In recent months protests across the nation against police brutality and racial bias have underscored the need for a national dialog regarding law enforcement. To meet that need and in anticipation of the appearance of acclaimed civil rights lawyer and advocate Michelle Alexander at Lehigh University Jan. 28, the Bethlehem Public Library organized a panel discussion called "A Public Conversation: Race, Crime and Justice," on Jan. 14 at the library.

The spirited discussion before an audience of roughly 150 people left no doubt about public interest in and concern about our criminal justice system.

Panel members

The panel included Dr. James Braxton Peterson, director of Africana-American Studies and associate professor of English at Lehigh University. Dr. Peterson holds a B.A. from Duke University and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He has made guest appearances as an expert on race and politics on MSNBC, BBC, CNN and Fox News.

Another panelist, Vertel Martin, associate professor of Criminal Justice at Northampton Community College graduated from the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va.; earned a B.S. at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and an M.S. from New York Institute of Technology. She has had a 22-year career in law enforcement in New York City, including service as a Lieutenant Commander with the NYPD Detective Squad.

The third panelist, Mark Di Luzio, is Bethlehem chief of police. He holds a B.A. in criminal justice administration from DeSales University. He has received several commendations, among them the Colonel John Schaeffer Pennsylvania State Police Excellence in Law Enforcement Award.

The moderator of the panel was Shalomo B. Levy, associate professor of history at NCC. He has a B.A. from Middlebury College, an M.A. in African American Studies from Yale University, and an M. Phil. in American History from Columbia University. A rabbi, he received his rabbinical training at Israelite Rabbinical Academy and was ordained in 1985.

Thanking police

Dr. Peterson began by thanking the police for their work, saying "we need to come to a discussion of race, crime and justice with that perspective." He contended that the war on drugs in the 1970s and 1980s was announced before the increase in drug use began and that the subsequent increased use of drugs stemmed from the fact that we were outsourcing jobs and the unemployed, who were unable to get jobs, turned to drugs.

Failed policy

Moreover, Peterson asserted that the war on drugs is a failed policy inasmuch as it did not solve the drug problem.

"We were locking up substance abusers, not the drug dealers," Peterson said.

There was consensus on the need to change the way we deal with crime.

Martin contended that the authorities take a "knee-jerk response" to crime rather than trying to understand criminal behavior.

"We would do better to change our response to drug abuse," she said, "making it a public health concern, not a crime."

DiLuzio concurred, saying the United States has the largest prison population in the world and we need rehabilitation, not incarceration.

Levy weighed in, saying it is very costly to incarcerate drug offenders and people are often arrested for low-level drug offenses.

Class disparities

When Martin observed that there are class and racial disparities in the way the criminal justice system is applied, the discussion got more intense. Agreeing, Levy said a black person abusing drugs in a black neighborhood is more likely to be arrested than whites in a white neighborhood.

DiLuzio responded that we need lots of police where there are lots of drugs, and that is why there are more arrests in African-American neighborhoods.

Martin challenged this idea and suggested that people in white neighborhoods may be doing drugs in the privacy of their homes rather than on the street, so the problem is more visible in black neighborhoods.

Panelists and moderator argued that racial disparities go beyond police response to drugs.

Racial profiling

Levy asserted there is racial profiling when it comes to who is stopped and searched. In support of this view, Martin mentioned a national survey that revealed that 13 percent of blacks and 10 percent of whites are stopped in traffic. Peterson added that in New York nine out of 10 people stopped and frisked are black.

Moreover, police bias results in many more black deaths and the entire criminal justice system, sentencing as well as law enforcement, disproportionately affects blacks.

Levy agreed, saying prosecutors are more likely to seek the death penalty if the defendant is black or if a black person kills a white person than if the individual kills another black person.

On a positive note, Peterson praised law enforcement for doing a "great job," with crime rates dropping.

Solutions sought

When Levy asked for solutions to the problems in the criminal justice system, Peterson offered several ideas. He said we need smarter drug policies. Since not all drugs are equally dangerous, law enforcement should take into account the drug that has been used. In addition, we should restore the right to vote to former felons, one of the policies that senators Rand Paul and Cory Booker have proposed in their REDEEM Act to reform the nation's criminal justice system.

Moreover, "we should make a decision about the nation we want to be," he said. It is much cheaper to educate wrongdoers than it is to incarcerate them. Finally, he argued that we need to make people aware of racial bias, adding, "We're not doing anything right now."

Q&A session

The panel discussion was followed by questions and comments from several people in an audience clearly very much engaged with the issues that had been discussed. City resident Rich Dow observed that he was taught to be afraid of certain communities, but that through contact and education, people will learn not to be so fearful. Gail Nolf, a Liberty HS teacher, exhorted fellow audience members to "be a mentor to someone young; be an agent of change in your community. Don't just go home and say that was a great program."