and election time rolled around. As luck would have it there was a clever but homeless guy, Ron Carter, who was running for Key West City Council. I ran into Ron now and then and one time he gave me a copy of his platform. Among about 12 things, he wanted to legalize marijuana, and he wanted to end police patrols. Way out. If you want to lose an election in the States, you can just ask for progressive drug laws.
The field was full of the carbon copy candidates-- pro construction/anti environment-- whose major differences seemed to be where their funding came from. Some were funded by New Yorkers and some by Miami interests while still others were independently wealthy from unknown sources.
Ron stood no chance of winning but at least it would be a fun election. Might make a few people think for a change. I decided to support Ron and published his platform and covered his campaign activities, one of which happened to be lighting up a joint on the steps of city hall during a campaign speech. We printed the photos of his arrest. Last I heard Ron was a fugitive.
Looking back on those days I still get hung up on that plank about police patrols, which stated: police should not be in the business of looking for trouble; they should be like the fire department and respond to calls for help. There was some logic there that I felt good about, even if I knew that the Law 'n' Order gang-- which was virtually everyone else-- would think it was a looney idea and not open to discussion.
But I'm a little embarrassed to admit that even I thought Ron was a bit of a dreamer, because I now live in France and the gendarmes don't do patrols. Not only was Ron's idea not a pipe dream but examples for his proposal exist right now in the real world. You rarely see police at all in France. And when you do see them usually they are not armed and they don't pack that 40 pounds of Rambo gear that the Americans like so much.
One time in France I got myself stranded and wound up walking home at 4 o'clock in the morning. It was summer and I was dressed accordinglyÉ thing is, I wasn't dressed for summer nights which get chilly and I soon got cold. On the way through a little town-- three houses-- I spotted what seemed to be a bus stop. It was a little room with a second story, between the other houses; a likely spot to stop and warm up. The room was completely empty and the front was open. From the front, the floor looked dusty like freshly poured concrete and as I stepped down the two steps I was thinking that the benches had not yet been installed. As my weight shifted from the bottom step to the foot that was about to land on the floor my mind went into overdriveÉ looked like there was a wet spotÉ saw a glimmer of a reflectionÉ could be oil on the floorÉ carefulÉdon't slipÉ and splash! I went over my head in water. Six feet of water-- I still have no idea why it was there. I know one thing now though-- they don't often put huge bus stops in towns with only three houses.
So now I was soaked and there was a dog barking. Fine. Lights went on and a couple heads popped out the windows. Soon a police car arrived with four cops.
They asked me a few questions, like how I happened to be on the road, and was I British?, and how long have I lived here?, etc., politely ignoring that I was dripping, and they told me to get in the car-- they would drive me home. It was dangerous, they said, on the street at night. I agreed. And they had every opportunity and reason to ask for papers, passports, visas etc. But they never asked me for anything. Nothing. They drove me home. Everything checked out on their computer, we shook hands happily, I thanked them for the ride and then they left.
Try that in the States, folks. (For those not from the US: I would have gone straight to jail... or at best, maybe they would have let me walk home)
Once, in Florida, I was driving over to a friend's house to pick up my wallet which I had forgotten the night before and I was stopped on the way for not having my windshield wipers on in the fog. Yes. Well. The cop wanted the registration and my driver's licence. I gave him the registration and told him that I was on my way to pick up my license-- follow me, I said, it's only a few blocks. He checked his computer and verified that I was legal. Then he gave me a ticket for no license.
No doubt, the American reader, entrenched in the rigidity of the U.S. legal system will nod in agreement. What else should the cop have done? I had no license. The French don't think like that. In France, policing is a Public Service, much like the fire department. They understand Human Dignity and they understand the difference between human error and criminal activity. Citing someone for having no license when their own computer says that the person has a license-- that's as degrading to them as it is to the unfortunate citizen: "So Jacques! I hear you caught a criminal last night!"
Law enforcement in the U.S. is Big Business-- a growth industry-- not a Public Service. And business is booming. I spent ten years in Los Angeles and they played the numbers game there too. The theory there was that between midnight and 4 am one car in four was good for a DUI, regardless of how they were driving, so they stopped people virtually at random-- business was good. Oh, sure!-- it's an axe in the skull of the constitution, and shoots 'prior restraint' (the doctrine that you can't arrest a black man who bought a baseball bat on the assumption that he might kill someone with it) all to hell, but who's complaining? We are, after all, talking about alcohol here.
It was in Los Angeles that I met the guy who did the DUI legal routine with a blood alcohol reading of 0.0%. DUI in L.A. means "driving under the influence" of anythingÉ and he had been convicted of taking prescription medication for a cold. I also got to meet the guy who was sitting stationary at a red light and a sober, yet perhaps insane person backed out his driveway (illegal) and into the stationary car. Needless to say it was the driver of the stationary car that was arrested for DUI, thus adding to the alcohol related accidents statistics that are so popular in the States.
I went to Bordeaux last year and, because I had so much to do I stayed in a hotel for the night. That evening in the bar I got to talking to a guy -- French -- who spoke English. Soon I got to talking about how I needed to go to the Prefecture to settle the details of my visa. Suddenly his demeanor changed. He stopped talking and found a pencil and a piece of paper, and wrote a note which he surreptitiously slid in my direction: "Be careful what you say-- I work for the government." I read the note and passed it back to him. He then folded it up into a little teeny-tiny ball, looked suspiciously over each shoulder and then popped the note in his mouth. He chewed on it for a while before swallowing it. Really! I swear. Must have been Inspector Clouseau's brother. I should probably point out here that "clou - seau"É translates directly as "nail - bucket." As it turns out the French have lots of informants and like Clouseau. No doubt they have a file on me, but it doesn't bother me because they use the information entirely differently than cops in the States.
In the Florida Keys we used to sit at restaurants and count the patrol cars for fun as they drove past. There seemed to be an awful lot, and we quickly observed that we could not sit for ten or fifteen minutes without seeing one. Some people, including my friend Molly Ivins, think that there are no plans for turning the U.S. into a police state. It seemed to me and my friends that we were already well under way. In fact I ran into a British woman at a local French holiday celebration who had been to the states only once, and one of the first things out of her mouth was: "Well, America is a police state, isn't it?" She seemed to think that it was a generally accepted fact.
That sentiment can be found on BBC radio too (British Broadcasting Corp), although I have never heard them actually use the term "police state." On Dec 13, 1998 they aired the last in a four part series on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in which they cited the U.S. for abuses like trying children as adults, and the execution of the mentally ill and sick.
On the 19th- they pointed out that South Carolina is celebrating the execution of the 500th U.S. prisoner since legalization in 1976. (Canada banned executions that same year and their murder rate has dropped 7%) So popular is execution in the US, that there are 3,500 on deck. 75 of the 500 executed (15%) have been found innocent after their death. There are 1.8 million people in U.S. jails now, and if 15% are actually innocent, that's 27 million innocent prisoners in U.S. jails. Business is booming.
And on Jan 9th 1999, BBC had a show about the conference in Pennsylvania featuring 28 survivors of death row-- the ones who were found innocent before they were executed. (That indicates that the 15% is actually a low estimate)
On April 8th 1998- BBC took a look at British prisons. A woman has written a book on the prisons of the world and laid out a plan to reduce the British prison population by 80%. She has traveled the globe and found that the most useful example of a prison system that works is in Zimbabwe. Prisons do not rehabilitate she says-- they aggravate, they are expensive, most prisoners pose no threat to society, most prisoners are economic victimsÉ etc.-- all the same arguments they suppressed in the U.S. so they could get to those new high-tech prisons and that Free Prison Labor, a booming industry-- and soon, hopefully-- to those Compliant Organ Donors. Other speakers on the show-- people who work in the prison system-- agreed that she is right, finding fault only with the details. One speaker pointed out that Britain now jails 2 women per week for nonpayment of their television tax. Hopefully TV is free in British prisons.
Here's an excerpt from an article in The News, an English language French newspaper, October 1996: The Pironnière area of Château d'Olonne now has a new name, "Cannabis Land," since a field in rue de la République was found with 1600 cannabis plants merrily growing on it. It was duly raided by the police on 4th July and all the plants removed. The unnamed man admitted to growing the plants for "personal consumption" and was released with a verbal warning to await trial. However on 25th September the police decided to pay the field another visit, only to find 600 plants growing there.
The unfortunate man has now been detained and faces more serious charges.
Now that's a good example of "presumption of innocence." In the US the use of RICO laws (Racketeer-Influenced Organized Crime) precludes any presumption of innocence. If you are suspected of a drug crime, you are jailed and all your property, including house and car, are confiscated and sold, before your trial.
In the U.S. there is an unwritten doctrine: the bigger the crime; the smaller the penalty. Public officials get "investigated" and petty thiefs go to jail. I once reported on a man in the Florida Keys who was arrested and charged with "resisting arrest." (!) Yes,... no other charges were filed. I would imagine that he got life without parole.
I won't claim to be an expert in this area but I have read a few newspaper articles about how the French deal with civil servants. One was about two cops, flics, they call them, who were charged with beating up a black guy. They were in jail. A Paris politician was being investigated for financial misdeeds and he was in jail. In my own town the Notaire was accused of fudging figures. He went immediately to jail. In July, 1998 BBC reported on three French health officials who were on trial for involuntary manslaughter. Seems that in 1985, 1 year after a warning that blood donations could be infected with Aids, the accused ignored the warning and thousands got infected; 400 dead so far. I only mention this for comparison, because I can think of no example -- ever -- of a public official in the US being held accountable in such terms (involuntary manslaughter), for causing pain, suffering or death to US citizens. But I keep an open mind about it-- maybe there was one and I just missed it. (As it turns out the French guys were all acquitted; Culpable mais non Responsable!, guilty but not responsible!, read the angry headlines.)
The French don't send their officials off on paid vacations for three years while they 'investigate' them. They put them in jail, and their jails are, as I understand, notoriously not so nice. They seem to have a grip on the notion that public officials need to be held to high standards-- and that their position doesn't make them immune from prosecution, as in the US.
I followed a story in the Miami Herald, Sept-Nov 1995, about a guy who was fixing a leak on his roof when a building inspector saw him and wanted to see his permit. No gots. So he was dragged into court, fined and required to get a permit and fix the roof. He was fed up. Didn't want to play the game. He paid the fine but refused to fix his roof and thus claimed no need for a permit. So the City Commission levied a daily penalty and within a month or two, when the penalty exceeded the value of the house-- for it was a nice heavy penalty-- they sold it from beneath him. After all, it was a small crime.
I tell ya pal, that story bothered me at the time, but having lived in France and seen how they deal with problems, it now seems utterly barbaric. Something that might happen in Ceausescu's Romania. The notion that you would need permission from the government to fix a leaky roof is (almost) funny. And the idea that the government could take your house away over such a dispute, is reminiscent of the Dark Ages. It leaves the Fascists in the dust.
© copyright 1999, J. Walter Plinge, France
b.ob@accesinternet.com
Distribute freely if it's kept intact, including credits, and not for
profit or print media.
What do you think? Leave your feedback: