But this incident with the Irish gentleman illustrates a seeming paradox in criminal justice: why adding more US cops cannot reduce domestic violence.
1. Incidents of domestic violence involving Black women are under-reported.
2. Because Black women are less likely to call the police. But why?
The woman in this case called 911 on her Irish boyfriend. Because she thought cops were here to help.
But instead of helping, they started a nightmare spiral of false imprisonment, wearing unsanitary prison clothes with knife holes and blood stains from previous victims.
He could have died.
Her bar for calling 911 on her Irish boyfriend is now much higher. She's forced to make an awful choice between balancing her safety, and the safety of a potentially abusive domestic partner.
If she gets this balance wrong, and waits too long? The results for her own safety could be disastrous.
If you can understand why she would be less likely to call 911 on her Irish boyfriend in future, then you can understand why Black women in the US are less likely to call the cops on their Black boyfriends in similar situations.
(We haven't even talked about the dynamic of cops abusing their wives)
If you read the story carefully, you'll notice that his harshest and scariest treatment happened when he was transferred to... a bureau of prisons facility in Atlanta Georgia.
Basically, they treated him like a Black US citizen who is presumed innocent and is awaiting trial. 🤷🏿♂️
Like I said, there is no person that has been to ICE detention, and a US pretrial facility, be that federal or county jail or Rikers, that thinks that the ICE conditions are worse.
Roughly 1 in 5 Black men in the US will experience this Kafkaesque unfair imprisonment mistreatment in their lifetime.
2/2
