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Comment by runako | Hacker News Reader

The thing that gets missed is that a ton of laws on the books are written with the expectation that they will not be applied evenly. Some examples:

- Nobody really expects the cops to sweep the dorms at NYU for marijuana, even though this would probably turn up a ton of arrests. Smoking a joint while looking like a minority and being in a minority part of town carries a much higher probability of being arrested.

- Crossing the street against the light at or around the front of MIT doesn't get you cited for jaywalking, ever.

- All of New York City has (had?) a prohibition on open containers of alcohol. This prohibition is generally unenforced in non-minority areas.

- Open carry laws in Georgia are not meant for dark-skinned Muslim men.

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> Open carry laws in Georgia are not meant for dark-skinned Muslim men.

Funny you should bring that up, but not only it's true, there's some considerable history there. Few people are aware of it these days, but historically, South was actually very restrictive with respect to right to carry arms - most of it prohibited _all_ forms of carrying outright (look at this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Rtc.gif - and note where the red color is concentrated in mid-80s).

These laws mostly date to the post-Reconstruction era, and during Jim Crow (and later, but that's when it was most prominent) were effectively enforced or not enforced on the basis of race, and, to some extent, political affiliation (say, if you're a white dude who's travelling around the state to help blacks register in the 50s).

> Open carry laws in Georgia are not meant for dark-skinned Muslim men.

Nor for dark-skinned men in California: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act

Jaywalking isn't really a crime in MA* so no, you wouldn't get cited at MIT

* technically it is, but the fine was set to $1 many years ago in order to effectively make it legal

But does an offence of J walking for someone on probation breach that probation?

Genuine question as I don't know. But essentially laws like that become tools with which law enforcement can excercise malice toward individuals if they please.

I am reminded of a story of a man out on probation, who used a knife for his work. He had been out for a while, normally the knife was concealed as it's required to be. But it was visible when he was stopped on his way home from work. The state of New York has pretty strict laws at their disposal, and they chose to use them in this case, and the man who had been getting his life back together was thrown back in jail over what is essentially a technicality.

Laws that seem harmless and unenforced should be removed, less they be abused. Just like it is best to remove a deprecated function when it's no longer in use, lest it become a risk.

Potentially, but literally no one ever gets yanked for jaywalking. I used to live right down the street from MIT and all sorts of sketchy people stumble their way across streets whenever they feel like it, and that neighborhood has a decent police presence.

The original point is still valid, it was just a bad example. No one gets cited for jaywalking here.

One time while walking back from a bar in my mid 20s I ran across a street in front of a police cruiser as the light was yellow and they exerted their power by hassling me and telling my friends to watch out for me. This was Fullerton, CA and I am a short white guy with a shaved head. You may think they were watching out for me but there was significant belligerence.

The point is they enforce whatever, whenever. There are far too many laws and they are very unevenly enforced.

I didn't realize MIT was located in a lower-income, minority neighborhood.

It's right across the street from one, actually. It also borders Central Square which is home to a lot of derelicts. Things are more gentrified now than they were even 10-15 years ago but the Jaywalking thing has been around for 30ish years.

Richard Neal. His profile in the Village Voice came up in my Twitter feed the other day: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/how-a-50s-era-new-york-knif...

Its a long read but worth it.

Why is the knife supposed to be concealed? What difference does that make?

If it's the story I'm thinking of, GP has the details a little mixed up. But it's been a few years since the story broke so that's understandable.

The issue was the knife itself being illegal in New York -- a knife that could be bought at almost any hardware or art supply store in the city. Concealed or not, the guy was violating a poorly written law meant to criminalize switchblades in the mid 20th century. But cops had been using it to arrest African American men if they saw the telltale pocket clip while stopping them for something else.

They classified this certain kind of utility knife as a "gravity knife", even though it wasn't. The law outlaws knives opened with a flick of the wrist, and it took a cop five tries to flick one open in court once because they aren't designed to be opened that way. But that one time was all it took.

To bring this back to the original question: in a just world, an arrest for owning one of these knives -- again, one that you could buy at any hardware store shouldn't violate someone's probation. Neither should jaywalking, something I do countless times a day.

You are right, that was the story I was thinking of! Thank you for the correction.

Good catch. But it's still roundly unenforced, which was the point. One that still is illegal in Cambridge is underage drinking, and here again the police forces in Cambridge and Boston turn a blind eye instead of making mass arrests every weekend.

The point is that behavior is only effectively legal when it's actually legal and not only made so by convention, because relying on convention leads to selective prosecution.

By law, German police are required to engage with all crime they are aware off. (But prosecutors have more leeway, and even a mandate to consider the interest of the public when choosing whether to prosecute.)

I wonder whether removing the decision making from the police, or at least attempting to, helps in getting laws more evenly enforced.

In MA jaywalking is a violation of the law and not a crime.

Yeah your point was sound, the example just turned out to be a bad one :) I've literally never seen anyone cited in central square, but I have friends who have been cited in states where jaywalking is still a thing. As a Masshole I've been lucky as I forget it is illegal in some places and will just cross a street if it isn't dangerous for anyone involved.

The concept of "Campus Police" allows for Universities to insulate themselves from local laws. Crimes from underage drinking up to rape are generally dealt with internally, in what seems like understanding between the institution an their host cities.

We're in violent agreement.

We've decided to create special jurisdictions where certain laws are ignored for certain people. Campus Police are basically this practice codified into law and organization. Your student ID is a pass that gives you immunity from prosecution from certain violations.

Irony: campuses (at least a vast majority of the ones I've been to in urban areas) tend to border higher-crime parts of town and would thus otherwise likely be subject to the same police jurisdiction.

The University of Washington's campus police are King County Sheriff's deputies with a different paint job on their car. Is this anomalous for public schools?

No thats very common. Almost all campus police officers are deputized agents of their host city.

Ever wonder why they would leave a toothless law in place like this, rather than strike it from the books? Because it enables detention.

Now that the local constable has a legal reason to stop and detain due to the criminal act of jay-walking, a round of questioning and a search for other violations may begin in earnest. It's part of the shakedown machine.

Crossing against the signal is also legal in MA, as long as you're in a crosswalk.

http://www.georgiapacking.org/law.php

While Georgia allows open carry of long-guns without a permit, white people walking around with AR-15 rifles would probably be stopped and questioned by the police regardless.

Open carry of handguns, and concealed carry of any weapon, in Georgia is only legal with a Georgia Weapons Carry License, which is only obtained after a background check and review by a local probate judge.

While someone of darker complexion might run into trouble with certain racists on certain police forces, I don't think it's fair to damn the whole state's laws based on that. So called "Terry" stops are not allowed, no matter what color someone's skin is.

> white people walking around with AR-15 rifles would probably be stopped and questioned by the police regardless.

Let's assume that's correct. It doesn't address the point that every citizen could not be expected to be afforded this treatment. A group of dark-skinned men who carry long guns into a store are likely to spend some time on the pavement, or worse. (It's a very big subject so I won't post citations, but there have been ample publications indicating that unarmed people of color are killed by police at a higher rate than white people. That's a long way from questioning.)

The right to carry long guns in public places is created by legislation that is dependent on our understanding that the police can figure out who should not be allowed to enjoy this right. If our shared understanding was that the outcome of these laws would be vast numbers of swarthy men carrying AR-15s in all public places, an armed minority teenager behind us at every ATM, our public debate around guns would be very different.

> So called "Terry" stops are not allowed, no matter what color someone's skin is.

If you believe this is how the law is actually enforced in America, you really should spend more time with people outside your current circle of acquaintances. If you don't believe that this is how our laws are currently enforced, then you are in agreement with my post.

> If our shared understanding was that the outcome of these laws would be vast numbers of swarthy men carrying AR-15s in all public places, an armed minority teenager behind us at every ATM, our public debate around guns would be very different.

I'd argue that this statement would stand, even without the racial qualifiers. I don't think I've seen an AR-15 outside of a shooting range or gun show. If "vast numbers" of people felt the need to carry them in all public places, I think I'd look for somewhere else to be, where I could feel safe without being armed.

> ... I think I'd look for somewhere else to be, where I could feel safe without being armed.

That's the beauty of open-carry, you don't have to be armed because everyone around you is! /half-ironicly, half-pointedly

As I've seen them exercised in my area and in others I've visited or lived in, I don't have problem with gun rights. I've been raised to see them as tools, though. I wouldn't want to stay somewhere where people carry around kitchen knives, large mallets, or tire irons, either. In my mind, you carry a tool when you intend to use it, or suspect that it may be necessary.

In a large group of people, there's also a good chance that a percentage of them wouldn't know what they're doing and just kill whatever kind of safety benefit everyone else imagines they've got.

If I recall correctly, there was a group of mixed race people walking around with rifles at various events, without incident.

I think groups might be less likely to stir trouble than a single individual, for a variety of reasons. But I could be wrong, it would depend largely on the responding officers, I imagine. If the citizens are being peaceful and do not act in threatening ways, I would not expect trouble.

I talked to a guy holding a gun once who politely asked for my wallet. He didn't point the gun at me, yell, stand too close, or act aggressive. The mere act of holding a gun was all the threat he needed.

http://www.barenakedislam.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/BAI...

http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2015/11/armed-protesters-...

NYC still has its open container prohibition. It's very classist -- it's OK to drink a beer outdoors if you paid $7 for it at a "sidewalk cafe" you're sitting at, but not OK if you paid $2 for it at the grocery store. Drinking outdoors in NYC is legal if you pay more for it.

You're also not allowed to build a house on a random piece of property, so you must be able to afford to buy property to build a house there. Very classist.

I'm confused -- building a house indefinitely consumes an expensive and scarce resource (land). Which expensive and scarce resource is used up when someone drinks a beer outdoors?

Generally speaking, cops won't bother you for jaywalking in the Northeast as long as you don't obstruct traffic. They'll sit and watch you cross against the light. As long as cars don't have to jam on their brakes, the cops won't bother with you. As soon as you cause a hazardous situation, you'll get at the least a tongue-lashing.

In the same vein, pedestrians in the city of Providence have the right of way at all crosswalks unless a walk signal is present, in which case the jaywalking rule above applies.

> Generally speaking, cops won't bother you for jaywalking in the Northeast as long as you don't obstruct traffic.

Again, the point of TFA was that minor ordinances are selectively applied ("generally"). What you say is true only in some neighborhoods. But in neighborhoods where the police are looking for a pretext to stop someone, jaywalking ordinances are a handy tool.

Selective enforcement of the law has been written about quite frequently, and is a well-studied phenomenon. As such, I won't try to rehash the body of work, but here's an example from NYC I found in a few seconds:

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/the-nypd-enforces-jaywalkin...

"A look at the precincts that report comparatively significant numbers of jaywalking citations over the past few years reveals a pattern: the South Bronx, Harlem, north Brooklyn."

(TL;DR; those areas were not selected due to particularly high accident fatality rates.)

Sorry. Didn't mean to obscure or contradict that point. I was trying to demonstrate a cultural norm in the Northeast, which as you point out, gets selectively applied.

I'm not sure about jaywalking citation stats in Boston and Providence, but random stops have been a part of life in poorer neighborhoods in both cities.

You. Are so. White.

"Nobody really expects the cops to sweep the dorms at NYU for marijuana, even though this would probably turn up a ton of arrests."

Switch out "NYU" with "ghetto" and your statement is instantly absurd. These laws you're sleaking of are intended to be enforced, selectively. This is HN, we all love statistics. What is the probability that a person standing trial for possession marijuana who was apprehended in their home and where the primary reason provided in seeking the exercised warrant or reasoning provided explaining exigent circumstances was suspicion of possession or use of marijuana and the person on trial is white? Black?

You can't be evidence based when it suits your world view, but not when it doesn't. The term for that is confirmation bias.

The first sentence of their post was:

The thing that gets missed is that a ton of laws on the books are written with the expectation that they will not be applied evenly.

You should read before jumping down someone's throat.

I can't edit on this device. So, yeah, you're right. Change what I said to,

"I totally agree..."

And everything else is pretty much still good to go. Sorry. I'm pretty opinionated on this topic. As someone with dual degrees in political science and economics, followed by 15 years of all this great country has to offer the white male, and then living in Baltimore during the uprising, listening to my neighbors, marching with fellow Baltimoreans (?), almost getting arrested for holding a sign while on a public sidewalk during a march, staring down rows of cops 10 deep, having motorcycle cops rev their engines with protestors just feet on front of them laid out on the ground, having the National Guard lock down our city for a week, having government sigint airplanes flying overhead, and then riding my bicycle home, to a safe, warm meal and going to my good paying job with benefits the next day, while some black kid follows his mother's advice and walks into a police station on his own volition to surrender to the ppolice for vandalizing a cop car and then having his bail set higher than what was set for the police officers who where arraigned for manslaughter. But yeah, i blew it all out proportion in that comment.

Full disclosure. I'm a middle aged, middle income, college educated, male, and am white.

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