Brutality, Repression and Criminalization of a Generation.

• Author: Fortunato, Joe

Police brutality in the United States has clearly reached "epidemic" proportions. In fact, this epidemic analogy was used last year in a report by Amnesty International. Statistics bear out the claim. Throughout the nineties, there have been sharply increasing levels of brutality complaints and reports of injuries and death at the hands of the police. One group, the Stolen Lives Project, an initiative of the October 22nd Coalition, the Anthony Baez Foundation and the National Lawyers Guild, has documented over 2000 recent cases of people who have been killed in encounters with police across the country. One aim of the Stolen Lives Project is to defeat the claim that police brutality incidents are merely isolated occurrences, which is usually the first line of defense from the authorities after a happening becomes impossible to ignore or deny.

To fully understand the epidemic, one must consider the economic crisis that the United States faces today. Although the stock market has recently been at an all-time high, the disparity in wealth between those at the highest levels in our society and those at the lowest levels has never been greater. Although a select few have been able to accumulate great wealth, a greater number of people than ever before are living in extrenme poverty. Moreover, downsizing, speed-ups at work and the decline in leisure time have brought greatly increased stress and misery to many who consider themselves part of the middle class. Against this backdrop, both the Clinton Administration and the Congress have responded in the same way to the crisis: by eliminating or sharply curtailing needed welfare and other social "safety-net" programs.

Additionally, in order to respond to the systemic increase in poverty, disease and resulting crime, the power structure has unleashed its police forces to exert much greater control over the population. The so-called "war on drugs" is part of this repressive initiative. Along with draconian drug penalties and much harsher death penalty and juvenile jurisprudence, we are also experiencing the virtual elimination of the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, particularly in communities of color. Paramilitary forces such as the Street Crimes Unit in New York City, which was responsible for the death of Amadou Diallo (an unarmed and innocent West African immigrant who died in a hail of 41 police bullets), have become standard in police departments across...