 CHAPTER XIII. THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE UNDER EMERGENCY CONDITIONS CHAPTER XI. THE CONDITION IN OUR LOWER COURTS A riot in the city poses a separate crisis in the administration of justice. Partially paralyzed by decades of neglect, deficient in facilities, procedures, and personnel, overwhelmed by the demands of normal operations, lower courts have staggered under the crushing new burdens of civil disorders. Some of our courts, moreover, have lost the confidence of the poor. This judgment is underwritten by the members and staff of this commission, who have gone into the courthouses and ghettos of the cities torn by the riots of 1967. The belief is pervasive among ghetto residents that lower courts in our urban communities dispense assembly-line justice, that from arrest to sentencing the poor and uneducated are denied equal justice with the affluent, that procedures such as bail and fines have been perverted to perpetuate class inequities, we have found that the apparatus of justice in some areas has itself become a focus for distrust and hostility. Too often the courts have operated to aggravate rather than relieve the tensions that ignite and fire disorders. The quality of justice which the courts dispense in time of civil crisis is one of the indices of the capacity of a democratic society to survive. To see that this quality does not become strained is therefore a task of critical importance. No program of crime prevention the president's commission on law enforcement in the administration of justice found will be effective without a massive overhaul of the lower criminal courts. The range of needed reforms recommended in their report is broad. Increasing judicial manpower and reforming the selection and tenure of judges, providing more prosecutors, defense counsel and probation officers and training them adequately, modernizing the physical facilities and administration of the courts, creating unified state court systems, coordinating statewide the operations of local prosecutors, improving the informational bases for pre-trial screening and negotiated pleas, revising the bail system and setting up systems for station house summons and release for persons accused of certain offenses, revising sentencing laws and policies toward a more just structure. If we are to provide our judicial institutions with sufficient capacity to cope effectively with civil disorders, these reforms are vitally necessary, they are long overdue. The responsibility for this effort will rest heavily on the organized bar of the community. The prevalence of assembly line justice is evidence that in many localities the bar has not met its leadership responsibilities. THE EXPERIENCE OF SUMMER 1967 In the cities shaken by disorders during the summer of 1967 there were recurring breakdowns in the mechanisms for processing, prosecuting and protecting arrested persons. In the main these resulted from the community's failure to anticipate and plan for the emergency judicial needs of civil disorders and from long-standing structural deficiencies in criminal court systems, distended grotesquely to process a massive influx of cases. In many instances, tensions and hostilities from the streets infected the quality of justice dispensed by the courts. While final information on the processing of riot offenders is not yet assembled, the information presently available provides valuable guidelines for future planning. The goals of criminal justice under conditions of civil disorder are basic. To ensure the apprehension and subsequent conviction of those who riot, incite to riot, or have committed acts of physical violence or caused substantial property damage, to ensure that law violators are subjected to criminal process and that disposition of their cases is commensurate with the severity of the offense, to provide at the same time for just but compassionate disposition of inadvertent, casual or minor offenders, to provide prompt, fair judicial hearings for arrested persons under conditions which do not aggravate grievances within the affected areas. In the summer of 1967 these goals too often were disregarded or unattainable. Few successful prosecutions for serious crimes committed during the riot period. In Detroit twenty-six alleged snipers were charged with assault with intent to commit murder. Twenty-three of these charges were subsequently dismissed. As of September 30, 1967, one out of seven homicide arrests had resulted in conviction, two were still pending. Of 253 assault arrests only eleven convictions were produced, fifty-eight were still pending. Twenty-one out of thirty-four arrests for arson, and twenty-two of twenty-eight arrests for inciting to riot had been dropped by the prosecution. Three elements impaired successful prosecution of persons arrested for major offenses. First, the technique of mass arrest was sometimes used to clear the streets. Those arrested often included innocent spectators and minor violators, along with the major offenders. In Newark and Detroit mass street arrests were made in sectors where sniping was reported and extensive looting occurred. Second, the obstacles to deliberate painstaking on-the-scene investigation during a riot are formidable. Thus insufficient evidence was obtained to ensure conviction on many of the more serious charges. Third, the masses of arrestees in the major riots so overwhelmed processing and pretrial procedures that facilities and personnel were not free to deal adequately with the serious offenders or with evidence of their crimes. While in police stations were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of accused persons to be booked, screened, detained, and eventually brought to court, minor and major offenders were herded through the process. Assembly line booking operations in the Detroit precincts and at the jail, twenty to thirty employees assigned in twelve-hour shifts, proved inadequate. As necessary to identify defendants or to check for past criminal records could not be obtained. Follow-up investigation, essential to secure convictions in serious cases, proved difficult or impossible. With lesser crimes as well the system displayed an inability to produce successful prosecutions. Looting charges comprised eighty-four percent of the felony arrests in Detroit, yet almost half of the felony charges that went to court were dismissed at preliminary hearing for lack of evidence. Serious overcrowding of facilities. After arrest, accused persons in Detroit and Newark suffered the abuses of an overtaxed and harassed system of justice. In Detroit, inability to maintain a centralized system of arrest records meant that families and defense attorneys could not locate arrested persons confined in widely scattered emergency detention facilities. In one day alone, seven hundred ninety persons were booked at the Wayne County Jail, and one thousand sixty-eight sent on to other detention facilities, usually without an opportunity to notify or consult family or council. Regular detention facilities were swamped. Detroit's main city jail, built for twelve hundred persons, was crammed with over seventeen hundred. Pre-sanked lock-ups, built for fifty prisoners, received one hundred fifty or more. The juvenile detention home, built for one hundred twenty, held over six hundred during the riot. Makeshift detention facilities were commandeered. One thousand arrestees were held in an underground police garage for several days, many without adequate food or water. Others were held for over twenty-four hours in city buses. Adults of both sexes were sometimes locked up together. In Newark, a large portion of those arrested were held in an armory without proper food, water, toilet or medical facilities. Prisoners had no way to contact lawyers or relatives. Members of the press, or official observers, were unable to reassure those on the outside. In the absence of information about arrestees, new rumors and fears added to the tensions of the riot. Judicial procedures oriented to mass rather than individualized justice. Legal screening procedures were overrun in the chaos of the major disorders. Rational decisions to prosecute, to delay prosecution on good behavior, to dismiss, to release with or without bail, pending trial, to accept a plea on a lesser charge, or to press for conviction on the original charge, and to impose a just sentence, require access to a comprehensive file of information on the offender contributed by police, prosecution, defense counsel, bail interviewers and probation officers. Orderly screening requires time, personnel and deliberation. These elements were absent in the court processing of those arrested in the major riots. Arrainments and bail settings. In Detroit defendants were herded to arraignment in groups. There was little chance to screen out those cases that could best be handled out of court, or that could not survive trial. Defense counsel were not allowed to represent defendants at this stage in Detroit. Some judges failed to advise the defendants of their legal rights. After one group arraignment, a Detroit judge told the next group of defendants, you heard what I said to them, the same things apply to you. Arrainments in the major riot cities were often delayed several days, thus denying defendants the right to prompt bail. In Detroit many persons arrested for minor ordinance violations were jailed for a number of days before going to court. When the judicial process finally was activated for them, most judges tended to set inordinately high bail in order to frustrate release. Pressure on detention facilities thus remained at intolerable levels for several days. Bail for offenses such as looting and property destruction was set as high as fifty thousand dollars, for assault up to two hundred thousand dollars, bond for a curfew violation was rarely set at less than ten thousand dollars, often as high as fifteen thousand to twenty five thousand dollars. In Newark Bail was uniformly set at five hundred dollars for curfew offenses, two hundred fifty dollars for loitering, and at two thousand five hundred dollars and up for property offenses. No attempt was made in most cases to individualize the bail setting process. Pressured by unattainably high bail, many indigent defendants pleaded guilty or accepted immediate trial when offered. In both Newark and Detroit detention pressures finally forced a more lenient bail policy. In what were essentially duplications of the earlier bail hearings, prisoners were interviewed and released without bail in large numbers. In Newark, an ROR, Release on the Defendants' Own Recognizance Program, initiated in the last days of the riot, interviewed over seven hundred prisoners, at least half of all those arrested, and secured the release of between sixty five and eighty percent. Courts in several of the smaller cities successfully experimented with releasing defenders on their own recognizance from the beginning of the riot. Dayton continued its Release on Recognizance policy during its September disorder. Most of the two hundred three people arrested were released without money bail. In Newhaven, out of five hundred fifty arrested, eighty percent were released on their own recognizance. Council. The riots underscored other deficiencies in local court systems. Most prominent in the major outbreaks was the shortage of experienced defense lawyers to handle the influx of cases in any fashion approximating individual representation. Even where volunteer lawyers labored over time, the system was badly strained. Individual counsel was rarely available. Inexperienced lawyers in Detroit were given briefings by experienced criminal attorneys and were handed procedural handbooks before entering the courtrooms. They had no opportunity to bargain for pleas before arraignment or even to see police files before preliminary hearings. In several cities, Detroit, Newark, and New Brunswick, volunteer attorneys were denied access to prisoners in jail, in one case because they did not know the prisoner's names. While individual lawyers and legal organizations in several cities provided counsel to represent minor offenders, Milwaukee, the Legal Services Program, Newhaven, the Legal Assistance Association, Cincinnati, the American Civil Liberties Union, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Legal Aid Society, in others, Rockford, Illinois, Atlanta, Georgia, and Dayton, Ohio, those defendants normally not eligible for assigned counsel went unrepresented. The need for prompt individual legal counsel is particularly acute in riot situations. This is because of the range of alternative charges, the severity of penalties that may be imposed in the heat of a riot, the inequities that occur when there is mass indiscriminate processing of arrested persons, and the need for essential information when charges are made by the prosecutor and bail is set. The services of counsel at the earliest stage, preferably at the precinct station, are essential. Provision of effective counsel at an early stage will also protect against a rash of post-conviction challenges and reversals. Sentencing. Trial and sentencing proved equally vulnerable to the tyranny of numbers. Sentences meted out during the riots tended to be harsher than in those cases disposed of later. Some judges in the early days of the riots openly stated that they would impose maximum penalties across the board as deterrence. One Cincinnati judge announced that any person brought before him on a riot-connected offense would receive the maximum penalty. Circumstances of the arrest, past record, age, family responsibilities, or other mitigating factors were not considered. The burden of this policy fell on the poorest defendants, those unable to raise bail, who agreed to immediate trials. Those who could raise bail and wait out the riot often received more lenient sentences. Once the riots were over defendants were frequently sentenced to time already spent in detention if they consented to plead guilty. In those cities where the riots were less extensive and the number of arrests allowed for normal trial procedures to remain largely intact, sentences did not markedly vary from the norm. In Dayton, where most of the two hundred three law violators were charged with minor offenses, such as disorderly conduct and destruction of property, the standard penalty was a fine of fifteen dollars to fifty dollars. In Rockford, Illinois, where all arrests were for disorderly conduct or curfew violation, fines were assessed within a twenty dollar to two hundred fifty dollar range according to the individual's ability to pay. A primary function of criminal justice in a riot situation is effectively to apprehend, prosecute and punish the purposeful inciters to riot, and to assure the community at large, rioters and non-rioters alike, that law violators will be prosecuted and sentenced according to an orderly system of justice. Dispassionate objectivity on the part of both the bench and the bar, always required and always difficult, becomes even more necessary when civil disorders occur. The passions of the street must not enter the courtroom to affect any step in the administration of justice, particularly sentencing. During a riot emergency it is highly important that courts adhere to the established criteria for sentencing. This did not always occur in Detroit and Newark in the summer of 1967. In smaller disorders, such as Dayton, Atlanta and New Haven, arrests were fewer, arraignments were prompt, release policies were fair, and sentences were within normal ranges. CHAPTER XIII. THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE UNDER EMERGENCY CHAPTER II. GUIDELINES FOR THE FUTURE In a period of civil disorder it is essential that our judicial system continue firmly to protect the individual constitutional rights upon which our society is based. Our criminal jurisprudence has developed important safeguards based on the arrest process as the mechanism which activates the full judicial machinery. Thus arrest brings into play carefully developed procedures for the protection of individual rights. Some suggest that the judicial system must respond to the riot emergency by short-cutting those procedures. Such suggestions, usually referred to as preventive arrest or preventive detention, involve extending the police power to include detention without formal arrest, broadening summary enforcement procedures, and suspending bail hearings and pretrial procedures for sorting out charges and defendants. We reject such suggestions. Rather we urge each community to undertake the difficult but essential task of reform and emergency planning necessary to give its judicial system the strength to meet emergency needs. We make the following recommendations. The community should prepare a comprehensive plan for emergency operation of the judicial system. A comprehensive plan for the emergency operation of the judicial system during a riot should involve many public and private agencies in the community. It must include a review of applicable statutes and ordinances and their amendment and revision, if necessary, to ensure that there are well-drawn comprehensive laws sufficient to deter and punish the full range of riot behavior. Compilations and interpretations of the laws relied on to control such an emergency must be made available to police, prosecutors, and through the press to the community at large, well in advance. When a disorder arises there must be no doubt what citizens are supposed to do or not do. Citizens are more likely to remain calm and resist the provocations of unfounded rumors if they are already familiar with the laws applicable to riot conditions. Regulatory guidelines should be drawn in advance detailing interaction of police and other law enforcement personnel, such as state police and National Guard, specifying who can make arrests and how they should be handled, the charges to enter for prohibited acts, and how certain minor violations may be handled without formal arrest and detention. Booking, screening, and bail setting will proceed more efficiently when there are established guidelines for processing large numbers of cases. Subsequent policy decisions for each step in the judicial process must be made. Which charges will become eligible for summons and release after arrest, with trial postponed until the emergency is over? Will any defendants be released during a riot and on what conditions? Which charges require immediate court proceeding? Which charges require an immediate follow-through investigation in order to support subsequent prosecution? Bail and sentencing policies applicable during emergencies should be defined by the judiciary with consistency and justice as the goal. Bail interviewers and probation officers should be instructed as to the kind of information required for release or sentencing decisions in a riot situation. Administrative techniques should be established by the court to ensure that eligible indigent defendants will be represented by counsel at the earliest stage. Arrangements for night and weekend court sessions should be made. Public and volunteer defenders can be more effectively utilized if there are prior allocations to each group of specific classes of cases and if there are agreed procedures for assigning counsel to each defendant and for determining how long such counsel will remain on the case. For instance, volunteer lawyers may be provided to represent riot participants who normally would not be eligible to obtain public defenders because of the minor nature of their violations. The entire organized bar of the city and even the state, and particularly Negro or other minority members of the bar, should be involved in the emergency planning. Adequate provision must be made for individual counseling of clients in order that effective representation does not deteriorate as it did in many cities last summer. There must be training courses in advance to ensure that all participating lawyers are prepared for the task. Defense strategy on such basic issues as plea negotiation, bail review, and habeas corpus needs to be planned ahead of time. A control center where volunteer lawyers may get advice and investigative help during a riot is an essential component of planning. Sufficient facilities as near as possible to the court must be found to house in a humane fashion those detained during riots. Civic and service groups have vital roles to play in this aspect of riot planning. Temporary detention centers can generate terrible conditions if proper medical care, communication with the outside, food, and sanitary facilities are not provided. Juveniles require special handling, aimed usually toward an early return to their parents. Community organizations and volunteers willing to temporarily shelter or supervise juveniles and adults from the riot area must be enlisted, coordinated, and assigned according to plan. Press coverage and impartial observers to report to the community on all stages of processing should be provided. Information centers, accessible by a well-publicized phone number, must be set up to locate defendants promptly and to assure continual contact with their families. Emergency planning should also include agreements between different levels of courts and among courts in different jurisdictions to facilitate emergency transfers of judges, prosecutors, and probation officers. Where necessary laws should be passed allowing the appointment of members of the bar as special judges during such an emergency, auxiliary courtrooms need to be readied, a master list of all competent clerical personnel in the area to help process defendants' records quickly as needed. We think it probable that a highly visible plan, in which basic procedures for handling riots are established and publicized beforehand, and in which ghetto leaders and citizens are full participants, will have a reassuring effect during a disorder. People need to know where they stand, what they can and cannot do, and what will happen to them if they are arrested in a riot situation. Prevention is paramount, but experience has shown that refusal to plan is foolhardy and can only compound the human agonies of a civil outbreak. The organized bars of our cities and states have a special responsibility in planning for the administration of justice during a riot. Their responsibility does not stop with providing defense counsel for rioters, they must assist the overloaded prosecutors as well. Their participation cannot be confined to a small segment, the defense bar or legal aid lawyers, it must also include the large law firms, the corporate counselors, and those who are leaders in the local bar. Lawyers must take the lead in showing the community that orderly justice is a priority item in any plan for riot prevention and control. Recommended policies in processing arrested persons. Arrest. Alternatives to arrest. In any riot the first priority is to enforce the law. This may require clearing the streets and preventing persons from entering or leaving the riot area. The authority of local police and other law enforcement officials should be spelled out in carefully drawn laws with a range of alternatives to arrest. Persons in the riot area should be permitted to move on or out, to go back to their homes voluntarily before police resort to arresting them. Discriminating use of such options by the police would tend to reduce the number of innocent bystanders or minor curfew violators picked up and thereby alleviate the congestion of the judicial machinery. There are other situations during a riot when alternatives to arrest and detention may prove useful. One such alternative is a summons or notice to appear like a traffic ticket. It may be handed to a citizen on the spot and requires him to appear later for processing at the police station or in court. As do arise, such as curfew violations, or where the act of arrest itself threatens to set off a new chain of violence, when the police should be given the discretionary power to issue on-the-street notices to minor violators, the primary advantage of the summons is that it avoids the congestion of facilities and frees police personnel to remain on the street. Guidelines for police discretion to use the summons must be drawn up in advance and the police instructed in the proper use of such discretion. The summons will be most useful in emergencies if the police are already accustomed to using it as a routine law enforcement tool. Follow-up in serious arrests. Just as essential as avoiding unnecessary arrests is the formulation of special measures to ensure the effectiveness of arrests for serious violations, on-the-spot photos have been found useful in some jurisdictions. They fix the accused's identity and help to refresh the police officer's recollection after he has made scores of arrests for different offenses within a matter of hours. In the serious case, the arresting officer should fill out a reasonably detailed incident report as soon as feasible. At the station-house serious offenders might be turned over to a special follow-up detail which can conduct early interrogation, check fingerprints and police records, or even revisit the scene for additional necessary evidence. Thus serious cases will be separated at the outset for special processing designed to produce effective prosecution. Processing Facilities Some experts have suggested that all persons arrested during a riot be taken to a central processing centre, preferably near the court, where available resources can most efficiently be used and intelligence activities can be coordinated, lawyers and relatives looking for arrested persons would then at least know where to start. Others point out that a single location would impose a hardship on residents of widely dispersed communities and that neighbourhood processing centres should be used. A two-step process may be preferable, screening for immediate release at the local precinct or neighbourhood centre, with later transportation to a single detention centre for those who are not released or who cannot be taken immediately to court. The proper choice of single or multiple processing centres will be determined by the community size, location of available facilities in relation to the courts, the dimensions of the disturbance and the number of arrested persons. But the facilities themselves must be arranged in advance and equipped for emergency conversion. Independent plans may be necessary, since many factors cannot be predicted in advance. If multiple detention or processing centres are used, a central arrest and disposition record system is essential, so that prisoners can be located by their families and their lawyers. The phone number of the central information post should be well publicised and the telephone should be manned on a twenty-four hour basis. In Detroit there were nine separate detention centres, in Newark there were five. No centralised arrest record system was maintained. Confusion and distress over lost persons were widespread. Screening for Release The most important function of post-arrest screening is to separate promptly different classes of offenders so they can be treated on rationally different bases. Some summoned and released at the station house, some released on their own recognizance for later prosecution, some held until arraignment and further disposition by a judicial officer. It is therefore critically important that prosecutors, defence counsel and bail interviewers be present in sufficient numbers at the initial processing centre. Accused of murder, arson, sniping, aggravated assault, robbery, possession of explosives or incitement to riot must be separated at this early point. Necessary follow-up investigations begun and preparations made for prompt presentment in court. Most minor offenders, swept up in dragnet arrests, should be issued to summons and curfew offenders, or hotheads picked up for failure to disperse at the scene, but now cooled down and cooperative, might be released without further detention, postponing a decision whether later to prosecute. Juveniles should be immediately separated for disposition by juvenile judges or by probation officers authorised under local law to release them to parents or to place them in separate juvenile facilities. Between the innocent person and the dangerous offender lies a mass of arrestees brought in on felony charges related to offences against property, breaking and entering, burglary looting, handling these cases requires broad and sensitive discretion. Some looters may be professional thieves systematically exploiting the riot chaos. Some looters are normally law-abiding citizens. In Detroit, after the riot subsided, many persons returned looted merchandise. These people usually have no significant prior criminal records. Although prosecution may still be justified, in most instances they may be safely released back into the community to pursue their livelihood and prepare their defense. According to predetermined standards agreed upon by police, courts and prosecutors, they should be interviewed promptly for issuance of a summons and release at the station house. Where they have solid roots in the community and no serious criminal record, they should be allowed to return to their homes and jobs. The station house summons after arrest might also be reinforced by a law providing more severe penalties for those who commit new violations while awaiting their court appearances. Several cities have had favorable experience in using station house summonses in non-riot situations and in small-scale demonstrations. This technique, pioneered by the Vera Institute of Justice in New York City, in conjunction with the New York City Police Department, permits the police to release defendants after booking and station house processing, with the summons to appear in court at a later time. The summons is issued on the basis of information about the defendant, obtained from an interview, and verified only in exceptional cases, showing that he has substantial roots in the community and is likely to appear for trial. Station house summonses are now used in all New York City precincts and have measurably improved police efficiency, an average of five man-hours saved in every case, while ninety-four percent of the defendants summoned have appeared voluntarily in court. New Haven, where the station house summons was routine under non-riot conditions, employed the technique during the riot with notable success. At least forty percent of all arrestees were released in this manner, including some charged with felony offenses. Successful employment of this technique requires a core of bail interviewers and procedures for checking quickly into an arrestee's past record. It also means providing transportation to deliver defendants back to their homes, or to shelters outside the riot area. With adequate planning there will be a registry of churches, civic organizations, neighborhood groups, and poverty centers, to supervise persons released or to provide temporary shelter if necessary. In using these procedures at the station house or screening center, wide discretion must be left to police and prosecution to refuse to summons and release riot participants who appear to pose a substantial risk to the community. Persons re-arrested after release, for any but the most trivial violations, should be disqualified from further summons and release without judicial sanction. The desirability of using defense lawyers in the station house screening process is suggested by the New Haven experience. These lawyers can contribute information about the defendants, help to make release arrangements, negotiate on the charges with the prosecutors, and guard against any overcharging which would prevent early release, and ensure that the defendants understand their legal rights and the reason for cooperation in summons interviews. Booking Procedures The ordinary mechanics of booking and record keeping must be simplified at the emergency screening center. Special techniques must be devised to record necessary information about arrestees. The multiple use form devised by the United States Department of Justice for large protest demonstrations may provide a prototype. Single copies of this form are sent to key points in the process through which the arrestees pass. One copy is sent to the Bureau of Prisons where a central record of arrested persons is kept. Another is sent to the Detention Center where the arrestees are taken. The first copy contains all information necessary to present a formal charge against a defendant in a hearing before a United States Commissioner. Defendants name, basic facts of the alleged offense, time and date of the offense, name of the arresting officer. At the processing station where the arrestee is first detained, the arresting officer fills out the form and swears to its facts. He is then free to return immediately to his duty station. A notary public is present at the processing station to notarize the forms as required by law. The arrestee's picture is taken at the time the form is filled out if this has not been done already on the scene. The picture is attached to a copy of the arrest form. Thus the arrestee can later be identified even if he refuses to give his name. A docket number is also assigned to the case, which is used thereafter throughout each phase of the processing. Docket numbers are assigned consecutively. The number of persons arrested can thus be readily ascertained. The Commission recommends that cities adopt this type of form. End of Section 41, Recording by Maria Casper. Section 42 of the Kerner Commission Report. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, Kerner Commission Report. Chapter 13 The Administration of Justice under Emergency Conditions, Part 3. Detention and Bail Setting. Court Personnel. For those arrested persons who are not considered safe risks for station house summons and release, detention facilities must be provided until such time as they can be brought to court for arraignment. By means of extra judges and court sessions, arraignments and bail hearings should be arranged as quickly as is consistent with individualized detention. To meet the extraordinary caseload encountered during riots, judges from courts of record can be asked to volunteer for lower court arraignments and bail hearings. Emergency plans should provide for service by out-of-town judges, judges from other courts, and if necessary, specially appointed judges sitting on a temporary basis. A statewide prosecutor system, another recommendation of the Crime Commission, would also be valuable in providing a reserve force of additional prosecutors with experience in local and state law. In the absence of this flexibility, former prosecutors and private attorneys should be specially deputized and trained in advance for emergency service. Provision should be made for exchange of court personnel among communities in a metropolitan area or in a regional council. Authorities might also provide an emergency core of court clerical personnel to move swiftly into riot-torn cities for immediate service. Detention Facilities. At the detention centers, teams of defense lawyers, social workers, interviewers, and medical personnel should be on hand to gather pertinent information about detainees to present to the judge at bail hearings. Defense Council should be prepared to propose reasonable conditions for release of each prisoner, which will guard against renewal of riot activity. Bail Setting. When the riot defendant comes before the court, he should receive an individual determination of bail. He should be represented by counsel, and the judge should ascertain from counsel, client, and bail interviewer the relevant facts of his background, age, living arrangements, employment, and past record. Uniform bail amounts based on charges and riot conditions alone should be shunned as unfair. With the constitutional imperatives of bail and pre-conviction release well in mind, we are fully aware that some rioters, if released, will commit new acts of violence. This is an aggravated extension of a problem which has engaged law enforcement officials and criminal law authorities for many years. Although the number of dangerous offenders to be processed, even in a riot, may not be sizable, how to determine and detain them before trial poses a problem of great perplexity. The Commission realizes that in riot situations the temptation is strong to detain offenders by setting money bail in amounts beyond their reach. In the past such high money bail has been indiscriminately set, often resulting in the detention of everyone arrested during a riot, without distinction as to the nature of the alleged crime or the likelihood of repeated offense. The purposes of bail in our system of law have always been to prevent confinement before conviction and to ensure the appearance of the accused in court. The purpose has not been to deter future crime. Yet some have difficulty adhering to a doctrine when it results in releasing a dangerous offender back into the riot area. We point out that as to the dangerous offender there already exists a full range of permissible alternatives to outright release as a hedge against his re-entry into the riot. These include release on conditions of third-party custody, forbidding access to certain areas or at certain times, part-time release with a requirement to spend nights in jail, use of surety or peace-bonds on a selective basis. In cases where no precautions will suffice, trial should be held as soon as possible so that a violator can be adjudicated innocent and released or found guilty and lawfully confined pending sentencing. Finally, special procedures should be set up for expedited bail review by higher courts so that defendants' rights will not be lost by default. Right to Council The right to Council is a right to effective Council. An emergency plan should provide that Council be available at the Station House to participate in the charging and screening operations, to provide information for Station House summons and release officers, and to guard against allegations of brutality or fraudulent evidence. All accused persons who are not released during post-arrest processing should be represented at the bail hearing, whether or not local law provides this as a matter of right. During any detention period defense Council must be able to interview prisoners individually at the detention center, privacy must be provided for these lawyer- client consultations. The number of lawyers needed for this kind of individual representation is obviously great, thus furnishing another argument for screening out early as many innocent persons and minor offenders as possible, and releasing as many of the rest as can be relied upon to create no new disturbance and to return for trial. Local bar associations, public defender offices, legal aid agencies, neighborhood legal services staffs, rosters of court-assigned Council, law schools and military establishments are sources of manpower. They can be pre-trained in the procedures of an emergency plan and then called into volunteer service. Assigning one lawyer to a group of defendants should be discouraged. If possible each defendant should have his own lawyer ready to follow his case to conclusion. Case quotas can be established ahead of time, with teams of lawyers prepared to take over in relays. Law students can be used as investigators and case assistants. Legal defense strategy and sources of experienced advice for the volunteers should be planned ahead of time. Any community plan must make adequate provision for fair representation whenever the trials are held, whether during the heat of the riot or at a later more deliberate time. There must be no letdown of legal services when trials and arraignments are postponed until the riot runs its course. The greatest need for counsel may come when the aura of emergency has dissipated. Volunteers then may be less willing to drop their daily obligations to represent riot defendants. If this occurs, assembly line techniques may be resorted to in an effort to complete all pending matters cheaply and quickly. In one city this letdown had unfortunate results. Up to two hundred post-riot arraignments were assigned to one lawyer each day. Courtroom regulars were given such group assignments in preference to the volunteer's more individualized representation. Trial and sentencing. Important policies are involved in deciding whether judicial emphasis during the riot should be placed on immediate trials of minor offenders, prompt trials of serious offenders, or arraignment and bail setting only. In the case of some serious offenders, prompt trials may be the only legal route to detention. A defendant, however, will often prefer later trial and sentencing in the post-riot period, when community tensions are eased, if he is not detained during the delay. Witnesses may also be more difficult to locate and bring to court while riot controls are in effect. Arresting officers cannot be easily spared from their duty stations. Unprejudiced juries will be difficult to impanel. Prosecutors may be more receptive at a later date to requests for dismissal, reduction of charges, or negotiated pleas. The most rational allocation of judicial manpower, as well as basic fairness, suggests that decisions at such vital stages as prosecution, plea negotiation, preliminary examination, and trials be postponed until the riot is over, in all but the most minor cases. At the same time it is necessary to avoid congesting the jails and detention centers with masses of arrestees who might safely be released. Both can be accomplished only with a workable post-arrest screening process and pre-trial release of all except dangerous defendants. Trials of minor offenses involving detained defendants should be scheduled quickly so that pre-conviction confinement will not stretch jail time beyond authorized penalties. Arrainments and bail hearings for those not summoned and released at the station house should be held as soon as possible. Trials and preliminary examinations of released offenders can be postponed until the emergency ends, unless the defendants pose a present danger to the community. Sentencing is often best deferred until the heat of the riot has subsided, unless it involves only a routine fine which the defendant can afford. Riot defendants should be considered individually. They are less likely to be hardened experienced criminals. A pre-sentence report should be prepared in all cases where a jail sentence or probation may result. The task of imposing penalties for many riot defendants which will deter and rehabilitate is a formidable one. A general policy should be adopted to give credit on jail sentences for pre-conviction detention time in riot cases. After the riot is over, a residue of difficult legal tasks will remain. Proceedings to litigate and compensate for injustices, false arrests, physical abuses, property damage committed under the stress of the riot, actions to expunge arrest records acquired without probable cause, restitution policies to encourage looters to surrender goods, fair, even compassionate attention to these problems will help reduce the legacy of post-riot bitterness in the community. Summary of Recommendations The Commission recommends that communities undertake as an urgent priority the reform of their lower criminal court systems to ensure fair and individual justice for all. The 1967 report of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice provides the blueprint for such reform. That communities formulate a plan for the administration of justice in riot emergencies. Under the leadership of the organized bar, all segments of the community, including minority groups, should be involved in drawing up such a plan. The plan should provide clear guidelines for police on when to arrest or use alternatives to arrest. Adequate provision must be made for extra judges, prosecutors, defense counsel, court and police personnel to provide prompt processing and for well-equipped detention facilities. Details of the plan should be publicized so the community will know what to expect if an emergency occurs. That existing laws be reviewed to ensure their adequacy for riot control and the charging of riot offenders and for authority to use temporary outside help in the judicial system. That multiple use processing forms, such as those used by the Department of Justice for mass arrests, be obtained. Centralized systems for recording arrests and locations of prisoners on a current basis should be devised, as well as fast systems to check fingerprint identification and past records. On the spot, photographing of riot defendants may also be helpful. That communities adopt station house summons and release procedures, such as are used by the New York City Police Department in order that they be operational before an emergency arises. All defendants who appear likely to return for trial and not to engage in renewed riot activity should be summonsed and released. That recognized community leaders be admitted to all processing and detention centers to avoid allegations of abuse or fraud and to reassure the community about the treatment of arrested persons. That the bar in each community undertake mobilization of all available lawyers for assignment so as to ensure early individual legal representation to riot defendants through disposition and to provide assistance to prosecutors where needed. Legal defense strategies should be planned and volunteers trained in advance. Investigative help and experienced advice should be provided. That communities and courts plan for a range of alternative conditions to release, such as supervision by civic organizations or third-party custodians outside the riot area, rather than rely on high money bail to keep defendants off the streets. The courts should set bail on an individual basis and provide for defense council at bail hearings. Emergency procedures for fast bail review are needed. That no mass indictments or arraignments be held and reasonable bail and sentences be imposed, both during and after the riot. Sentences should be individually considered and pre-sentence reports required. The emergency plan should provide for transfer of probation officers from other courts and jurisdictions to assist in the processing of arrestees. End of Section 42, Recording by Maria Casper. Section 43 of the Kerner Commission Report. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, Kerner Commission Report. Chapter 14, Damages, Repair and Compensation. The president in his charge to the commission requested advice on the proper public role in helping cities repair the damage suffered in the recent disorder. Damage took many forms. In Detroit alone, 43 persons were killed, many of whom were heads of families. Over 600 persons were injured. Fire destroyed or badly damaged at least 100 single and two family dwellings. Stores of all kinds were looted and burned. Hundreds of businesses lost revenue by complying with a curfew and thousands of citizens lost wages because businesses were closed. As the riot came to an end, streets and sidewalks were strewn with rubble, and citizens were imperiled by the shells of burnt-out buildings verging on collapse. In most other disorders, the extent of damage was far less, but in almost all, a few persons suffered severe physical or financial injury. Some losses, such as pain and suffering, cannot be repaired or compensated. Others are normally handled through private insurance. The commission believes that legislation should be enacted to provide fuller assistance to communities and to help expand the private insurance mechanism for compensating individual losses. Amending the Federal Disaster Act. The federal government has traditionally played a central role in responding to community needs that follow such disasters as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and earthquakes. Until 1950, this federal response was accomplished through special legislation after each disaster. In 1950, Congress enacted the Federal Disaster Act to enable the President, in cases of major disaster, to invoke a broad range of emergency relief and repair measures without awaiting special legislation. This act with subsequent amendments has, however, been interpreted administratively to apply only to natural disasters and not to civil disorders. The commission recommends that Congress amend the Federal Disaster Act to permit assistance during and following major civil disorders. The hardships to a community can be as serious as those following natural catastrophes and local government resources to meet these hardships are likely to be inadequate regardless of their cause. Applying the Disaster Act to Disorders would permit the federal government to provide during the critical period while the disorder is still going on or just ending. Food, medical, and hospital supplies, emergency equipment such as beds, intents, and temporary shelters, and housing would also permit the loan of equipment and manpower for clearing debris and repairing or temporarily replacing damaged public facilities. In 1967, these necessities were largely provided through the prompt and laudable actions of local and state government agencies and a private organizations, including churches and neighborhood groups. Provision for additional help is desirable, though some food and medical assistance can now be provided by the federal government outside the Disaster Act. Adequate and comprehensive federal assistance to supplement private and local response can be assured only by amending the statute. Perhaps even more important than the provisions for immediate response are those that would aid long-term repair. In cases of natural disaster, the Disaster Act in its present form permits adjustments on many federal loans where financial hardship as results up to the borrower gives priority status to grant or loan applications for public facilities, public housing, and public works, provides grants and matching grants for the repair or reconstruction of key public facilities, permits low-interest loans by the Small Business Administration to businesses that have suffered serious economic damage, and extends to individuals and businesses tax deductions beyond those normally available for catastrophic losses. The Act should be amended to make all these kinds of relief available following major civil disorders, compensating for individual losses insurance. In the aftermath of the summer's riots in 1967, insurance protection was an important source of security and reimbursement for innocent victims who suffered property damage. We believe that a well-functioning private insurance mechanism is the proper method for paying individuals for losses suffered in disorders. Property insurance should be available at reasonable cost to residents and businessmen for property and reasonable condition regardless of location. If insurance is so available, it will function more equitably and efficiently to pay riot losses than a program of direct government payments to individuals. The private insurance industry can market policies widely and collect premiums, commiserate with the risks, can develop and recommend loss prevention techniques, and assess and pay large numbers of claims on an individual basis. Standard property insurance contracts presently include damage from civil disorders in their coverage, just as they provide compensation for losses due to natural disasters such as fire and windstorm. They should continue to do so. Early in our deliberations, however, we received many reports that property insurance was unavailable or was available only at prohibitive cost in inner cities. This did not appear to be simply a riot problem but a long-term pervasive problem of center city areas. Since a separate and expert group could best examine the problems of the high cost and unavailability of property insurance in center city areas, the president on the commission's behalf appointed a national advisory panel on insurance and riot affected areas on August 10, 1967. The panel's work is now complete. The panel found there is a serious lack of property insurance in the core areas of our nation's cities. For a number of years, many urban residents and businessmen have been unable to purchase the insurance protection they need. Now riots and the threat of riots are aggravating the problem to an intolerable degree. Immediate steps must be taken to make insurance available to responsible persons in all areas of our cities. The panel also found that the insurance problems created by riots cannot be allowed to jeopardize the availability of property insurance in center city areas, but the problem of providing adequate and reasonable insurance in the urban core cannot be solved merely by supplying financial assistance to protect insurance companies against catastrophic riot losses. It is clear that adequate insurance was unavailable in the urban core even before the riots. We're dealing with an inner city insurance problem that is broad in scope and complicated in origin, and riots are only one aspect of it. In order to assure the availability of property insurance in all areas, the panel recommended a five-part program of mutually supporting actions to be undertaken immediately by all who have a responsibility for solving the problem. We called upon the insurance industry to take the lead in establishing voluntary plans in all states to assure all property owners fair access to property insurance. We looked to the states to cooperate with the industry in establishing these plans and to supplement the plans to whatever extent may be necessary by organizing insurance pools and taking other steps to facilitate the insuring of urban core properties. We urged that the federal government enact legislation creating a national insurance development corporation, NIDC, to assist the insurance industry in the states in achieving the important goal of providing adequate insurance for inner cities. Through the NIDC, the state and federal governments can provide backup for the remote contingency of very large riot losses. We recommend that the federal government enact tax deferral measures to increase the capacity of the insurance industry to absorb the financial costs of the program. We suggest a series of other necessary steps to meet the special needs of the inner city insurance market. For example, programs to train agents and brokers from the core areas to assure the absence of discrimination in insurance company employment on racial or other grounds and to seek out better methods of preventing losses in a marketing insurance in low income areas. The fundamental thrust of our program is cooperative action, thus only those companies that participate in plans and pools at the local level and only those states that take action to implement the program will be eligible to receive the benefits provided by the National Insurance Development Corporation and by the federal tax deferral measures. We firmly believe that all concern must work together to meet the urban insurance crisis. Everyone must contribute. No one should escape responsibility. The commission endorses the proposal of the panel. It recommends they be put into effect by appropriate state and federal measures. End of Section 43 Section 44 of the Kerner Commission Report This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Chapter 15 The News Media and the Disorders Part 1 The President's charge to the commission asked specifically what effect do the mass media have on the riots. The question is far-reaching and a sure answer is beyond the range of presently available scientific techniques. Our conclusions and recommendations are based upon subjective as well as objective factors, interviews as well as statistics, isolated examples as well as general trends. Freedom of the press is not the issue. A free press is indispensable to the preservation of the other freedoms this nation cherishes. The recommendations in this chapter have thus been developed under the strong conviction that only a press unhindered by government can contribute to freedom. To answer the President's question, the commission directed its field survey teams to question government officials, law enforcement agents, media personnel, and ordinary citizens about their attitudes and reactions to reporting of the riots. Arranged for interviews of media representatives about their coverage of the riots. Conducted special interviews with ghetto residents about their response to coverage. Arranged for a quantitative analysis of the content of television programs and newspaper reporting in fifteen riot cities during the period of the disorder and the days immediately before and after. From November 10th through 12th 1967, sponsored and participated in a conference of representatives from all levels of newspaper, news magazine, and broadcasting industries at Pukipsi, New York. Finally, of course, the commissioners read newspapers, listened to the radio, watched television, and thus formed their own impressions of media coverage. All of these data, impressions, and attitudes provide the foundation for our conclusions. The commission also determined very early that the answer to the President's question did not lie solely in the performance of the press and broadcasters in reporting the riots proper. Our analysis had to consider also the overall treatment by the media of the Negro ghettos, community relations, racial attitudes, urban and rural poverty, day by day and month by month, year in and year out. On this basis we have reached three conclusions. First, that despite instances of sensationalism, inaccuracies, and distortions, newspapers, radio, and television on the whole made a real effort to give a balanced factual account of the 1967 disorders. Second, that despite this effort, the portrayal of the violence that occurred last summer failed to reflect accurately its scale and character. The overall effect was, we believe, an exaggeration of both mood and event. Third, and ultimately most important, we believe that the media have thus far failed to report adequately on the causes and consequences of civil disorders and the underlying problems of race relations. With these comments as a perspective, we discuss first the coverage of last summer's disturbances. We will then summarize our concerns with overall coverage of race relations. Coverage of the 1967 Disturbances We have found a significant imbalance between what actually happened in our cities and what the newspaper, radio, and television coverage of the riots told us happened. The Commission, in studying last summer's disturbances, visited many of the cities and interviewed participants and observers. We found that the disorders, as serious as they were, were less destructive, less widespread, and less of a black-white confrontation than most people believed. Lacking other sources of information, we formed our initial impressions and beliefs from what we saw on television, heard on the radio, and read in newspapers and magazines. We are deeply concerned that millions of other Americans who must rely on the mass media, likewise formed incorrect impressions and judgments about what went on in many American cities last summer. As we started to probe the reasons for this imbalance between reality and impression, we first believed that the media had sensationalized the disturbances, consistently overplaying violence and giving disproportionate amounts of time to emotional events and militant leaders. To test this theory, we commissioned a systematic quantitative analysis, covering the content of newspaper and television reporting in fifteen cities where disorders occurred. The results of this analysis did not support our early belief. Of 955 television sequences of riot and racial news examined, 837 could be classified for predominant atmosphere, as either emotional, calm, or normal. Of these, 494 were classified as calm, 262 as emotional, and 81 as normal. Only a small proportion of all scenes analyzed showed actual mob action, people looting, sniping, setting fires, or being injured or killed. Moderate Negro leaders were shown more frequently than militant leaders on television news broadcasts. Of 3779 newspaper articles analyzed, more focused on legislation which should be sought and planning which should be done to control ongoing riots and prevent future riots than on any other topic. The findings of this analysis are explained in detail later in this chapter. They make it clear that the imbalance between actual events and the portrayal of those events in the press and on the air cannot be attributed solely to sensationalism in reporting and presentation. We have, however, identified several factors which, it seems to us, did work to create incorrect and exaggerated impressions about the scope and intensity of the disorders. First, despite the overall statistical picture, there were instances of gross flaws in presenting the news of the 1967 riots. Some newspapers printed scare headlines, unsupported by the mild stories that followed. All media reported rumors that had no basis, in fact. Some newsmen staged riot events for the cameras—examples are included in the next section. Second, the press obtained much factual information about the scale of the disorders—property damage, personal injury, and deaths—from local officials who often were inexperienced in dealing with civil disorders and were not always able to sort out fact from rumor in the confusion. At the height of the Detroit riot some news reports of property damage put the figure in excess of five hundred million dollars. Subsequent investigation shows it to be forty million to forty-five million. The initial estimates were not the independent judgment of reporters or editors. They came from beleaguered government officials. But the news media gave currency to these errors. Reporters uncritically accepted and editors uncritically published the inflated figures, leaving an indelible impression of damage up to more than ten times greater than actually occurred. Third, the coverage of the disorders, particularly on television, tended to define the events as black-white confrontations. In fact, almost all of the deaths, injuries, and property damage occurred in all Negro neighborhoods, and thus the riots were not race riots as the term is generally understood. Closely linked to these problems is the phenomenon of cumulative effect. As the summer of 1967 progressed, we think Americans often began to associate more or less neutral sights and sounds, like a squad car with flashing red lights, a burning building, a suspect in police custody, with racial disorders, so that the appearance of any particular item hardly in itself inflammatory set off a whole sequence of association with riot events. Moreover, the summer's news was not seen and heard in isolation. Events of these past few years, the Watts riot, other disorders, and the growing momentum of the civil rights movement conditioned the responses of readers and viewers and heightened their reactions. What the public saw in red last summer thus produced emotional reactions and left vivid impressions not wholly attributable to the material itself. Fear and apprehension of racial unrest and violence are deeply rooted in American society. They color and intensify reactions to news of racial trouble and threats of racial conflict. Those who report and disseminate news must be conscious of the background of anxieties and apprehension against which their stories are projected. This does not mean that the media should manage the news or tell less than the truth. Indeed, we believe it would be imprudent and even dangerous to downplay coverage in the hope that censored reporting of inflammatory incidents will somehow diminish violence. Once a disturbance occurs the word will spread independently of newspapers and television. To attempt to ignore these events or to portray them as something other than what they are can only diminish confidence in the media and increase the effectiveness of those who monger rumors and the fears of those who listen. But to be complete the coverage must be representative. We suggest that the main failure of the media last summer was that the totality of its coverage was not as representative as it should have been to be accurate. We believe that to live up to their own professed standards the media simply must exercise a higher degree of care and a greater level of sophistication than they have yet shown in this area—higher, perhaps, than the level ordinarily acceptable with other stories. This is not just another story. It should not be treated like one. Admittedly, some of what disturbs us about the riot coverage last summer stems from circumstances beyond media control. But many of the inaccuracies of fact, tone, and mood were due to the failure of reporters and editors to ask tough enough questions about official reports and to apply the most rigorous standards possible in evaluating and presenting the news. Reporters and editors must be sure that descriptions and pictures of violence and emotional or inflammatory sequences or articles, even though true in isolation, are really representative and do not convey an impression at odds with the overall reality of events. The media too often did not achieve this level of sophisticated, skeptical, careful news judgment during last summer's riots. The media and race relations Our second and fundamental criticism is that the news media have failed to analyze and report adequately on racial problems in the United States, and as a related matter, to meet the Negro's legitimate expectations in journalism. By and large news organizations have failed to communicate to both their black and white audiences a sense of the problems America faces and the sources of potential solutions. The media report and write from the standpoint of a white man's world, the ills of the ghetto, the difficulties of life there, the Negro's burning sense of grievance are seldom conveyed. Slights and indignities are part of the Negro's daily life, and many of them come from what he now calls the white press, a press that repeatedly, if unconsciously, reflects the biases, the paternalism, the indifference of white America. This may be understandable, but it is not excusable, in an institution that has the mission to inform and educate the whole of our society. Our criticisms, important as they are, do not lead us to conclude that the media are a cause of riots any more than they are the cause of other phenomena which they report. It is true that newspaper and television reporting helped shape people's attitudes toward riots. In some cities people who watched television reports and read newspaper accounts of riots in other cities later rioted themselves, but the causal chain weakens when we recall that in other cities people in very much the same circumstances watched the same programs and read the same newspaper stories but did not riot themselves. The news media are not the sole source of information, and certainly are not the only influence on public attitudes. People obtained their information and formed their opinions about the 1967 disorders from the multiplicity of sources that conditioned the public's thinking on all events. Personal experience, conversations with others, the local and long-distance telephone, are all important as sources of information and ideas and contribute to the totality of attitudes about riots. No doubt in some cases the knowledge or the sight on a television screen of what had gone on elsewhere lowered inhibitions, kindled outrage, or awakened desires for excitement or loot or simply past the word. Many ghetto residents we interviewed thought so themselves. By the same token the news reports of riots must have conditioned the response of officials and police to disturbances in their own cities. The reaction of the authorities in Detroit was almost certainly affected in some part by what they saw or read of Newark a week earlier. The Commission believes that none of these private or official reactions was decisive in determining the course of the disorders. Even if they had been more significant than we think, however, we cannot envision a system of governmental restraints that could successfully eliminate these effects, and an effort to formulate and impose such restraints would be inconsistent with fundamental traditions in our society. These failings of the media must be corrected, and the improvement must come from within the media. A society that values and relies on a free press as intensely as ours is entitled to demand in return responsibility from the press and conscientious attention by the press to its own deficiencies. The Commission has seen evidence that many of those who supervise, edit, and report for the news media are becoming increasingly aware of and concerned about their performance in this field. With that concern and with more experience will come more sophisticated and responsible coverage, but much more must be done and it must be done soon. The Commission has a number of recommendations designed to stimulate and accelerate efforts towards self-improvement, and we propose a privately organized, privately funded Institute of Urban Communications as a means for drawing these recommendations together and promoting their implementation. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Chapter 15 The News Media and the Disorders, Part 2 News Coverage of the Civil Disorders, Summer 1967 The Method of Analysis As noted, the Commission has been surveying both the reporting of the disorders last summer and the broader field of race relations coverage. With respect to the reporting of the disorders, we were trying to get a sense of content, accuracy, tone, and bias. We sought to find out how people reacted to it and how reporters conducted themselves while carrying out their assignments. The Commission used a number of techniques to probe these matters and to provide cross-checks on data and impressions. To obtain an objective source of data, the Commission arranged for a systematic, quantitative analysis of the content of newspapers, local television, and network coverage in fifteen cities for a period from three days before to three days after the disorder in each city. Note, the cities were Detroit, Michigan, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Cincinnati, and Dayton, Ohio, Tampa, Florida, Newark, Plainfield, Elizabeth, Jersey City, East Orange, Patterson, New Brunswick, and Englewood, New Jersey, New Haven, Connecticut, and Rochester, New York. End note, the cities were chosen to provide a cross-section in terms of the location and scale of the disorders and the dates of their occurrence. Within each city, for the period specified, the study was comprehensive. Every daily newspaper, and all network and local television news films were analyzed, and scripts and logs were examined. In all, nine hundred fifty-five network and local television sequences, and three thousand seven hundred seventy-nine newspaper articles dealing with riot and race relations news were analyzed. Each separate analysis was coded, and the cards were cross-tabulated by computer to provide results and comparisons for use by the Commission. The material was measured to determine the amount of space devoted to news of riot activity, the nature of the display given compared with other news coverage, and the types of stories, articles, and television programming presented. We sought specific statistical information on such matters as the amount of space or time devoted to different kinds of riot stories, the types or identities of persons most often depicted or interviewed, the frequency with which race relations problems were mentioned in riot stories or were identified as the cause of riot activity. The survey was designed to be objective and statistical. Within its terms of reference, the Commission was looking for broad characterizations of media tone and content. The Commission is aware of the inherent limitations of content analysis techniques. They cannot measure the emotional impact of a particular story or television sequence. By themselves they provide no basis for conclusions as to the accuracy of what was reported. Particular examples of good or bad journalistic conduct, which may be important in themselves, are submerged into a statistical average. The Commission therefore sought through staff interviews and personal contact with members of the press and the public to obtain direct evidence of the effects of riot coverage and the performance of the media during last summer's disturbances. CONCLUSIONS ABOUT CONTENT TELEVISION ONE. Content analysis of television film footage shows that the tone of the coverage studied was more calm and factual than emotional and rumor-laden. Researchers viewed every one of the 955 television sequences and found that twice as many calm sequences as emotional ones were shown, the amount and location of coverage were relatively limited considering the magnitude of the events. The analysis reveals a dominant positive emphasis on control of the riot and on activities in the aftermath of the riot, 53.8% of all scenes broadcast, rather than on scenes of actual mob action or people looting, sniping, setting fires or being injured or killed, 4.8% of scenes shown. According to participants in our Pukipsi conference, coverage frequently was of the post-riot or interview variety because newsmen arrived at the scene after the actual violence had subsided. Overall, both network and local television coverage was cautious and restrained. TWO. Television newscasts during the periods of actual disorder in 1967 tended to emphasize law enforcement activities, thereby overshadowing the underlying grievances and tensions. This conclusion is based on the relatively high frequency with which television showed or described law enforcement agents, police, national guardsmen, and army troops performing control functions. Television coverage tended to give the impression that the riots were confrontations between Negroes and Whites, rather than responses by Negroes to underlying slum problems. The control agents were predominantly White. The ratio of White male adults to Negro male adults shown on television is high, one to two, considering that the riots took place in predominantly Negro neighborhoods, and some interviews with Whites involved landlords or proprietors who lost property or suffered business losses because of the disturbances and thus held strongly antagonistic attitudes. The content analysis shows that by far the most frequent actor appearances on television were Negro male adults, White male adults, law enforcement agents, and public officials. We cannot tell from a content analysis whether there was any preconceived editorial policy of portraying the riots as racial confrontations requiring the intervention of enforcement agents. But the content analysis does present a visual three-way alignment of Negroes, White bystanders, and public officials or enforcement agents. This alignment tended to create an impression that the riots were predominantly racial confrontations involving clashes between Black and White citizens. Three. About one-third of all riot-related sequences for network and local television appeared on the first day following the outbreak of rioting, regardless of the course of development of the riot itself. After the first day there was, except in Detroit, a very sharp decline in the amount of television time devoted to the disturbance. In Detroit, where the riot started slowly and did not flare out of control until the evening of July 24th, forty-eight hours after it started, the number of riot-related sequences shown increased until July 26th, and then showed the same sharp drop-off as noted after the first day of rioting in other cities. These findings tend to contravert the impression that the riot intensifies television coverage, thus in turn intensifying the riot. The content analysis indicates that whether or not the riot was getting worse, television coverage of the riot decreased sharply after the first day. Four. The Commission made a special effort to analyze television coverage of Negro leaders. To do this Negro leaders were divided into three categories. A. Celebrities or public figures who did not claim any organizational following, for example social scientist Dr. Kenneth B. Clark, comedian Dick Gregory. B. Moderate Negro leaders who claim a political or organizational following. And C. Militant Negro leaders who claim a political or organizational following. During the riot period's surveyed, Negro leaders appeared infrequently on network news broadcasts, and were about equally divided among celebrity or public figures, moderate leaders, and militant leaders. On local television Negro leaders appeared more often. Of the three categories, moderate Negro leaders were shown on local stations more than twice as often as Negro leaders identified primarily as celebrities or public figures, and three times more frequently than militant leaders. Newspapers. Like television coverage, newspaper coverage of civil disturbances in the summer of 1967 was more calm, factual, and restrained than outwardly emotional or inflammatory. During the period of the riot there were many stories dealing exclusively with non-riot racial news. Considering the magnitude of the events, the amount of coverage was limited. Most stories were played down or put on inside pages. Researchers found that almost all the articles analyzed, 3045 of 3770, tended to focus on one of 16 identifiable subjects. Of this group, 502 articles, 16.5%, focused primarily on legislation which should be sought and planning which could be done to control ongoing riots and prevent future riots. The second largest category consisted of 471 articles, 15.5%, focusing on containment or control of riot action. Newspaper coverage of the disorders reflects efforts at caution and restraint. Two, newspapers tended to characterize and portray last summer's riots in national terms rather than as local phenomena and problems, especially when rioting was taking place in the newspaper's own city. During the actual disorders, the newspapers in each city studied tended to print many stories dealing with disorders or racial troubles in other cities. About 40% of the riot or racial stories in each local newspaper during the period of rioting in that city came from the wire services. Furthermore, most newspaper editors appeared to have given more headline attention to riots occurring elsewhere than to those at home during the time of trouble in their own cities. Accuracy of the coverage We have tested the accuracy of coverage by means of interviews with local media representatives, city and police officials, and residents of the ghettos. To provide a broad base, we used three separate sources for interview data, the commission's field survey teams, special field teams, and the findings of a special research study. As is to be expected, almost everyone had his own version of the truth. But it is noteworthy that some editors and reporters themselves, in retrospect, have expressed concern about the accuracy of their own coverage. For example, one newspaper editor said at the commission's Poughkeepsie conference, We used things in our leads and headlines during the riot I wish we could have back now because they were wrong and they were bad mistakes. We used the words Sniper Kings and Nests of Snipers. We found out when we were able to get our own people into those areas and get them out from under the cars that these Sniper Kings and these Nests of Snipers were the constituted authorities shooting at each other, most of them. There was just one confirmed sniper in the entire eight-day riot and he was drunk and he had a pistol and he was firing from a window. Television industry representatives at the conference stressed their concern about live coverage of disorders and said they try whenever possible to view or edit taped or filmed sequences before broadcasting them. Conference participants admitted that live television coverage via helicopter of the 1965 Watts riot had been inflammatory and network news executives expressed doubts that television would ever again present live coverage of a civil disorder. Most errors involved mistakes of fact, exaggeration of events, overplaying of particular stories, or prominently displayed speculation about unfounded rumors of potential trouble. This is not only a local problem, because of the wire services and networks it is a national one. An experienced riot reporter told the Commission that initial wire service reports of a disturbance tend to be inflated. The reason he said is that they are written by local bureau men who in most cases have not seen a civil disorder before. When out-of-town reporters with knowledge in the field or the wire services own riot specialists arrive on the scene, the situation is put into a more accurate context. Some examples of exaggeration and mistakes about facts are catalogued here. These examples are by no means exhaustive, they represent only a few of the incidents discovered by the Commission, and no doubt are but a small part of the total number of such inaccuracies. But the Commission believes that they are representative of the kinds of errors likely to occur when, in addition to the confusion inherent in civil disorder situations, reporters are rushed and harried or editors are superficial and careless. We present these as examples of mistakes that we hope will be avoided in the future. In particular, we believe newsmen should be wary of how they play rumors of impending trouble. Whether a rumor is reliable and significant enough to deserve coverage is an editorial decision, but the failure of many headlined rumors to be borne out last summer suggests that these editorial decisions often are not as carefully made as the sensitivity of the subject requires. In Detroit a radio station broadcast a rumor, based on a telephone tip, that Negroes planned to invade suburban a one night later, if plans existed they never materialized. In Cincinnati several outlets ran a story about white youths arrested for possessing a bazooka. Only a few reports mentioned that the weapon was inoperable. In Tampa a newspaper repeatedly indulged in speculation about impending trouble. When the state attorney ruled the fatal shooting of a Negro youth justifiable homicide, the paper's news columns reported, there were fears today that the ruling would stir new race problems for Tampa tonight. The day before the paper quoted one top lawman as telling reporters, he now fears that the Negro residents in the Central Avenue project and in the West Tampa trouble spots feel they are in competition and are trying to see which can cause the most unrest, which area can become the center of attraction. A West Coast newspaper put out an edition headlined, rioting erupts in Washington D.C., Negro's hurl bobbles rocks at police near White House. The story did not support the headline, it reported what was actually the fact that a number of teenage Negroes broke store windows and threw bottles and stones at police and firemen near downtown Washington, a mile or more from the White House. On the other hand the same paper did not report unfounded local rumors of sniping when other news media did. Television presents a different problem with respect to accuracy. In contrast to what some of its critics have charged, television sometimes may have leaned over too far backward in seeking balance and restraint. By stressing interviews, many with Whites in predominantly Negro neighborhoods, and by emphasizing control scenes rather than riotous action, television news broadcasts may have given a distorted picture of what the disorders were all about. The media, especially television, also have failed to present and analyze to a sufficient extent the basic reasons for the disorders. There have, after the disorders, been some brilliant exceptions. Note, as examples, less than a month after the Detroit riot, the Detroit Free Press published the results of a landmark survey of local Negro attitudes and grievances. Newsweek magazine's November 20, 1967 special issue on the Negro American What Must Be Done made a significant contribution to public understanding. End note. As the content analysis findings suggest, however, coverage during the riot period itself gives far more emphasis to control of rioters and black-white confrontation than to the underlying causes of the disturbances, ghetto reactions to the media coverage. The commission was particularly interested in public reaction to media coverage, specifically what people in the ghetto look at and read and how it affects them. The commission has drawn upon reports from special teams of researchers who visited various cities where the outbreaks occurred last summer. Members of these teams interviewed ghetto dwellers and middle-class Negroes on their responses to news media. In addition, we have used information from a statistical study of the mass media in the Negro ghetto in Pittsburgh. These interviews and surveys, though by no means a complete study of the subject, lead to four broad conclusions about ghetto and, to a lesser degree, middle-class Negro reactions to the media. Most Negroes distrust what they refer to as the white press. As one interviewer reported, the average black person couldn't give less of a damn about what the media say. The intelligent black person is resentful at what he considers to be a totally false portrayal of what goes on in the ghetto. Most black people see the newspapers as mouthpieces of the power structure. These comments are echoed in most interview reports the commission has read. Distrust and dislike of the media among ghetto Negroes encompass all the media, though in general the newspapers are mistrusted more than the television. This is not because television is thought to be more sensitive or more responsive to Negro needs and aspirations, but because ghetto residents believe that television at least lets them see the actual event for themselves. Even so, many Negroes, particularly teenagers, told researchers that they noted a pronounced discrepancy between what they saw in the riots and what television broadcast. Persons interviewed offered three chief reasons for their attitude. First, they believe, as suggested in the quotation above, that the media are instruments of the white power structure. They think that these white interests guide the entire white community, from the journalists, friends and neighbors, to city officials, police officers, and department store owners. Publishers and editors, if not white reporters, they feel, support and defend these interests with enthusiasm and dedication. Second, many people in the ghettos apparently believe that newsmen rely on the police for most of their information about what is happening during a disorder and tend to report much more of what the officials are doing and saying than what Negro citizens or leaders in the city are doing and saying. Editors and reporters at the Poughkeepsie Conference acknowledged that the police and city officials are their main and sometimes their only source of information. It was also noted that most reporters who cover civil disturbances tend to arrive with the police and stay close to them, often for safety and often because they learn where the action is at the same time as the authorities, and thus buttress the ghetto impression that the police and press work together and toward the same ends, an impression that may come as a surprise to many within the ranks of police and press. Third, Negro residents in several cities surveyed cited as specific examples of media unfairness, what they considered the failure of the media, to report the many examples of Negro's helping law enforcement officers and assisting in the treatment of the wounded during disorders, to report adequately about false arrests, to report instances of excessive force by the National Guard, to explore and interpret the background conditions leading to the disturbances, to expose, except in Detroit, what they regarded as instances of police brutality, and to report on white vigilante groups which allegedly came into some disorder areas and molested innocent Negro residents. Some of these problems are insoluble, but more first-hand reporting in the diffuse and fragmented riot area should temper easy reliance on police information and announcements. There is a special need for news media to cover positive news stories in the ghetto before and after riots with concern and enthusiasm. A multitude of news and information sources other than the established news media are relied upon in the ghetto. One of our studies found that seventy-nine percent of a total of five hundred sixty-seven ghetto residents interviewed in seven cities, Detroit, Newark, Atlanta, Tampa, New Haven, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee, first heard about the outbreak in their own city by word of mouth. Telephone and word of mouth exchanges on the streets, in churches, stores, pool halls, and bars provide more information and rumors about events of direct concern to ghetto residents than the more conventional news media. Among the established media, television and radio are far more popular in the ghetto than newspapers. Radios there apparently are ordinarily listened to less for news than for music and other programs. One survey showed that an overwhelmingly large number of Negro children and teenagers, like their white counterparts, listened to the radio for music alone, interspersed by disc jockey chatter. In other age groups the response of most people about what they listened to on the radio was anything, leading to the conclusion that radio in the ghetto is basically a background accompaniment. But the fact that radio is such a constant background accompaniment can make it an important influence on people's attitudes and perhaps on their actions once trouble develops. This is true for several reasons. The news presented on local rock stations seldom constitutes much more than terse headline items, which may startle or frighten but seldom inform. Radio disc jockeys and those who preside over the popular talk shows keep a steady pattern of information going over the air. When a city is beset by civil strife this pattern can both inform transistor radio carrying young people where the action is and terrify their elders and much of the white community. Burn Baby Burn, the slogan of the Watts riot, was inadvertently originated by a radio disc jockey. Thus radio can be an instrument of trouble and tension in a community threatened or inundated with civil disorder. It can also do much to minimize fear by putting fast-paced events into a proper perspective. We have found commendable instances, for example, in Detroit, Milwaukee and New Brunswick, of radio stations and personalities using their airtime and influence to try to calm potential rioters. In the next section we recommend procedures for meetings and consultations for advance planning among those who will cover civil disorders. It is important that radio personnel, and especially disc jockeys and talk show hosts, should be included in such pre-planning. Television is the formal news source most relied upon in the ghetto. According to one report, more than seventy-five percent of the sample turned to television for national and international news, and a larger percentage of the sample, eighty-six percent, regularly watched television from five to seven p.m., the dinner hours when the evening news programs are broadcast. The significance of broadcasting in news dissemination is seen in Census Bureau estimates that in June 1967 eighty-seven point seven percent of non-white households and ninety-four point eight percent of white households had television sets. When ghetto residents do turn to newspapers, most read tabloids if available far more frequently than standard-sized newspapers, and rely on the tabloids primarily for light features, racing charts, comic strips, fashion news, and display advertising. Conduct of press representatives Most newsmen appear to be aware and concerned that their very physical presence could exacerbate a small disturbance, but some have conducted themselves with a startling lack of common sense. News organizations, particularly television networks, have taken substantial steps to minimize the effect of the physical presence of their employees at a news event. Networks have issued internal instructions, calling for the use of unmarked cars and small cameras and tape recorders, and most stations instruct their cameramen to film without artificial light whenever possible. Still, some newsmen have done things for the sake of the story that could have contributed to the tension. Reports have come to the commission's attention of individual newsmen staging events, coaxing youths to throw rocks and interrupt traffic, and otherwise acting irresponsibly at the incipient stages of a disturbance. Such acts are the responsibility of the news organization as well as of the individual reporter. Two examples occurred in Newark. Television cameramen, according to officials, crowded into and in front of police headquarters, interfering with law enforcement operations and making a general nuisance of themselves. In a separate incident, a New York newspaper photographer covering the Newark riot repeatedly urged and finally convinced a negro boy to throw a rock for the camera. Crowding may occasionally be unavoidable, but staging of events is not. We believe every effort should be made to eliminate this sort of conduct. This requires the implementation of thoughtful, stringent staff guidelines for reporters and editors. Such guidelines carefully formulated, widely disseminated, and strictly enforced underlie the self-policing activities of some news organizations already, but they must be universally adopted if they are to be effective in curbing journalistic irresponsibility. The Commission has studied the internal guidelines in use last summer at the Associated Press, United Press International, The Washington Post, and the Columbia Broadcasting System. Many other news organizations, large and small, have similar guidelines. In general, the guidelines urge extreme care to ensure that reporting is thorough and balanced, and that words and statistics used are appropriate and accurate. The AP guidelines call for broad investigation into the immediate and underlying causes of an incident. The CBS guidelines demand as much caution as possible to avoid the danger of camera equipment and lights exacerbating the disturbance. Internal guidelines can, and all of those studied do, go beyond problems of physical presence at a disturbance to the substantive aspects of searching out, reporting, and writing the story. But the content of the guidelines is probably less important than the fact that the subject has been thoroughly considered and hammered out within the organization and an approach developed that is designed to meet the organization's particular needs and solve its particular problems. We recommend that every news organization that does not now have some form of guidelines, or suspects that those it has are not working effectively, designate top editors to, a, meet with its reporters who have covered or might be assigned to riots, b, discuss in detail the problems and procedures which exist or are expected, and c, formulate and disseminate directives based on these discussions. Regardless of the specific provisions, the vital step is for every news-gathering organization to adopt and implement at least some minimal form of internal control. End of Section 45, Recording by Maria Casper.