- by Victoria Rodriguez
“Cops, Teachers, Counselors” uses storytelling to chronicle the patterns of front line workers’ discretionary judgments of offenders and citizen-clients. Decisions that front line workers make depend on interplay between rules and personal beliefs. Their expectations are tempered by hard-earned street smarts about individuals within different contexts. Front line workers pragmatically adjust aid depending on assessments of the clients’ character and identity. Moments of exceptional help arise from assessments that deem the client or offender worthy.
In Florida, a Publix grocery store manager caught a struggling mother, Jessica Robles, shoplifting hundreds of dollars of groceries for her hungry children. Instead of being arrested, however, a police officer, Vicki Thomas, decided to buy the mother food and give her a ride home. Officer Thomas explains,
“She was crying. I said, ‘Okay, what did she take?’ And he pointed to a grocery cart that was full of groceries. She just filled up the grocery cart and she just walked out, which shocked me and I asked her, ‘Why?’” Thomas recalled. “She said, ‘My children were hungry.’ And that immediately impacted me.”
Thomas and her partner completed paperwork, and then she grabbed her debit card and bought $100 of groceries that would sustain the Robles family for a few weeks. When Officer Thomas brought the groceries out, Robles burst into tears and hugged the officer. Officer Thomas exercised discretion whether to arrest Robles or charge her with a misdemeanor since the amount of goods totaled just under $300. Thomas technically arrested Robles, who had no priors for shoplifting, but did not take her into custody. The officers dropped Robles and the groceries off at her house, and met her children, who were incredibly thankful.
Thomas claims Robles’ case was unusual. Why did Robles deserve extraordinary services? For Thomas, it was personal. She states, “My grandchildren flashed before my eyes. I knew at that time I was going to buy her groceries.” Thomas continues, "She touched me, when I asked her why she did it and she said she needed to feed her children, I could relate. I was a single mom and without the help of my family, that could have been me. And so I needed to do my job but I also needed to help her."
Robles represented a positive social identity, but had engaged in unacceptable conduct. Legal mandates would not address Robles’ poverty or hunger; demonstrating the tension between the demands and limits of law. Thomas identified with Robles’ social position, creating a close emotional space to allow her to provide services. Thomas decided that Robles had both flaws and strengths that the current policies and laws did not adequately address. Instead, Officer Thomas bypassed the rigid legal structure, and engaged in extra-legal support.
Moody-Maynard and Musheno argue extraordinary service for worthy clients happens more frequently than Officer Thomas leads on. For example, in “Cops, Teachers, Counselors,” another deserving client, Francisco, made a mistake by selling small amount of marijuana. Moody-Maynard and Musheno claim that people like Francisco and Robles, who have had difficult lives, are unlikely to become career criminals; therefore, they are allowed to break the law at least once. By giving these hardworking parents a chance, they prevent hardship on their families and save state resources by not jailing individuals unlikely to commit crimes.
While Florida law enforcement has been incredibly brutal and incompetent in prior cases involving young people of color—namely, Jordan Davis and Trayvon Martin—Officer Thomas’ brand of community policing is a step in the right direction to gain the trust of marginalized communities. Furthermore, Officer Thomas, a 23-year veteran, formed part of the just 2% of women serving in police enforcement in 1990. Today, that figure has reached 25%; more closely mirroring the compositions found in the population. Officer Thomas’ extraordinary service to a needy mother who she personally identified with exemplifies the importance of being in touch with the community’s necessities and tribulations to increase legitimacy and positive visibility.
Sources:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/10/florida-cop-buys-100-in-groceries-for-woman-caught-shoplifting-food/
“Cops, Teachers, Counselors” by Steven Maynard-Moody and Michael Musheno
Victoria, You demonstrate a keen understanding of the citizen-agent/state-agent narratives, particularly how identities, character and worthiness can influence front line workers to do extraordinary things for citizen-cleints. Your illustration is excellent, demonstrating that you can work with this material to understand why workers do what they do!
ReplyDeleteYour post is a great tie in to the Maynard-Moody and Musheno book. I agree with how you relate the story of this female cop to the way citizen-clients respond to those they deem "worthy" in the stories. It is very touching how far a cop, teacher or counselor would go in order to push the system or break the rules in order to help an individual whom they believe to be a genuine, good person who would not benefit from incarceration. The cop in your story may have potentially saved a family with the kind contribution of free groceries. I wish I heard more stories like this on the news.
ReplyDelete-Jonathan Berry-Smith
Victoria,
ReplyDeleteYou brought about great points about clients' inner character and worthiness that are crucial factors for the front line workers to take into consideration. Based on your post, clients do share the most deepest and emotional stories/experiences that dramatically impact the service workers. As a result, the workers all deal with situations where they are put on the 'front line' to whether base their decisions on their discretions or on their personal thoughts/moral judgments. The relationship between the clients and the social workers are unique in that both of their lives are at stake.
-Jiajun (Michael) Huang.
Your post sounds like it could have been an example straight from "Cops, Teachers, Counselors"! While it clearly demonstrates the use of discretion as the determining factor between operating within the state agent narrative or citizen agent narrative, I especially like how you bring in the idea of effective community policing. When discretion is used in a positive manner, it can strengthen ties between public law enforcement and citizens, thereby allowing officers to shed some of the constraints imposed by the professional paradigm. This is a great way of looking at the conflicts between state and citizen agents--who is serving the community most effectively? Is it better to abide by the rules and follow the law to its fullest extent, or is it better to accept that there are exceptional cases which require a different application of law?
ReplyDeleteAyesha Ali
I think your blogpost is a great example of the citizen-agent narrative and how assigned identities can change. The officer initially saw the Robles as a shoplifter and a criminal. But once the officer realized she is taking food to feed her hungry children, her identity changes. The officer now sees her as a mother struggling to care for her family. Robles is deemed worthy by the officer based on the officer’s own moral judgments and past experiences. Since Robles is worthy of extraordinary treatment, the officer pays for the groceries out of pocket, and doesn’t charge Robles at all. Social identities change once more is know about the person’s specific circumstances and character, and these changes often affect a person’s treatment at the hands of front-line workers.
ReplyDeleteChristine Prior
By reading your blog post, I was more clearly able to understand citizen-agent narratives and how to analyze the difference between the two. As I was reading, it also occurred to me that extraordinary treatment is only possible through the state agent's approach to a circumstance. Despite the more-common-than-not instances where state agents provide extraordinary services to citizens, it seems discouraging to think that citizens who come upon same situations like Jessica Robles can have drastically different outcomes depending on what kind of police officer they meet.
ReplyDeleteJune Shin
This blog post shows that law is impersonal, but humans are. It also illustrates discretion and/or moral judgment is crucial when the state-agents determine certain situation. Whether law can be used to make a positive impact to citizens often depends on how state-agents apply it into cases. Moreover, the post also reflects Prof. Musheno’s idea that the change of identity and worthiness of a person are within specific contexts.
ReplyDelete-Yu Fu
For as lovely as citizen-agent agency sounds in situations like this, the problem is it resembles so closely sentimental favoritism. Which I think is why, as a society, we prefer state-agent enforced rules.
ReplyDeleteI recognize that citizen-agency is almost unavoidable, but I definitely think it shouldn’t be encouraged. It leads to too much variability in enforcement, subsequently undermining fairness and equality in application of rules.
We shouldn’t encourage citizen-agents to legislate from their desks or patrol cars.
Let me contextualize this with a personal story.
When I first went to college, San Jose City College, I was straight out of highschool, straight out of group homes, I had no family support and was going to college even though I couldn’t afford it. I lived in a room-for-rent, I worked as a day laborer to pay for it, but I didn’t make enough to meet all my other expenses, so as a result I stole groceries.
I would walk in to a local grocery store, with a pocket full of grocery bags, inconspicuously shop, then when I was done I would bag the groceries in some unmonitored corner and walk casually out.
I knew that over the year and a half that I did this, that if I was ever caught that I’d be charged with some felony conviction. Furthermore, the officer wouldn’t be as sympathetic to my story. I wasn’t some single mother trying to provide for her family, I was a kid who was stealing groceries because he was too poor to buy them.
Which is a narrative that doesn’t qualify in the worthiness category.
Arguably my backstory was more compelling, but it was far too complex and specific for the common law enforcement to relate to it. At the very least it isn’t as simply as saying, “I stole to feed my kids.”
The only difference between the struggling mother and other struggling people is her children.
Criminal behavior isn’t void based on offspring. There are more needs-based programs that offer assistance to single mothers, than most other needs-based programs for other constituents.
Which is why, I think, as a society we shy away from citizen-agent, though the agency is well-intentioned.
With citizen-agency when a homeless man steals food it’s a crime, but if a mother steals for her children it’s not a crime. That’s unfair. Laws are not neutralized when someone has a dependent.
Now consider, if that homeless man had kids, hypothetically his homeless wife just gave birth, is his theft no longer a crime? Do we forgive his crime, and if so to what extent, all crimes, and why?
What if the single mother had robbed a bank to pay for her children’s needs, would we still encourage this crime? What if it was nominally the same dollar amount as the groceries she stole, and she would use the money to buy groceries? Assume it wasn’t some hostile takeover bank robbery. It was a simple “put the money in the bag” note-style robbery. Where do we draw the line?
How far do we allow agency to leverage rules? How often do we allow rules to get leveraged? With agency laws become this varying, transient, function of the citizen-agents personal connection.
Agency makes rule enforcement relative to the bias of the citizen agent, giving so much judgment power to enforcers. Which is inherently unfair.
-Mark Sheppard
I like your blog because it really showed the discretion of the law enforcement authorities. It was not a story telling but it explained a lot about the process of discretionary decision making. She got a fix on her identity as a single mother, struggling to feed her children and sympathized with her because she was a single mother as well. Also, she put a fix on her identity as vulnerable, struggling individual with the low socioeconomical status in need of help. She made a decision that the young single mother is a worthy person for getting her help and he decided to bend the rule for her.
ReplyDeleteI respect her for making such a brave decision to bend the rule to help the single mother. Not only did her experience of encountering many socially vulnerable as a public law enforcement authority but also her own experience as a single mother help her to make such a decision. I think the discretionally decision her made is much more beneficial to the society than to follow the rule.
Sansui Iwamoto
Your blog post does a great job describing how Officer Thomas exercised discretion as well as made judgments on a person's worthiness. I think it's quite interesting that Officer Thomas connected her own life with Robles in that she had the image of her grandchildren in her head when she was talking to Robles. It's heartwarming to know that there are officers out there who would exercise discretion and help out those who are struggling. We only know as much as the news story explains, therefore we cannot be entirely sure that Robles was worthy of the treatment she received from Officer Thomas. Regardless of whether or not she was worthy, it was still very nice of Officer Thomas to use money out of her own pocket to help someone who obviously needed it.
ReplyDeleteErica Au