Crime Doesn't Pay...the Precinct.

Growing up in a small, quiet, and dreadfully still town with relatively no crime, 6 full time police officers, and an entire family of blue-collar, hardworking, pot-smokers, I grew up with a instilled disrespect for Tuckerton's finest. The only thing the Boro's boys-in-blue could ever catch anyone on was traffic violations and the massive amount of public loitering, the town's only available activity, by the car-less teens who would soon, upon receipt of a license, be fined for their own vehicular misadventures.

At 17, green and fresh from the country I landed, excited and hopeful in the broken and hopeless neighborhood of Fishtown, right near the Kensington border. For those of you not familiar with these localities, "Kenzo" as we call it, is known for its rampant heroin and crack markets, and the assorted lovelies who will share with you, their manicured bodies if you share with them your junk narcotics. It was the only place we could find a slum lord to rent to an under-aged couple and their dog.

The house had, at one point, been on fire, a secret betrayed by the charred floorboards visible from the crumbling basement and the kitchen floor sported a sink hole in front of the fridge where your weight was supported entirely by the strength of the linoleum.

Anyway, the point is that while living there, and the subsequent moves into "better" neighborhoods (better meaning "more violent, but hell of a lot closer to school") I noticed a shift in my attitude toward cops. Instead of an immediate scowl and involuntary sense of guilt and paranoia, I noticed that, even when my own pockets were lined with drugs, the presence of Philadelphia police actually made me feel safe.

Whoa. Don't tell my parents.


This attitude, of course, didn't last very long. When the already volatile and faltering city of brotherly love started it's rise to soaring unemployment and violence I saw the cracked veneer and the chips of indifference on their shoulders. Once my sister, a take-no-shit girl, was on her way to work in center city when a homeless man, screaming about God, something to do with rain, and chicken rice, punched her. Being the ballsy and tempermental chick she is, drug him to the cops stationed on her corner. Their response was, and I directly quote, "That sucks."

A few weeks ago, Dear Friend was helping me schlep a bunch of newly acquired junk from Ikea into my apartment door. We pulled up near the building entrance, put on the hazard lights, and the cruiser parked in front of us took off. As we emptied the trunk onto my stoop the same cruiser pulls up behind us having traveled around the block with the purpose of ticketing us. We are on the frigging stoop still. $125.

This Dear Friend is the same girl who several weeks ago was assaulted while riding her bike, beaten, choked, and robbed. Her detective has yet to return any of her many phone calls. I know that I'm in danger of sounding like a two-bit Noam Chompsky-ite, but the Police force- in social theory- is to serve and protect the public. But how it operates is to sustain itself financially. You're a cop, you want to make more money for your precinct, for your future raises and pensions? How're you gonna do that? Fines and penalties. Crime doesn't pay the precinct, neither does fighting it.

I know this is a touchy and much debated topic, but in recent days of my friends and neighbors being called "sand n****rs", being harassed while smoking outside of bars, -oh, oh and my friend being choked "because [she's] white" I'm a little riled and need to blow off some steam and bitch about the man.

Mom and Dad would be proud.