The Internet: The Gateway to Useless Information

So this week I began a survey of the Bronx Defenders clients asking them what they would name a website that addressed the basic issues of criminal justice. We have a parternship with this program called LawHelp housed at the New York City Bar Association. They have a website where you can seek rudimentary legal advice--you can find a legal service provider, there is a section called "Know Your Rights" for different things like housing, immigration, employment, etc... which services mainly a civil justice realm. If there are any collateral consequences that are related due to any charges outside of civil legalities, then it will show up. In fact, my supervisor just got LawHelp to add "Encounters with the Police" using the argument that everyone should know how to handle interacting with the police and that it is not only criminals who have to deal with that all that time. But there is no "in your face" section about criminal law/help or anything like that. The Bronx Defenders, then, with Re-Entry Net is trying to come up with a section that regarding criminal help. Only it seems like the people at LawHelp don't want to stray away from the civil aspect of their website, and has made it kind of hard to name the section on which Re-Entry Net would be handling. Originally, they had wanted to name it "Collateral Consequences of Non-Criminal Proceedings" .... but the website is supposed to be for the general public, and honestly, if you're either not in law school, a law buff, or just smart, you're obviously not going to know what that means and there is a less likely chance of you clicking on that link in order to access very useful information. Another suggestion was Criminal Justice & Re-Entry but that idea got shot down as well (not sure why).

So anyway, LawHelp suggested that we interview our own clients to see what they would name a website that would provide information and services on things like understanding your rap sheet, the path of an arrest, how to retrieve your property and how to prevent or retain housing/employment after an arrest. We figured since these would be the people most likely to need the information, they should be able to give us a glimpse into what it could be called.

Well--the first guy I interviewed launched into a morbid "conspiracy" theory about the shelter system and the police brutality that goes along with it. He said that the police, who were mainly Hispanic and Black, were beating up on the homeless, who are also predominately Hispanic and Black. In that case, even Al Sharpton wouldn't help seek some sort of justice because noone wants to address an issue like that. Kind of like how the fact that a Black police officer was also present at the Sean Bell shooting got glossed over. Black on Black crime isn't going to be beneficial to an agenda like Al Sharpton because it's not White on Black. And no White lawyer is going to take up the case because you know for sure that he and the his entire campaign will be labeled 'legal lynchers' and racists for LIFE.

To say the least, half of the clients couldn't speak English, and many others didn't have access to the Internet. So here's my thinking--Re-Entry Net and LawHelp has all this useful information. Last summer, an intern spent her entire summer just looking up resources for these collateral consequences of blah blah blah. All these people deserve to know what their rights are as convicted felons, etc... and they should be aware that they might get evicted and that their family could get evicted too. They have a right to know that Public and Section 8 Housing has a waiting list 5x longer than the Empire State Building and should know about other options available to them. The should know about organizations like The Fortune Society and its Castle I & II and the Osborne Society, CEO, Supportive Housing and the National H.I.R.E. Network. The question is how do we get that information out to them? Unfortunately, the people who need this information the most are the hardest to reach. Every morning I wake up I have ready access to the Internet--I literally have the world at my fingertips. I'm writing my "reflections" on a "blog" in this big double room that some Top Tier Colleges only dream about on my second laptop with about 3 dozen Puma bags to my left and LSAT prep books to my right. Half of the clients I spoke to only knew about Google.com because they probably heard it on some song. These people know as much as we do because of Law & Order and the only way they find out about the information is when it actually happens to them.

Needless to say the disparities are rather striking.

Did you know that they was such a thing as squatters' rights? See I always thought the homeless were called the homeless only in the U.S. and then squatters everywhere else. It seemed like that to me in CRP101: The Global South anyway.