Abstract

Legal cynicism is a cultural orientation in which the law and the enforcement parties are viewed to be unresponsive, ill-mannered and illegitimate towards ensuring the public’s safety. The crime rate may increase in the neighborhood because of legal cynicism as some take the law as illegitimate hence no need to report it. Most of these crimes of cynicism end up not reported therefore remain unsanctioned. The awkward practices lead to negative associations between the proportions on the neighborhood minority residents the arrest rates. The application of legal cynicism in Tallahassee shows that there are cases of people practicing the unlawful act. The contributors to legal cynicism in Tallahassee include the release of incarcerators to the neighborhood, misconduct acts of the police on the citizens and racial segregation among others. The policing policies to curb the legal cynicism include Three Strike Policy, The Full Employment Domestic Policy, and Assigned Seating policy among others. The Tallahassee leaders are trying their level best to overcome the legal cynicism problem.

Tallahassee Community Legal Cynicism

Legal cynicism is described as cultural orientation where the law to be enforced and the enforcement agents are perceived as unresponsive, illegitimate and ill oriented to ensure the safety of the public. Crime may blossom in the neighborhood due to legal cynicism as some perceive the law as being illegitimate hence does not comply with it.  These crimes might end up not reported because of legal cynicism thus unsanctioned. Evidence from ethnography reveals that a number of crimes in minority neighborhoods, circumvent sanctions of criminal justice. The unethical act leads to a negative association between the arrest rate and the proportion of the neighborhood minority residents. The paper provides a detailed description of the application of legal cynicism to the Tallahassee community and the policing policy recommendations to overcome the cynicism.

There exist many cases of legal cynicism in Tallahassee due to a number of reasons.  The highest contributor to the legal cynicism in Tallahassee is the reentry of prisoners in the neighborhood concentrating in the scarce resource city. The geographic concentration of the re-entry prisoners in Tallahassee neighborhood disrupts the social networks. It consequently, undermines the efforts of law enforcers and the residents to control the crime. The high concentration of the released criminals to the neighborhood creates mistrustful to the system of criminal justice. These incarcerated individuals return to the neighborhood culture already believing in legal cynicism. These prisoners form the significant influencers of the society in engaging in legal cynicism.  Coupled with the reduced unemployment rates in the city these prisoners form a large idle group who find time in engaging legal cynicism. The release of the prisoners back to the neighborhood enhances the churning and cycling of offenders in Tallahassee leading to many instances of legal cynicism. With the negative information, they feed the society people find it very difficult to interact with the criminal justice system as they deem them enemies.

Legal cynicism has also spread in Tallahassee city neighborhood because of the police misconduct and unjust treatment of the citizens both outside and inside jail. Some of the police officers during the operation carry out beatings, mishandle the criminals in handcuffs and allow the police dogs to cause injuries. These forced acts make some of the citizens, and the prisoners who have been released from jail feel that the laws applied by the police are illegitimate hence mostly fail to abide by them. One of the case studies of the legal cynicism that was experienced in Tallahassee is that of Savary who went to the Federal Department of Law Enforces to report an alleged case of fraud. He claimed to have been chosen by God to fight for the people.  During the reporting time, he talks with a lot of hostility and aggression which showed command. Latter own in his email conversations to the FDLE when he felt that they were not handling his allegations he threatened to carry out a mass shooting.  From the actions, Jeffrey Savary felt that the law enforcers were unresponsive and their laws were illegitimate showing the highest level of legal cynicism in Tallahassee.

Racial segregation has also been one of the initiators of legal cynicism in Tallahassee neighborhood. The African Americans only believe in the fairness of the court if the police arrest less of their people. If they find that the statistics of the incarcerated are more of the white American, then they develop mistrust in the enforcement team thus leading to increased legal cynicism. The same approach applies to the whites in Tallahassee. If most of their race is being incarcerated, then the level of their legal cynicism towards the police increases due to the skeptic about the acts of the justice system. The transmission methods of this kind of legal cynicism in the society include horizontal, oblique and vertical transmission. Horizontal transmission occurs when peers influence each other culturally. Vertical transmission occurs from parent to child. In this case, the parents who have been jailed influence their children, or it comes naturally in children because of the perceived unfairness of arrest of their parent.  Oblique cynicism occurs from non-parents of one generation to the young.  An example of the case of racial segregation in Tallahassee was observed from the Tallahassee Bus Boycott which happened in 1956. During this period the transport sector had passed a law that the whites and the blacks segregated locations to sit in the vehicle. Two ladies Patterson and Jake boarded a vehicle and intentionally sat in the white’s segregated zone. The driver told them that they were to take the colored seats, but they refused. Jake accepted to alight if they were refunded their bus fare and the driver objected. The action clearly expressed a form of racial segregation induced legal cynicism by the two students.

Some of the best policing policies that may overcome legal cynicism caused by release or re-entry of the incarcerators in the neighborhood should be to make stiff the “Three Strike Policy” to punish the released incarcerators who incite others in practicing cynicism. The other policy to curb the imprisoner’s legal cynicism is to re-introduce the “The Full Employment Domestic Policy” by offering employment to released prisoners to keep them busy.  Also offering proper correctional measures to the prisoners would help curb the legal cynicism. The prisoners should be given comprehensive education on proper behavioral mechanisms to assume once they are out of prison. They should also be given stern warning of life imprisonment if found inciting other citizens outside. The policing policy to curb the delays in the handling of cases as in the case Savary should be to create other more bodies or systems policies to fast-track case hearings. On the bus transport initiated legal cynicism in Tallahassee; the government should “Bring Back Romney” (the other one) which advocated for racial discrimination elimination in all sectors. “Assigned Seating policy” improvement would also help create transport anti-social segregation means of traveling. Anti-social segregation policies should be implemented stiffly to enhance interaction and sharing by all the races. Policies uplifting police misconduct should also be formulated and implemented. Some of the policies like initiating social activities such as joint games and grassroots regular meetings should be put in place to enhance citizen’s interaction with the law enforcers.

In conclusion, legal cynicism is evident in the Tallahassee community and is a real threat to the law enforcers. These legal cynicisms in the community are caused by the release of the prisoners to the neighborhood, law enforcer’s misconduct and forceful application of laws, delays or timely failure to handle cases and social segregation. All these forms of legal cynicism are either internally or externally initiated by others. Therefore there is a need to solve them through policing policies like Romney Policy, Assigned Seating policy, Three Strike policy, Full Employment policy, the creation of a good relationship between the policy enforcers and the citizens. Also through reorganizing the judicial house and giving a stern warning to incarcerators before they are released.  The government of Tallahassee should, therefore, ensure formulation of new and implementation of the listed policies to overcome legal cynicism.

 
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