Search Results for: crime

The Story of the Kitty Genovese Story

Longreads Pick

Nicholas Lemann looks at the implications of the media’s coverage of the Kitty Genovese story:

An excellent example is the murder of Kitty Genovese, a twenty-eight-year-old bar manager, by Winston Moseley, a twenty-nine-year-old computer punch-card operator, just after three in the morning on Friday, March 13, 1964, in Kew Gardens, Queens. The fact that this crime, one of six hundred and thirty-six murders in New York City that year, became an American obsession—condemned by mayors and Presidents, puzzled over by academics and theologians, studied in freshman psychology courses, re-created in dozens of research experiments, even used four decades later to justify the Iraq war—can be attributed to the influence of one man, A. M. Rosenthal, of the New York Times.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Mar 10, 2014
Length: 13 minutes (3,347 words)

The Whistleblower’s Last Stand

Longreads Pick

How Joe Paterno’s former protégé became the star witness in the Jerry Sandusky trial:

Long before the presentment became public, players, coaches and residents heard rumors — that McQueary saw Sandusky fondle the boy, or that they were engaged in horseplay. But suddenly the rumors were not only true, they had mushroomed into the biggest college football scandal in history, one that wasn’t just about the crimes of one man but about an administration’s alleged attempt to cover them up. Most people here were surprised at how the prosecutors quoted McQueary in the presentment. Anal intercourse? This was far more graphic than the rumors had it; more than a few people asked: Why didn’t Big Red stop it?

Source: ESPN
Published: Mar 4, 2014
Length: 27 minutes (6,852 words)

On teaching meditation in the D.C. Department of Corrections’ Residential Substance Abuse Treatment unit

Longreads Pick

The writer, on volunteering as a meditation teacher at a detention center holding men convicted of serious crimes:

It’s several weeks after that first class, and the inmates looking me over don’t seem as menacing, I realize — just interested. I don’t know what anyone’s in prison for, and that allows me to talk as I would with anyone.

But the moods inevitably vary from class to class. Deacon, who had initially struck me as easygoing, is irritable today: The sound of the fan is bugging him, and he says he can’t relax. Finally he admits, “I’m thinking about what’s going to happen when I get out, whether I’m going to be able to find a job.”

Source: Washington Post
Published: Feb 27, 2014
Length: 11 minutes (2,815 words)

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle and Readmill users, you can also get them as a Readlist.

Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.

***

Read more…

A Question of Mercy

Longreads Pick

In 1998 a district attorney sent a teenager to prison for murder. Years later, he’s questioning the life sentence:

According to the law, Cole continued, it did not matter that Randy had not fired the gun or had not wished Heather dead. In Texas, the “law of parties” erases the distinction between killers and accomplices, finding that a person can be held criminally responsible for the conduct of another if he participated in the crime. By virtue of the fact that Randy had assisted Curtis, he was guilty of capital murder. “He could stand here all day long and tell you that his intent was not to assist in the commission of this crime, and his actions cry out differently,” Cole insisted. “He’s guilty. He must pay the consequences of his choice.”

The jury agreed, and on August 25, 1998, Randy was convicted of capital murder and handed an automatic life sentence. Cole watched as Randy, then nineteen, was led from the courtroom in handcuffs and leg irons. As the DA gathered the papers at his table, he was relieved that the trial was over. Yet he hardly felt triumphant. “It was not a moment of celebration,” Cole told me. “There was no joy or happiness. I had a deep, deep sense that another young life had been senselessly wasted.”

Source: Texas Monthly
Published: Feb 24, 2014
Length: 33 minutes (8,410 words)

The Shadow Legal System on College Campuses, and What It Means for Reporting Sexual Assault

"Patrick Henry College is not alone in internally adjudicating sexual assault. Every college and university maintains its own shadow legal system—and many secular colleges have a terrible track record of investigating and punishing sexual assault. But Patrick Henry College is one of only four private colleges in the United States that eschews federal funds in order to avoid complying with government regulations. This poses financial hardships for students and their families—PHC students are prohibited from accessing FAFSA loans, Pell Grants, state funds, scholarships, or the G.I. Bill—and it makes the institution particularly dependent on its conservative evangelical donor base. Homeschoolers see this as a worthwhile price to pay for freedom from government intrusion. The financial-aid page on PHC’s website notes, “In order to safeguard our distinctly Christian worldview, we do not accept or participate in government funding.”

This also means PHC isn’t subject to the Clery Act, Title IX, or the more recent Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act. The Clery Act requires schools to issue campus crime reports. Title IX says schools must hold an investigation independent of a criminal investigation and ensure that victims can change dorms and class arrangements, get campus restraining orders, and receive help filing a police report if they choose to do so. The Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act mandates that schools have prompt disciplinary proceedings and inform victims of their rights and options under Title IX. These regulations are no guarantee that sexual-assault accusations will be handled properly, and students at dozens of schools have recently filed Title IX and Clery Act complaints with the Department of Education that document widespread victim-blaming, mishandling of reports, and impunity for perpetrators. Yet, PHC students lack even that legal recourse. (The school says it tries to “generally follow the principles of those laws,” but it is not legally bound to comply with them.)

“As a private campus, it’s outside of federal influence. They can do whatever they want,” says Brett Sokolow, an attorney and president of the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management. “If you’re a female student, and you elect to enroll at a campus that does not provide any of the federal protections that attach to other colleges and universities, you need to know that going in.”

Kiera Feldman, in The New Republic, on Patrick Henry College, an evangelical school in Virginia accused by former students of victim-blaming and covering up reports of sexual assault. Read more from Feldman.

***

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

We need your help to get to 5,000 Longreads Members.

Join Longreads now and help us keep going.

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle and Readmill users, you can also get them as a Readlist.

Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.

Read more…

Grief Has No Deadline

Longreads Pick

She spent two decades as a local reporter covering L.A.’s grisliest crimes. But when the victim is a member of her own family, she learns what hard news feels like from the other side:

Memories of that night are a mosaic: the flashing lights, police cars, yellow tape, and Lil Bit’s car, stopped in the middle of the intersection of Century and San Pedro, where the shooting took place. Then to the lobby of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where we multiply—more family, more friends. We form an entourage. A guard directs us to the hospital’s chapel, where the matriarchs of the family are sitting—Lil Bit’s grandmother, Alberta, and my mother, Ida. The room fills with us: aunts, uncle, sisters, brother, stepmother, cousin. Then his twin walks in, not knowing what has happened—until he looks around the room at everyone who has gathered, at everyone’s faces, and he knows. “No!” he says, and I remember wanting to make this go away, to bring Lil Bit back for all of us, but especially for him.

Had I been reporting the story, I would have taken notes to remember the details, like the tears in the eyes of the hospital’s social worker as she talks to us.

Source: narrative.ly
Published: Feb 6, 2014
Length: 18 minutes (4,505 words)

The Bohemians: The San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature

Ben Tarnoff | The Bohemians, Penguin Press | March 2014 | 46 minutes (11,380 words)

Download .mobi (Kindle) Download .epub (iBooks)

 

For our Longreads Member Pick, we’re thrilled to share the opening chapter of The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature, the book by Ben Tarnoff, published by The Penguin Press. Read more…

The First 48 Makes Millions While the Innocent Have Their Lives Ruined

Longreads Pick

Once you’re charged with murder on A&E’s The First 48, you’re guilty for life – even if you’re innocent.

In July 2009, 18-year-old Cameron Coker’s life was ripped apart for future viewing by a national audience.
Coker, who’d previously been convicted of dealing drugs, was now the prime suspect in the shooting death of a 16-year-old boy at an apartment complex just east of Highway 6. For this homicide case, Harris County Sheriff’s investigators had company: A film crew from the A&E show The First 48 was there to show the nuts and bolts of the investigation. Entering its tenth season, the series was based on the premise that the first 48 hours of a police investigation are the most crucial. After that time frame, potential evidence goes missing; crime scenes become contaminated; witnesses disappear.

Source: Houston Press
Published: Jan 29, 2014
Length: 17 minutes (4,301 words)