Cinekyd: The Sociopathic Empire of Prosecution In America
What happened to Robert J. Clark, Jr. is hardly exceptional. Mr. Clark, like so many others in lesser profile cases, became a sacrificial pawn in building and maintaining a legal empire: The Sociopathic Empire of Prosecution in America.
Mr. Clark, with nary a shred of evidence - perchance nary half a shred - was accused in 2003 of sexually molesting any number of aspiring boys in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, at his private educational film studio. Remember the word 'accused', it will become a clarifying ray of light for you: for anyone can be accused of anything, truth often lies elsewhere.
And sometimes it lies in economic profit motive. For instance, most lawyers - certainly most lawyers holding political appointments or elected offices, such as a 'prosecutor' - are members of political parties. And for good reason. If you wish to succeed in life, working together is far more financially worthwhile than going it alone. It's simple business sense.
Pleasing the political party, much like pleasing your shareholders - or your spouse - pays dividends...like bigger and better, certainly more lucrative, situations in the future.
So being a prosecutor is a position coveted by many lawyers, mostly for financial reasons. In the pell-mell pursuit for money and career riches, certain things can be expendable. Be perceived as a criminal, merely be 'convenient' to be perceived as a criminal, and you can find yourself facing an indictment that is largely, if not wholly, fabricated. Many are fabricated and, shhhh, quietly dismissed with no hastily arranged 'news conference' to call the public's attention to the dismissal - a somewhat differing situation to the original arrest or indictment.
Why? If you are a local prosecutor or district attorney with aspiration for more wealth or a better political future, you must think like a prosecutor: prosecutors get paid to convict criminals. The more high-profile the case, the more likely people will notice. The logic is not complicated. 'People' can be defined in two opportunistic ways: 1. Potential voters at the next election or 2. Party officials who seasonally dole out largesse - money. But you really hit the jackpot, you roll both categories into one effort, when you go for definition number 3: The Media.
At this point, two economic worlds collide in a happy kiss of career-oriented bliss. The media make money by selling advertisements. Advertisers spend more money on media that have more readers/viewers, so much the better to increase their odds of selling their wares. And prosecutors do much the same.
High profile cases are much like marketing strategies for the aspiring prosecutor to market his 'wares' to party bosses and the electorate. You maximize your future career effort by spending more time where it will have the biggest impact, just as advertisers wisely prefer television over radio. Now, innocent Americans happen along and stumble - for whatever reason - into a nice 'fit' for the equation. As did Mr. Clark.
Putting your hand on the bottom of a child, much less the bottom of a child on videotape, does not look good particularly when you sanitize all context. Or be a Black person talking to a White woman in a mostly White neighborhood in Camden County, New Jersey, as happened in one 1997 case. You may be indicted, in the above case, the man was indicted. Or be a convict on parole living in a high-drug sale area of Camden, New Jersey, with a girlfriend who just lost the local drug dealer's 'stash' - even though you had no idea she was involved in the local rackets.
All of the above are real cases with virtually no more criminal evidence beyond these brief descriptions. Plausibility gets more attenuated with each example but, at least, you are seeing the continuum. You better see the continuum, aspiring prosecutors do. And they manipulate your perception accordingly.
What makes Mr. Clark's plight so eloquent is the clean nature of the example. He is, by all accounts, an upstanding citizen substantively and procedurally. But even that could not, and did not, save him from falling prey as an 'image building utensil' whether artfully intended or by default. Afterall, the camera crews were on the scene simultaneous to any search warrants and that did not happen by accident - television crews are not easy to bait but, given a ratings motive, anything is possible. (Please see the July 25, 2004, edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer.)
In the dying days of Lee Solomon's administration as Camden County Prosecutor, the clarion call among his staffers was "We have got to get the numbers up!" Statistical numbers? A euphemism for so many Mr. Clark's? Sad to say, inarguably, the answer at any given moment is 'yes'.
Prosecutor's offices validate their budgets, hence their salaries, by demonstrating what a good job they do - by churning out statistical numbers, by churning out criminal cases. It is not just 'convictions'that generate the lucrative statistics but actual cases in which charges are filed. All too often, the matter sinks to a low common denominator as well - churning you as a citizen for profit.
For instance, what can be politically gleaned from a high profile sex abuse case? Or, better yet, a high profile child sex abuse case? Do you see the marketing difference between the two? One is offensive, the other offensive to virtually all. Which is more a 'ratings motive' for institutional media concepts like 'action news' or 'eyewitness news'?
The same 'marketing/ratings' logic holds true for the aspiring prosecutor as it does the evening news hounds. You reach more influential political party members, you reach more voters in general, by making sure your work is featured in the high profile media. And it doesn't matter whether the allegations are true or not, as so nobly demonstrated by Mr. Clark and his supposed 'victims', it just matters that someone can be 'accused'. The former is a substantive reality, the latter is a procedural reality. Both television and prosecutors love high-profile procedural realities because they make each other look good - the television station attracts more viewers with 'breaking news' while the prosecutor attracts more favorable opinions as in "he really protects our society."
But does he? That's an interesting question on which Mr. Clark most assuredly would have a fascinating observation. Or a fair amount of the Black community for that matter. Or anyone who stumbles into that prosecutorial Nirvana of 'convenience' - you just happen to be there and eligible under the alleged fact pattern. For instance, your spouse is murdered. As the surviving spouse, you are always 'Suspect Number One' until proven otherwise - facts notwithstanding as many who have gone through the ordeal will tell you. Economy of effort plays itself out in many less than flattering ways in society.
Criminal charges are not brought because crimes took place. Criminal charges are brought, as Bruce Castor duly noted, because crimes are 'perceived' to have taken place. A world of difference exists between the two. And, inarguably, one is more 'convenient' to claim than the other. The matter can be philosophically summed as the 'Camdenization' of our law. The comparison is apt.
Camden, New Jersey, became one of the worst ghettos in North America, not by accident, but for largely economic reasons. It is called 'red-lining'. Real estate brokers, bankers and mortgage companies found it more profitable to segregate by ethnicity - by drawing red lines around groups to be economically isolated. The red-lining concept is portable and valuable in understanding our prosecutorial systems. For instance, a business can save a substantial amount of marketing money by 'red-lining' customers who can't afford what you wish to sell. And it works in reverse, you red-line those who can. One has a choice in which method is most 'convenient'.
Within the walls of the prosecutorial empire, certain types of cases have long been 'red-lined' in a positive, career enhancing way as long as you are not the one accused: sex crimes, particularly, sex crimes involving children. They garner lots of media attention, lots of camera time, lots of quotable space in the newspapers. As the Montgomery County District Attorney's office so aptly demonstrated (as reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer), all one need do is make a few telephone calls - you need not actually 'investigate' anything - and, viola, off to the steps of the Courthouse you go, media dutifully in tow, to inform the county residents what a great job you are doing on their behalf by protecting them - and, more particularly, their current and future children - from such ghastly betrayals of confidence and public trust.
The example is hardly isolated. In the last year alone, at least two such cases - albeit much lower in profile - staggered through the Camden County Hall of Justice before finally being dismissed as unsubstantiated, some were plainly silly.
Ghastly betrayals of confidence and public trust, it is an interesting choice of subjects. All in the pell-mell pursuit of image building? Ramping up the electorate for your next political foray? Anyone can make claims, proving them is another thing. But what cannot be denied is what appeared in the same media shortly after Mr. Clark's ordeal began in the Fall of 2002, coming to fruition in the Summer of 2003 with formal charges: the head of the same prosecutor's office was running for political office, in fact, Attorney General of Pennsylvania. Ah....
And, if you are perceived as soft on crime, as the same media documented earlier this year as the primary election neared, what better way to bolster your prosecutorial credentials to lead, not just Montgomery County, but the entire State of Pennsylvania than with a high-profile case involving, gasp, children?
Sociopathic behavior is defined, largely, as using others for your own self-centered purposes while attempting to win as much social support for your actions as possible. Although the sociopathic conclusion is applicable, I think Mr. Clark would agree that he befell the "Camdenization of the Law" with more clarity. In the pell-mell pursuit to get statistics up, and wooing public image much the same, Mr. Clark's life was opportunistically red-lined into one of the worst ghettos humanly imaginable...replete with a visit to jail.
Now, almost a year later, the media finally starts to ask questions as so contritely demonstrated by the July 25, 2004, Philadelphia Inquirer. Oh, well, yes, of course....the primary election is over. And, needless to say, the television stations aren't asking anything, it wouldn't garner more viewers to admit that you can't trust what you see on television.
Is any of this coincidence? You decide.
- Qi
Mr. Clark, with nary a shred of evidence - perchance nary half a shred - was accused in 2003 of sexually molesting any number of aspiring boys in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, at his private educational film studio. Remember the word 'accused', it will become a clarifying ray of light for you: for anyone can be accused of anything, truth often lies elsewhere.
And sometimes it lies in economic profit motive. For instance, most lawyers - certainly most lawyers holding political appointments or elected offices, such as a 'prosecutor' - are members of political parties. And for good reason. If you wish to succeed in life, working together is far more financially worthwhile than going it alone. It's simple business sense.
Pleasing the political party, much like pleasing your shareholders - or your spouse - pays dividends...like bigger and better, certainly more lucrative, situations in the future.
So being a prosecutor is a position coveted by many lawyers, mostly for financial reasons. In the pell-mell pursuit for money and career riches, certain things can be expendable. Be perceived as a criminal, merely be 'convenient' to be perceived as a criminal, and you can find yourself facing an indictment that is largely, if not wholly, fabricated. Many are fabricated and, shhhh, quietly dismissed with no hastily arranged 'news conference' to call the public's attention to the dismissal - a somewhat differing situation to the original arrest or indictment.
Why? If you are a local prosecutor or district attorney with aspiration for more wealth or a better political future, you must think like a prosecutor: prosecutors get paid to convict criminals. The more high-profile the case, the more likely people will notice. The logic is not complicated. 'People' can be defined in two opportunistic ways: 1. Potential voters at the next election or 2. Party officials who seasonally dole out largesse - money. But you really hit the jackpot, you roll both categories into one effort, when you go for definition number 3: The Media.
At this point, two economic worlds collide in a happy kiss of career-oriented bliss. The media make money by selling advertisements. Advertisers spend more money on media that have more readers/viewers, so much the better to increase their odds of selling their wares. And prosecutors do much the same.
High profile cases are much like marketing strategies for the aspiring prosecutor to market his 'wares' to party bosses and the electorate. You maximize your future career effort by spending more time where it will have the biggest impact, just as advertisers wisely prefer television over radio. Now, innocent Americans happen along and stumble - for whatever reason - into a nice 'fit' for the equation. As did Mr. Clark.
Putting your hand on the bottom of a child, much less the bottom of a child on videotape, does not look good particularly when you sanitize all context. Or be a Black person talking to a White woman in a mostly White neighborhood in Camden County, New Jersey, as happened in one 1997 case. You may be indicted, in the above case, the man was indicted. Or be a convict on parole living in a high-drug sale area of Camden, New Jersey, with a girlfriend who just lost the local drug dealer's 'stash' - even though you had no idea she was involved in the local rackets.
All of the above are real cases with virtually no more criminal evidence beyond these brief descriptions. Plausibility gets more attenuated with each example but, at least, you are seeing the continuum. You better see the continuum, aspiring prosecutors do. And they manipulate your perception accordingly.
What makes Mr. Clark's plight so eloquent is the clean nature of the example. He is, by all accounts, an upstanding citizen substantively and procedurally. But even that could not, and did not, save him from falling prey as an 'image building utensil' whether artfully intended or by default. Afterall, the camera crews were on the scene simultaneous to any search warrants and that did not happen by accident - television crews are not easy to bait but, given a ratings motive, anything is possible. (Please see the July 25, 2004, edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer.)
In the dying days of Lee Solomon's administration as Camden County Prosecutor, the clarion call among his staffers was "We have got to get the numbers up!" Statistical numbers? A euphemism for so many Mr. Clark's? Sad to say, inarguably, the answer at any given moment is 'yes'.
Prosecutor's offices validate their budgets, hence their salaries, by demonstrating what a good job they do - by churning out statistical numbers, by churning out criminal cases. It is not just 'convictions'that generate the lucrative statistics but actual cases in which charges are filed. All too often, the matter sinks to a low common denominator as well - churning you as a citizen for profit.
For instance, what can be politically gleaned from a high profile sex abuse case? Or, better yet, a high profile child sex abuse case? Do you see the marketing difference between the two? One is offensive, the other offensive to virtually all. Which is more a 'ratings motive' for institutional media concepts like 'action news' or 'eyewitness news'?
The same 'marketing/ratings' logic holds true for the aspiring prosecutor as it does the evening news hounds. You reach more influential political party members, you reach more voters in general, by making sure your work is featured in the high profile media. And it doesn't matter whether the allegations are true or not, as so nobly demonstrated by Mr. Clark and his supposed 'victims', it just matters that someone can be 'accused'. The former is a substantive reality, the latter is a procedural reality. Both television and prosecutors love high-profile procedural realities because they make each other look good - the television station attracts more viewers with 'breaking news' while the prosecutor attracts more favorable opinions as in "he really protects our society."
But does he? That's an interesting question on which Mr. Clark most assuredly would have a fascinating observation. Or a fair amount of the Black community for that matter. Or anyone who stumbles into that prosecutorial Nirvana of 'convenience' - you just happen to be there and eligible under the alleged fact pattern. For instance, your spouse is murdered. As the surviving spouse, you are always 'Suspect Number One' until proven otherwise - facts notwithstanding as many who have gone through the ordeal will tell you. Economy of effort plays itself out in many less than flattering ways in society.
Criminal charges are not brought because crimes took place. Criminal charges are brought, as Bruce Castor duly noted, because crimes are 'perceived' to have taken place. A world of difference exists between the two. And, inarguably, one is more 'convenient' to claim than the other. The matter can be philosophically summed as the 'Camdenization' of our law. The comparison is apt.
Camden, New Jersey, became one of the worst ghettos in North America, not by accident, but for largely economic reasons. It is called 'red-lining'. Real estate brokers, bankers and mortgage companies found it more profitable to segregate by ethnicity - by drawing red lines around groups to be economically isolated. The red-lining concept is portable and valuable in understanding our prosecutorial systems. For instance, a business can save a substantial amount of marketing money by 'red-lining' customers who can't afford what you wish to sell. And it works in reverse, you red-line those who can. One has a choice in which method is most 'convenient'.
Within the walls of the prosecutorial empire, certain types of cases have long been 'red-lined' in a positive, career enhancing way as long as you are not the one accused: sex crimes, particularly, sex crimes involving children. They garner lots of media attention, lots of camera time, lots of quotable space in the newspapers. As the Montgomery County District Attorney's office so aptly demonstrated (as reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer), all one need do is make a few telephone calls - you need not actually 'investigate' anything - and, viola, off to the steps of the Courthouse you go, media dutifully in tow, to inform the county residents what a great job you are doing on their behalf by protecting them - and, more particularly, their current and future children - from such ghastly betrayals of confidence and public trust.
The example is hardly isolated. In the last year alone, at least two such cases - albeit much lower in profile - staggered through the Camden County Hall of Justice before finally being dismissed as unsubstantiated, some were plainly silly.
Ghastly betrayals of confidence and public trust, it is an interesting choice of subjects. All in the pell-mell pursuit of image building? Ramping up the electorate for your next political foray? Anyone can make claims, proving them is another thing. But what cannot be denied is what appeared in the same media shortly after Mr. Clark's ordeal began in the Fall of 2002, coming to fruition in the Summer of 2003 with formal charges: the head of the same prosecutor's office was running for political office, in fact, Attorney General of Pennsylvania. Ah....
And, if you are perceived as soft on crime, as the same media documented earlier this year as the primary election neared, what better way to bolster your prosecutorial credentials to lead, not just Montgomery County, but the entire State of Pennsylvania than with a high-profile case involving, gasp, children?
Sociopathic behavior is defined, largely, as using others for your own self-centered purposes while attempting to win as much social support for your actions as possible. Although the sociopathic conclusion is applicable, I think Mr. Clark would agree that he befell the "Camdenization of the Law" with more clarity. In the pell-mell pursuit to get statistics up, and wooing public image much the same, Mr. Clark's life was opportunistically red-lined into one of the worst ghettos humanly imaginable...replete with a visit to jail.
Now, almost a year later, the media finally starts to ask questions as so contritely demonstrated by the July 25, 2004, Philadelphia Inquirer. Oh, well, yes, of course....the primary election is over. And, needless to say, the television stations aren't asking anything, it wouldn't garner more viewers to admit that you can't trust what you see on television.
Is any of this coincidence? You decide.
- Qi
posted by Qi at 7:06 AM
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