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“To Wander Off in Shame”: Deconstructing the Shaming and Shameful Arrest Policies of Urban Police Departments in Their Treatment of Persons with Mental Disabilities

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Systemic Humiliation in America

Abstract

In this chapter, we will focus on the decision-making processes made “on the street” by police officers who choose to apprehend and arrest certain cohorts of persons with mental disabilities, rather than seeking other, treatment-oriented alternatives in dealing with them. There is robust valid and reliable literature demonstrating that certain methods of training programs designed for police officers—the “Memphis Model” of crisis intervention training (CIT) is the most well known—have resulted in dramatic reductions of arrests for “nuisance crimes” and have avoided contributing to the overincarceration of this population. Yet, these approaches are far from widespread, so far appearing in only a handful of cities with any consistency, and, as a result, populations of persons with mental disabilities in urban jails like Riker’s Island continue to skyrocket. The means by which these arrests are effectuated reveal a consistent strategic deployment of humiliation as a means of controlling this stigmatized cohort of the population. The shaming nature of these encounters and arrests often leave already-vulnerable individuals feeling unheard and potentially traumatized. We will examine these issues through the filter of therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ), a new modality of solving a full range of seemingly intractable social problems. TJ teaches us that voice, validation, and voluntariness—and embracing an “ethic of care”—are central to any efforts to remediate the sort of issues we discuss here.

Our thanks to Daniel Rothbart for his insightful and helpful comments.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For examples of shaming sanctions, see Perlin and Weinstein (2014, pp. 20–21) (citations omitted):

    1. 1.

      A warning sign placed on the front door of a child molester’s home following his release from jail, reading “No children under the age of [eighteen] allowed on these premises by court order.”

    2. 2.

      A witness who committed perjury in court being ordered to wear a sign in front of the courthouse which read: “I lied in court. Tell the truth or walk with me.”

    3. 3.

      A convicted thief being ordered to place an ad at least four inches in height and bearing the felon’s photograph in the newspaper following his release from prison reading: “I am a convicted thief.”

    4. 4.

      Convicted drunk drivers being ordered “to wear pink hats during their performance of community service projects or to affix bumper stickers to their vehicles warning others of their crime.”

    5. 5.

      Prison inmates who expose themselves in the presence of female guards being forced to wear pink uniforms.

    6. 6.

      A burglary victim being allowed to take something of like value out of the burglar’s home.

    7. 7.

      A convicted purse snatcher being forced to wear tap shoes while out in public.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. New York Law School; Mental Disability Law and Policy Associates, New York, NY, USA

    Michael L. Perlin

  2. Disability Rights New York, Brooklyn, NY, USA

    Alison J. Lynch

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  1. Michael L. Perlin
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  1. School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, Arlington, VA, USA

    Daniel Rothbart

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Perlin, M.L., Lynch, A.J. (2018). “To Wander Off in Shame”: Deconstructing the Shaming and Shameful Arrest Policies of Urban Police Departments in Their Treatment of Persons with Mental Disabilities. In: Rothbart, D. (eds) Systemic Humiliation in America. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70679-5_8

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