Authors: Steve Bogira
37
Still try to skirt:
E.g.,
People v. Morales
, 308 Ill. App. 3d 162 (1999),
People v. Randall
, 283 Ill. App. 3d 1019 (1996),
People v. Kindelan
, 213 Ill. App. 3d 548 (1991).
38
All-white cast:
“2004 Diversity Survey,”
Chicago Lawyer
(July 2004), pp. 12, 22.
39
County prosecutors were unwilling; changes in federal law:
John Noonan,
Bribes
(Macmillan, 1984), pp. 584–601.
40
Fixing:
James Tuohy and Rob Warden,
Greylord: Justice, Chicago Style
(Putnam, 1989).
41
Poor and cloutless defendant:
“Government’s Official Version of the Offense,”
U.S. v. Maloney
, 91 CR 477.
42
Roots in organized crime:
Four days after the attack, the city’s black-owned newspaper, the
Chicago Defender
, noted that Caruso was the great-nephew of former first ward alderman Fred Roti. “Bridgeport attack outrages community,” March 25, 1997. After twenty-two years as alderman, Roti had gone to prison in 1993 for federal corruption offenses. Newspaper stories in July 1997, about a probe of local labor unions, reported the alleged mob ties of Caruso’s father. “Probe targets mob in laborers union,”
Chicago Tribune
, July 14, 1997.
43
“This case”:
Nathaniel Howard, president, Chicago Chapter, MAD DADS (Men Against Destruction—Defending Against Drugs and Social Disorder),
Chicago Defender
, April 3, 1997.
44
“The fastest white man”:
Schwind interview.
45
Eight mob bookies:
“Nab 8 mob bookies, close big race wire,”
Chicago Tribune
, Dec. 16, 1967.
46
Pled guilty: U.S. v. Victor Locallo
, 67 CR 693; “Six sentenced on racing charge,”
Chicago Tribune
, Dec. 13, 1969.
FOUR · GOOD FACTS, BAD FACTS
1
Three reporters:
For the
Chicago Tribune
, the
Chicago Sun-Times
, and the
City News Bureau
, a local wire service.
2
Planting high-rises in ghettoes:
Martin Meyerson and Edward C. Banfield,
Politics, Planning and the Public Interest: The Case of Public Housing in Chicago
(Free Press, 1955); Devereux Bowly,
The Poorhouse: Subsidized Housing in Chicago
(Southern Illinois University Press, 1978), p. 112.
3
Second-leading employer:
In August 2004, the leading employer, Graham Hospital, had 510 employees, Illinois River 369, according to the Canton Area Chamber of Commerce.
4
Inside the prison:
As of June 30, 1998: Illinois Department of Corrections Planning and Research calculation for the author.
5
Outside the prison:
Author’s calculation from U.S. Census Bureau 2000 population estimates for Canton, and IDOC statistics for Illinois River.
6
Designed to house; one of 1900:
IDOC data.
7
The minimum $380,000:
At $20,000 a year, the approximate cost of housing an inmate in both the jail and Illinois prisons in the 1990s, according to the Cook County Department of Corrections and the IDOC.
FIVE · LUCK
1
Police found:
“Body identified,”
Chicago Sun-Times
, Jan. 18, 1995.
2
Convicted of at least one charge:
My calculations from “Annual Report of the Illinois Courts: Statistical Summary,” Administrative Office of Illinois Courts, for the years 1996 through 2003.
SIX · BUSTED AGAIN
1
More than 320,000 drug offenders:
In state prisons—246,100; in federal prisons—78,501. “Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2001,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, April 2002.
2
Well over $7 billion a year:
In 2001, the average annual operating cost per state inmate nationally was $22,650. “State Prison Expenditures, 2001,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, June 2004. For federal inmates it was $23,001. “Federal Prison System—Salaries and Expenses, 1975–2003,” Budget Trend Data, Justice Management Division, Department of Justice.
3
Nearly one million drug probationers:
In 2003, just over 4 million adults were on probation in the U.S., and 25 percent of them had been convicted of a drug law violation. “Probation and Parole in the United States, 2003,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, July 2004.
4
Blacks are incarcerated; doubled; quintupled:
“Poor Prescription: The Costs of Imprisoning Drug Offenders in the United States,” Justice Policy Institute, 2000
5
A rerun of a 1950s campaign:
John Helmer,
Drugs and Minority Oppression
(Seabury Press, 1975), chapter five.
6
Fearful that the scourge could spread:
“The most terrifying thing about the drug disease among the youth to parents and citizens who are worried about its rapid spread is that it happens to normal and average children—not only to subnormal children.” Testimony of Congressman Sidney R. Yates to the U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee of the Committee on Ways and Means, April 1951. “Gentlemen: somewhere right at this minute a little boy like yours, or a little girl like mine, is getting a first taste of the needle.” Testimony of Lois Higgins, Chicago Crime Prevention Bureau, ibid.
7
Ghettoes were swelling:
Chicago’s black population grew by 77 percent in the 1940s and by another 65 percent in the 1950s, climbing from 278,000 in 1940 to 813,000 by 1960. Hirsch,
Making the Second Ghetto
, pp. 16–17.
8
Police began sweeping:
In 1946, Chicago police made only 550 drug arrests. In 1950, the department doubled the number of narcotics officers from six to twelve, and police made 3,712 drug arrests. By 1955, the bureau had sixty officers, and Chicago police were making more than 7,000 drug arrests a year. Testimony of Chicago Police Commissioner Timothy J. O’Connor to the U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Narcotics of the Committee on the Judiciary, hearing in Chicago on “Illicit Narcotic Traffic,” Nov. 21, 1955.
9
Lawmakers greatly toughened:
Congress passed mandatory minimum sentences of two years for drug offenders in 1951; in 1956 Congress increased the penalty for a first conviction to five years for some drug offenses, and authorized juries to impose the death penalty for adults who sold heroin to minors. David F. Musto,
The American Disease
, (Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 230–31.
10
Officials acknowledged:
“The white race is responsible for the distribution of narcotics in America, and let’s not kid ourselves,” Cook County State’s attorney John Gutknecht told the Subcommittee on Narcotics the day that Police Commissioner O’Connor testified. But data presented at the hearing indicated that 1 in 4,100 whites were arrested by Chicago police for drug crimes, compared with 1 in 71 blacks.
11
Frank Lopez:
Case file in
People v. Lopez
, 51–1869; Supreme Court ruling, 10 Ill. 2d 237 (1957).
12
A kinder attitude; treatment centers sprouted:
Musto,
The American Disease
, chapter 11; Michael Massing,
The Fix
(Simon & Schuster, 1998), p. 86.
13
“White kids”:
Myron Orfield Jr., “The Exclusionary Rule and Deterrence: An Empirical Study of Chicago Narcotics Officers,”
University of Chicago Law Review
(Summer 1987), footnote 23.
14
Began falling:
“Drug Use Trends,” Office of National Drug Control Policy, October 2000.
15
Unemployment rate for blacks:
“Selected Civilian Unemployment Rates, 1975–2002,” U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
16
Reagan:
“Drugs are bad, and we’re going after them,” the president said in his weekly radio address on Oct. 2, 1982. “We’ve taken down the surrender flag and run up the battle flag.”
17
Brightened the unemployment picture:
In 1982, the criminal justice system employed 1.27 million persons; by 2001, it employed more than 2.2 million. During that period, the number of police rose by 38 percent, the number of judicial and legal employees by 97 percent, and the number of corrections employees by 149 percent. “Justice Expenditure and Employment in the United States, 2001,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, May 2004.
18
A third; two and a half years:
“Felony Sentences in State Courts, 2000,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, June 2003, pp. 2–3. The average prison sentence for federal drug offenders was more than twice as long (six years and four months), but only 7 percent of drug convictions are at the federal level. Ibid, p. 3.
19
Addicts accused of nonviolent crimes:
20 ILCS 301/40-10 (2004).
20
The first court in the nation:
“Council activates anti-dope drive,”
The Police Digest
, Chicago Police Department, August 1951.
21
Weren’t traffickers:
“Slaves to Drugs Unveiled in Court,” Crime Prevention Bureau, 1951.
22
The court disposed:
Alfred R. Lindesmith,
The Addict and the Law
(Indiana University Press, 1965), pp. 90–93.
23
“Long, shabby”:
“Dope: Congress Encourages the Traffic,”
The Nation
, March 16, 1957.
24
Drug night court program:
Judge Thomas Fitzgerald,
Chicago Bar Association Record
, May 1990; “Assessment of the Feasibility of Drug Night Courts,” U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, June 1993.
25
“One of the smartest”:
“The overload in narcotics court,”
Chicago Tribune
, July 27, 1992.
26
Crime magically swells:
After a special drug court was formed in Denver in 1995, the number of drug cases filed tripled in two years. Morris B. Hoffman, a Denver judge, later observed: “The very presence of the drug court, with its significantly increased capacity for processing cases, has caused police to make arrests in, and prosecutors to file, the kinds of ten- and twenty-dollar hand-to-hand drug cases that the system simply would not have bothered with before, certainly not as felonies.” Hoffman noted that this “net-widening” effect is a “well-recognized phenomenon whenever law enforcement resources are targeted at designated kinds of cases.” Hoffman, “The Drug Court Scandal,”
North Carolina Law Review
(June 2000), p. 1437.
27
Began arresting more of the addicts:
Both Judge Fitzgerald and the chief assistant state’s attorney in the night court program told the Justice Department researchers that police had been arresting more people they caught with small amounts of drugs than they had before the courts opened.
28
“Like opening”:
Fry’s written testimony to the Illinois Task Force on Crime and Corrections, Aug. 14, 1992.
29
“Deludes the public”:
“Making Room for Justice,”
Chicago Crime Commission
, March 1996.
30
Died in committee:
Interview with Chicago Bar Association lobbyist Larry Suffredin. The bill died because “there were a number of [legislators] who wanted to show they were strongly opposed to drugs,” Suffredin said.
31
No panacea:
“Addicts who successfully complete a treatment program but who cannot get work because they have no marketable skills or are uneducated will quickly return to drug dealing, crime, and addiction when returned to their communities.” Melody M. Heaps and Dr. James A. Swartz, “Toward a Rational Drug Policy: Setting New Priorities,”
The University of Chicago Legal Forum
(1994), p. 201.
32
Minimum possible sentence:
Both times Gilliam was caught allegedly selling drugs, she was within a thousand feet of a school, making the crime a Class 1 felony, with a minimum term of four years.
33
But for Prohibition:
“Volstead law expands jails, Cermak charges,”
Chicago Tribune
, Sept. 16, 1927.
34
The opposite effect:
Prohibition “led to a breakdown of law and order with the connivance of those in authority. The remedy was worse than the disease.… Prohibition cases clogged the courts, impeded true justice, and brought the performance of law into disrepute.” Sean Dennis Cashman,
Prohibition, the Lie of the Land
(Free Press, 1981), pp. 2, 154. “The loot of Prohibition was enough to buy judges, state’s attorneys, and whole police forces.” Andrew Sinclair,
Prohibition, the Era of Excess
(Little, Brown, 1962), p. 230. In Chicago, the homicide rate leaped in the 1920s. But it’s hard to know how much of this was attributable to Prohibition, and how much to changing demographics, to immigration patterns, or to the advent of the automobile. Leigh Bienen and Brandon Rottinghaus, “Learning from the Past, Living in the Present: Understanding Homicide in Chicago, 1870–1930,”
Northwestern School of Law Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
(spring/summer 2002), pp. 515, 530.