Crime and Punishment in American History - Lawrence M. Friedman [242]
The contemporary system of criminal justice does not satisfy either blacks or whites, though for different reasons. The huge black ghettos seethe with rage and disaffection. Until fairly recently, “race riots” were riots against blacks; blacks were the victims, beaten, persecuted, sometimes hunted down and slaughtered. As late as 1943, twenty-five blacks (and nine whites) died in a race riot in Detroit.82 Now the ghettos produce their own riots, riots of rage and desperation—for example, after the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., and following the acquittal of the men who beat Rodney King. Each time, the police (and perhaps the National Guard) moves in; peace is restored; the ruins smolder for a while; newspapers run long stories; yet somehow, in the end, the situation returns to what it was.dc Whether the country will have the will and the skill to face up to the problems of crime, poverty, disorganization, and race remains to be seen.
A Rainbow of Minorities
In the period since the Second World War, there has probably been a general decline in the United States in outright prejudice against Asians—Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, and others. Immigration laws no longer exclude Asians, and immigration from Asia has increased rapidly. The states no longer pass discriminatory laws. True, the Japanese economic miracle has evoked envy, and there have been some ugly incidents against Korean shopkeepers and Vietnamese shrimp fishers. It seems amazing now that, within living memory, a group of Asians was singled out in this country and thrown into camps—which happened, of course, to the Japanese during World War II.
In the United States, acceptance brings with it a measure of assimilation, and perhaps also an affection for certain specific American social ills. In the sixties and seventies, juvenile delinquency emerged as a serious problem in Chinatown. The Chinese were famous for the strength of family ties, but these bonds did not prevent teenage gangs from forming —gangs that terrorized the community and fought bitterly against each other. In September 1977, a Chinese gang shot up the Golden Dragon Restaurant in San Francisco; at least five customers, innocently having their meal, were slaughtered for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.dd In Seattle, two Hong Kong immigrants killed thirteen older Chinese in 1983.83
American experience with its own indigenous populations has followed a jagged, unhappy course over the years. In the twentieth century, incidents of outright slaughter stopped; the native tribes had long since been defeated and herded onto remote reservations. But native peoples continue to suffer from a massive amount of social disorganization, and a massive degree of desperate poverty. As far as criminal justice is concerned, Native Americans who live among the Anglos are disproportionately arrested, tried, convicted, and jailed—just like blacks.
On the reservations, the situation is somewhat more complicated. The native peoples are separate “nations,” and they have a certain amount of autonomy, although Congress has felt free at all times to encroach on it. Since the late nineteenth century, there have been Courts of Indian Offenses on the reservations; these were not “native” courts as such, but very much under the thumb of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. After the 1930s, more emphasis was placed on “tribal” courts; and the Courts of Indian Offenses were