SERIES BLOOD SENTENCES
(2014-2015)
200 unique drawings each 5×7 inches. Artist´s blood on paper
© Jana Leo 2014-2015 New York
I started my Blood Sentence projects in 2014 with the sentence Denying Reality is not going to Change the facts in response to a situation I was living. Through informal conversations with Terry Williams about mass incarceration for Martin Luther King Birthday I created: In the US Slavery is legal; Prisoners are Slaves of the State. The project continues in the summer of 2014 after the killing of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson. I was surprised to see that those protesting after Ferguson were mostly black. Do we, the whites think that it is not our problem because the police are killing just blacks? For me “this is the way things are in America” is not enough. If the police kill someone with no reason it is institutional power abuse, so it is against any person that believes that institutions in a democracy have to represent the individual. I thought of a sentence to encourage whites to protest for black killings. Our Taxes Pay the Police; We Are responsible For the Actions of Our Employees. I know that the text is ironic because though we employ the police, we are powerless over their misconduct; we have no agency to oversight. What the sentence is trying to say is that the rich buy the police to molest the poor, who happen to be black. I also wanted to associate the killings with money, because the targeted victims where those who often don ́t have it. Eric Garner was a case of Broken Windows (broken lives) policing: disproportionate police force that killed him for a minor offense, selling loose cigarettes.The project entered into another level in 2015 after witnessed the handcuffing and arrest of an art gallery visitor for drinking a beer on the street during an opening, and example of every day Broken Windows Policing.
After the gallery opening mentioned earlier, I learned more about Broken Windows, a policy that is more like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The goal is to repress society rather than to cut crime. Repression is always disproportionate to the crime. The police target non-submissive persons, and, in my opinion, a democracy is no place for policies more commonly used in a dictatorship. Broken Windows Policing permits, and helps to enforce, irrational behavior by the police, i.e you are in police custody for your own wellbeing. We all pay for police misconduct. Our taxes pay the police; we are responsible for the actions of our employees, and yet, we have no power to stop them. This policy is designed to repress the poor through minor offenses – eating in a subway car, staying in a park after dusk, urinating in the street, etc. – all illegal actions that a person who, potentially, is poor or even homeless, has no choice but to commit. Quality of life policing – the quality of life of whom?
ART AGAINST BROKEN WINDOWS POLICING
© Conceived by Jana Leo 2015-2016 New York
Art Against Broken Windows is not only a show about this policy, it is a call for action for artists as a community to raise their voices and say NO.
An idea for a show proposed by Jana Leo after witnessing the handcuffing and arrest of an art gallery visitor for drinking a beer on the street during an opening. Broken Windows Policing is based on the theory that controlling misdemeanors is a way to cut serious crimes. This theory, while unproven, has consequences in the everyday lives of New Yorkers – repression, authoritarian rhetoric, the molestation of minorities, and the decreased quality of life of the non-wealthy. The death of Eric Garner, for instance, is a clear example of Broken Windows: disproportionate police force resulting from a minor offense, the selling of loose cigarettes.
I painted sentences (in italic above) explaining what really Broken Windows is with my own blood and then I reached out to artists whose works I admire and I asked them to collaborate. I found that artists were more than willing to participate, as Broken Windows seems to be an essential anxiety in the city today. So far, I’ve gathered the following artists:
-The history of “broken windows” or “quality of life policing” through Gearoid Dolan- Screamachine´s collages. From 1989 David Norman Dinkins (first black mayor of New York and first mayor using quality of life policing ) to Bill de Blasio.
-Berta Cusó depicted, through her illustrations, the drama that takes place in the courtroom 129 in real time: a boy gets five days in jail for not paying a subway fair, a mother then sold her gold tooth across the street to pay the fine. No photographs or video are allowed in this room.
– Broken Windows target vulnerable minorities. As a contrast, Simon Lund´s portraits document an individual’s identity. He captured a Latino woman arrested for falling asleep and occupying two seats in the subway at 2 am while going home after working in a restaurant and a teenager who was arrested for walking unleashed dog in the park.
– Anthony Posada, an attorney and the director of the Attica Project, will run an art workshop for this project. His posters and t-shirts, and the works of young artists during, aim to inform the public of what is happening with this “broken” Broken Windows policy.
https://actipedia.org/gallery/art-against-broken-windows-open-call
art-against-broken-windows-open-call-actipedia
http://ArtAgainstBrokenWindows Policing_opencall_Jan92016_Janaleo
http://Art Against Broken WIndows_nurturreart_Feb12
http://www.policereformorganizingproject.org/art-broken-windows-policing/
art-against-broken-windows-policing-police-reform-organizing-project-prop
WHOLE TEXT AND PAINTINGS ON BROKEN WINDOWS POLICING
US to CAN (Using a Sledgehammer to Crack a Nut) or Broken Windows Policing
A short time ago I had barely heard of the broken window policy. Even after reading the article “Fixing Broken Windows” by Ken Auletta recently published in the New Yorker (Sept. 7, 2015), I was unsure about the implications of the policy. I learned that William Branton, New York City ́s police commissioner, who initiated the policy under the then mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, and the current mayor, Bill de Blasio continue to champion the policy, but I still didn’t have a clear picture of how The Broken Window policy affects my life. Recently, after witnessing a police confrontation, I have a greater understanding of the sort of authoritative behavior the policy allows, and I definitely against it.
US to CAN (Using a Sledgehammer to Crack a Nut) or Broken Windows Policing
On Friday, September 11th at 8pm at an art gallery opening at XX XXXXXXX St, New York, NY 10002, a middle-aged, white haired man is drinking a beer and speaking with friends just outside the gallery .Two policemen appear and asked for his ID. “I am sorry. Lets me go inside,” the man says and turns toward the door. The police grab him and in seconds he is in handcuffs and is being pushed against the side of a car. Moore police arrive. The people inside the gallery come outside. Due to the crow and the confusion I end up further from the gallery entrance and, for a while, I lose sight of what is happening. After a few minutes, I am on the other side of the street. I begin taking pictures.
The man with white hair, handcuffed, is on the ground in the middle of the street surrounded by policeman. Two policemen grab him under the arms and drag him toward the police car. He is asking, “Why I am I being arrested?” He says, “I am fifty-one years old and I am in handcuffs for no reason”. He looks at the people at the curve and begs them, “Please don ́t let them take me.” They ask the police to please tell him why he is being arrested. The police offer no response; for a moment, the two policeman stop, restrain the handcuffed man in what looks like an awkward, painful hold, while he continues to beg the spectators, “Please record this. They are taking me with no reason. Please don ́t let them take me.” The two policeman are now trying to make him to get him into the car, at this point he cries out, “You are hurting me.”
The people on the sidewalk begin calling 311 to make complaints against the police, but at that time, the police have pushed them away in such a way that is impossible to see their identification. One officer says they are from the 5th Precinct on Elizabeth Street.
I approach one officer and ask him why this is happening. He looks at me but doesn ́t reply. Another officer says, “The man is intoxicated and is acting crazy so he is in police custody for his own well being.” He adds that an ambulance is coming. I reply that he is not crazy; he is just asking why he is getting arrested. What’s crazy about that? The officer says, “Mind your own business” and tells me to go home.
An ambulance arrives. In a few minutes, the man is placed on a gurney and is taken into the ambulance. He continues to plead with the crowd, “Please don’t let them take me.” The back doors of the ambulance close. We spectators, are silenced by the shock of what we have seen. There was no valid reason for calling an ambulance; the man was neither intoxicated nor crazy. It seems apparent that the police, realizing they are arresting somebody inappropriately and confronted with a crowd of onlookers, refuse to back off and declare the man is insane and drunk to justify their actions.
After the ambulance leaves, people are still milling around trying to understand what happened. Where was the man was taken? And why? People are gathered around two young black men who, with their bouncer builds and sporty clothes (in contrast with the gallery goers) stand out as under cover policeman. “The man was escaping” says the more muscular and more aggressive plainclothes officer who wears a baseball hat, a red, white and blue sports jersey shirt and blue jeans. He wasn’t cooperating and we had to jump on him and handcuff him”. When the man drinking a beer in the street was asked by the police for this ID and he replied “Sorry, Let me go inside,” I assumed he wanted to get his ID or he wanted to go inside because he understood that he shouldn’t be drinking outside, but he is not escaping. It makes no sense to escape inside an art gallery.
Drinking alcohol on the street is a misdemeanor. It may warrant a ticket or more appropriately, given the circumstance of a patron wandering outside an art opening with a beer, a warning. Yet this middle-aged man was arrested. He was accused of being mentally unstable though the question he asked repeatedly, “Why am I being arrested?” made perfect sense. Now, after witnessing this event, I know that any of us might be handcuffed and arrested at the whim of the police. We seem to have arrived at the absurd point where New York is not safe because of the police.
We, the spectators, witnessed the police targeting a man because he asked a question. It was as if asking a question of the police is automatically understood as questioning authority. This was police paternalism –treating adults as children. The Fixing Broken Windows policy, which claims to be based on “decency and obedience,” is paternalist. It permits and helps to enforce authoritarian and not rational behavior by the police.
I left the gallery alarmed and fearful. Today the man with white hair was taken away from a gallery opening in handcuffs, but tomorrow it could be me. I, too, could leave my home and lose my right to return due to the unlimited power of the police supported by the policies in effect. In an earlier time in New York, you left the house with the not inconceivable thought of being assaulted. The danger now is that you might be arrested. It is frightening to me that a man can be declared insane and put in an ambulance by the police for drinking a beer in the street. And that a person can be held in custody to “prevent him from damaging himself and others.” I feel threatened by the authoritarian rhetoric in which a person is accused of what is actually done to him or her: this man is harming no one and he is not crazy, it was the police who are harming him and who acted crazy.
The next morning when I woke up I continued writing, “In any police action, there is a moment when the police officers have all the power and can do what ever they wish; they have guns and authority. There is a huge cost for every New York resident, both personal and economic, when policemen don ́t use their authority with wisdom. In the case of lawsuits the city may have to pay, which means we all have to pay. New Yorkers may be mistreated by the police in day-to-day life and, in addition, they are expected to pay (with their taxes) the “repair” (for the police actions) for the mistreatment they suffered. We all pay for police misbehavior.
The morning before going to the art opening I was framing for a show an art piece I created in 2014 after the killing of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson; hand written in blood reads: Our Taxes Pay the Police; We Are responsible For the Actions of Our Employees. I know that the text is ironic because though we employ the police we are powerless over their misconduct, we have no agency to oversight.
Eric Garner was a case of Broken Windows (broken lives) policing: disproportionate police force that killed him for a minor offense, selling loose cigarettes. I’d actually thought the piece might be obsolete, that things were better in New York, that in the last year the police department learned a lot and reformed itself but yesterday night after witnessing what the Broken window policy implies I sadly recognize that things are not better, but quite the opposite. They have escalated to include us all.
As I write, I have been told that the middle-aged man with the white hair is still being held. Now anybody, white or black, young or old, anywhere in New York (not only in Staten Island, in Harlem or in the Bronx), at any time, can be arrested for a minor offense. I don ́t support the unduly prominent arrest of minorities, nor do I support a carte blanche approach to arrest as the antidote. From what I witnessed, I conclude that the police target anybody who is non-submissive. But being not non-submissive (asking why you’ve been arrested) has nothing to do with being a criminal. Broken windows policing is repression. The police don ́t seem to understand that they are government employees, not a military dictatorship and that to display power in order to contribute to an atmosphere of fear is not part of their job. For the police officers to get the message the theories in effect have to be aligned and not against. Broken Windows policing celebrates policy overreaction.
At one time, the supporting argument for repression was decency, now it is quality of life. Minor offenses that lead to a Criminal Court Appearance or Ticketed offenses include urinating, spitting in the street, drinking in public and has been extended to include such things as eating on the subway or putting your briefcase in an empty sit. The Broken Windows policy is also called “quality of life policing.” Quality of life for whom? For those who can afford to eat in restaurants and don ́t have long commutes? Those who can pay for a drink to use the bathroom in a lounge? The sidewalks are full of expensive restaurants but there are no public bathrooms and few places to sit to eat in the street without paying. The poor have no access to New York.
What constitutes a ticket-able offense (by law) and who (by practice) is issued the ticket are two interrelated questions. Most minor offenses (urinating in the street, eating in a subway car, staying in a park after dusk…) are actions a person may have to take (for instance if she lives in the street) because she has no choice. By putting a list of infractions that many advantaged people will have no problem following targets the disadvantaged.
The goal of the Broken Windows policy is to repress society rather than to cut crime; to have docile and obedient citizens who never react, nor reply but only submit. Specifically, the Broken Windows policy is designed to repress the poor. Laws must be made for all, including the poor. A democracy is no place for policies used in dictatorship; Repression promoting submission through fear, excessive regulations, may end up cutting minor offenses, but the price includes the loss of freedom. The repression is disproportionate to the crime: the Broken Windows policy is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
September 12 2015
Jana Leo
Edited by Keith McDermott
CELEBRITY RAPE
Art work done in response to the Brock Turner Case
5×7 inches. Postcard
© Jana Leo 2016 New York
For the perpetrator, the sentence is measured by the profile of the perpetrator (white, successful) not by the damage done which also punish perpetrators with no privilege. This light sentencing is not only against the constitution (the rule of the law) it is also deeply racist.
Jana Leo 