with my criminal justice course we've made trips to the manhattan and brooklyn criminal courts. in all, i saw four judges:

two old white men. extremely conservative and tight on the bench, not listening to or quieting defense attorneys, setting high bails, and never once questioning prosecutors' stories.

an older white woman. she was only handling misdemeanors. very mother-like, and more apt to actually ask the prosecutors questions -- which i'll get to below.

a young black woman. again, mother-like. both her and the above judge would actually talk to the defendants.

in total i'd estimate i saw about 35 people get arraigned. it's a small sample size, but here's a rough breakdown:

26 black (mostly young, but some older ones mixed in who are usually hauled in for loitering or something pointless and court-clogging)
8 spanish
1 white

interesting cases:

-- a young woman was brought up on a marijuana misdemeanor. she begged the judge to lower her $195 fine. he responded "it says right here you make $400 a week as a stylist. where's your money?" she said: "sir, i have rent and a child." him: "well, sorry."

perhaps it was true that he couldn't lower the fine. i was actually laughing, and sad a bit, though, that she was even in court. fucking marijuana! $200!!!

-- the one white guy, and a case obviously predicated on a ridiculous stop. prosecutor claims the defendant took his "gravity knife" out, opened it and "threw it on the ground" in front of cops. the judge had a hard time swallowing this and asked the prosecutor to repeat the story. prosecutors claims the defendant made eye contact with a cop, and that was the cause for his actions. the defense attorney got him off ROR with a future court date after explaining the ridiculousness: how many people do you know that would, in the presence of a cop, and with priors, take out a "concealed weapon," open it, then throw it on ground in front of the officers? does this make any sense at all? not to mention it wasn't a "gravity knife," it was a regular pocketknife that the defendant has on him at all times due to his contracting work. yes, the guy had priors, and did look like a dirtbag, but it appears the cops used his "looks" for reasonable suspicion to search him.

-- attempted murder in the 2nd degree. young kid, probably in late teens or early 20s. some fight broke out, he allegedly shot a kid who is still in the hospital. bullet went through his lungs, hit his spinal cord and now he's paralyzed from the 9th vertebrae down. bail was something like $100,000. kid's probably fucked.

one thing that became clear to me is that the criminal justice system is a very good money-making machine.

26-8-1 actually seems a bit low. i think i may have saw 40 arraignments, because i remember the black to spanish ratio being larger.

Does it offset all the costs involved with prisons, patrols, courts, etc?

man, i couldn't even begin to speak to that matter. i'm sure there's been studies done on it. but of course we wouldn't need to pay for certain things if we didn't prosecute them, right?

Of course, but wouldn't that run against your statement that it's a money-making system?

there's cobwebs in my head. can you explain this further?

maybe i'm wrong and it's not a money-making system on the whole. i can't find anything in a quick google search. i would still be skeptical of overall stats, though, because they still need to make money in some way. just because the system loses money doesn't mean some of these fines are not ridiculous money grabs.

i talked with buff about this once: we know more white people do drugs than minorities. but on a daily basis, to the everyday cop, i would suppose it's easier to do an undercover sting in harlem, or stop and search a young minority who doesn't know his or her rights, than it is to get a search warrant for a middle class, white person's apartment if they suspect there's weed or coke in there. there's little threat of retribution, too, when you deal with minorities as compared to richer white people.

of course, that doesn't make it right, but it constitutes, to many people, cops doing their jobs. and more criminals = more money. there's lots of white people to employ in the criminal justice system, you know.

OK, so you're referencing the notion of how it's easier to target a certain group to reach a certain amount of stops. I won't disagree with that. You were just kinda vague with that "money-making" statement considering all the taxpayer money that goes into the criminal justice system.

it just came off to me as sort of "let's steal from the poor minorities -- and maybe throw 'em in jail, too -- because it's easier."