Volume 10, Issue 3 (Winter 2003-2004) Pages 148-237
JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE
AND POPULAR CULTURE
ISSN 1070-8286
Published by the School of Criminal Justice,
University at Albany.
© 2004. All rights reserved.
Volume 10, Issue 3 (Winter 2003-2004) Pages 148-237
Feature Articles
page
148
Transgression, racialized policing, and the limits of identity: Deep
Cover
by Mark Berrettini
161
Images of prime time justice: A content analysis of “NYPD Blue”
and “Law & Order”
by Sarah Eschholz, Matthew Mallard, & Stacey Flynn
Essays
181
Prison within a prison: A Burkean analysis of the Sing Sing stage
production of “Slam”
by Lorraine Moller
199
Dear Boss: Hoax as popular communal narrative in the case of the
Jack the Ripper letters
by Ted Remington
Review Essays
222
Review of Searching for a demon: The media construction of the
militia movement
by Cecil E. Greek
224
The art of crime: A review of The BFI companion to crime
by Sean E. Anderson
233
Review of Illinois Justice: The scandal of 1969 and the rise of John
Paul Stevens
by Joseph N. Patten
TRANSGRESSION, RACIALIZED POLICING, AND THE LIMITS OF IDENTITY:
DEEP COVER
By
Mark Berrettini*
University of Northern Colorado
ABSTRACT
This essay considers the depiction of an undercover African American police officer in Bill
Duke’s Deep Cover and the conceptions of identity, society, and legality that inform this
character. Through close analysis of several key sequences, this essay examines the film’s
blurring of policing and criminality as a critical representation of limited, racist notions of
identity.
INTRODUCTION
Similar to the Chester Himes’s Harlem Domestic Cycle and the three films it inspired,1
Norman Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night, and Charles Burnett’s The Glass Shield, Bill Duke’s
Deep Cover portrays the narrative conflicts related to African American police officers as they
face on-the-job racism. While the (almost always male) protagonists uphold the supposedly
neutral apparatus of law and order, their professionalism and ability are scrutinized repeatedly
because of the essentialist and racist ontological association of African Americanism and, more
broad, blackness, with criminality, depravity, and violence. Deep Cover presents aspects of this
conflict and also includes an interesting twist on this standard with its complex depiction of its
protagonist, Russell Stevens (Laurence Fishburne).
Stevens starts out the film as a uniform “beat cop,” but early on is chosen to become an
undercover agent for the D.E.A., posing as an up-and-coming drug dealer. While he confronts
racism within the police institution from the film’s outset, this shift in Stevens’s professional life
is represented as problematic since it seems to depend upon his skin color, cultural heritage, and
negative associations with blackness rather than upon his skills as a police officer. The film
simultaneously represents this racism within the police and societal prejudices against African
American men both as a boon to his undercover policing but as damaging to his personal life.
Stevens is unlike characters from the above-mentioned films and from television
programs that deal with similar situations—NYPD Blue, Homicide: Life on the Streets, and The
Shield—because he makes use of and comes to believe racialized associations of African
American identity and criminality, while other characters tend to reject all racism that comes
their way.2 Stevens also is unlike characters whose ethics or psyches are challenged by
identification with criminals—Heat, Silence of the Lambs, or the most literal, Face/Off—or
characters who “go over to the other side” for economic gain or self-preservation, such as
 2004 School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany
Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 10 (3) 148-160.
Transgression and policing in Deep Cover
/ 149
Training Day and Cop Land. Instead, Deep Cover foregrounds Stevens as his own
doppelganger, where questions about conflicting identities are internalized within the “raced”
roles of his law enforcement and criminal work; and as a cop corrupted by the system, not by his
own desire for money or status. When he begins to transgress the institutional practice of his
profession and become a successful criminal, he not only begins to view himself as a criminal—
the way that most characters view him—but also to consent to the damaging, essentialist notions
of race that guides this perspective.3 Before I consider specific moments in Deep Cover, I want
to offer an overview of existent studies of Deep Cover, as well as the film’s narrative.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Several authors have written about Deep Cover, alone or grouped with other films, in
contexts that differ slightly from my own analysis of the film. B.L. Chakoo’s short essay,
“Violence in American Crime Films: A Note on Deep Cover,” uses a psychoanalytic framework
to evaluate violence in the film and make a case for psychoanalytic criticism in general.
Chakoo’s observations are valid in relation to Deep Cover, but ultimately the essay is less
concerned with the film—a “minor…typical Hollywood film of crime and violence” in Chakoo’s
estimation—and only gestures toward the racialized elements of the film that are my focus (101,
103).
Kenneth Chan’s “The Construction of Black Male Identity in Black Action Films of the
Nineties” situates Deep Cover in a generic context; action films that highlight the problematic
representational equation between black masculinity and criminality. Although Chan does not
devote much attention to Deep Cover, my analysis shares his methodology in relation to
blackness and criminality, as does Jacquie Jones’s review of Deep Cover, “Under the Cover of
Blackness.” My approach most resembles Jones’s consideration of what she identifies as “Deep
Cover’s most important innovation [in cinematic history,] the treatment of criminality [as an]
investigation of criminality itself (32).” Where Jones and I diverge stems from my focus on the
representational complexities of racialized policing and my close analysis of the film, while her
argument creates important links between the film and post-1960s African American public
culture and Black Nationalism.
In “Noir by Noirs: Toward a New Realism in Black Cinema,” Manthia Diawara briefly
considers Deep Cover and Duke’s previous film, A Rage in Harlem, within the generic
framework of film noir and alongside, a close analysis of Himes’s first novel from the Harlem
Domestic Cycle, A Rage in Harlem. Diawara points out the similarities between Himes’s
politicized texts and the films noirs of the “new” black filmmakers of the 1980s and 1990s:
Using Himes’s A Rage in Harlem as a paradigmatic text for the way in which
black artists inter the roots of noir structure in their works, it is possible to
distinguish two categories of films noirs by noirs in the Reagan/Bush era. The
conventional category includes films like A Rage in Harlem, One False Move,
and, possibly, New Jack City...the realist and black nationalist category includes
films like Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Head (sic) and Malcolm X, Boyz
N the Hood, Straight Out of Brooklyn, Chameleon Street, Juice, and Deep Cover.
(263, 273-74).
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Diawara does not fully develop his criteria for these categories (how, for instance, does he define
conventional and realist?), but the connection he provides between the films and Himes’s fiction
is an instructive way to examine the complications of the African American police detective
characters.
Wahneema Lubiano two essays, “Black Nationalism and Black Common Sense: Policing
Ourselves and Others” and “Don’t Talk with Your Eyes Closed: Caught in the Hollywood Gun
Sights,” offer the most sustained analysis of Deep Cover in the existing literature about the film.
Lubiano, like Jones, draws on Black Nationalism to discuss the film, but unlike my affiliation
with Jones’s review, Lubiano and I draw different conclusions about the film and Stevens.
Lubiano’s essays critique Deep Cover for its support of one ideological strand of black
nationalism in which the male-dominated heteronormative family is central, and in “Don’t Talk
With…,” she proposes that at the end of the narrative, Stevens enacts a return to the “fold”:
“black brotherhood, black patriarchy, and selfless devotion to the (white) law,” based upon the
combined influence of Christianity and black nationalism (143). I think Lubiano’s assessment of
Deep Cover is a valid interpretation, and to be sure, the film’s recurring interest (obsession) with
the role of fathers is troubling. However, I do not think that the film a validation of “selfless
devotion to the (white) law,” a crucial point of the film and its conclusion about Stevens, as will
become clear in the remainder of this essay.
Narrative Overview
The film opens with a traumatic episode in which the young Stevens (Cory Curtis)
watches his drug-addicted father (Glynn Turman) rob a liquor store before he is shot and killed.
Stevens’s poetic voice-over plays over the sequence and provides us with some explanation of
the events shown: “So gather round while I run it down and unravel my pedigree. My father
was a junkie…My father, when I saw him die like that, saw him find his grave in the snow, I
only had one thought. It wasn’t gonna happen to me.” This sets the stage for Stevens’s
assignment as an undercover officer, to infiltrate a drug cartel with connections to Latin
America, which immediately follows the opening sequence.
Being undercover necessitates that Stevens engage in criminal activity—selling drugs,
money laundering, and even murder of rival dealers—and acting as a criminal brings Stevens
closer to becoming more like his father. His two father-figure “bosses,” a D.E.A. supervisor
named Carver (Charles Martin Smith) and David Jason (Jeff Goldblum), a crooked, white Jewish
lawyer who works with the Latin American drug cartel and who eventually takes Stevens on as
his partner in drug distribution, sanction these activities despite their opposing legal positions.
An additional father-figure, an African American detective named Taft (Clarence Williams III),
trails Stevens throughout the film, not knowing that Stevens is undercover, but attempting to
redeem him based on ethnic-cultural affiliation and Christianity. Because Stevens receives
competing support and admiration from these three men and because of his memories of his
criminal father, he begins to question his own identity as an African American man, a police
officer, and a drug dealer.
Transgression and policing in Deep Cover
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“A Scumbag for the Right Side”
Very little is known about Stevens’s professional life as a police officer before he goes
undercover since none of his police work is shown within the film. The adult Stevens, already
well into his career as a police officer, first appears in the film as he meets Carver in a dark,
nondescript office. This meeting occurs at the end of a sequence composed of three, nearly
identical shot-reverse shot patterns in which Carver individually asks three African American
male uniformed officers, “do you know the difference between a black man and a nigger?” The
first officer responds to Carver’s question with an uncomfortable smile and answers “no,” while
the second officer lifts Carver out of his chair and asks “who the fuck do you think you’re talking
to?” The third officer, Stevens, stares at Carver and calmly answers, “the nigger is the one that
would even answer that question.” Carver smiles at Stevens’s answer, confident that he has
found his undercover agent.
Stevens’s answer presents him as a man superior to the other two men—neither
acquiescent nor volatile. The interview ostensibly tests his professionalism as a police officer to
gauge how he responds to a tense situation. Stevens therefore is unique amongst the candidates
and ready for Carver’s challenge. But the answer further confirms Carver’s ideological position
with regard to Stevens’s racialized identity and poise, or rather, how Stevens responds to racism
and not just any tense situation. Carver creates an imaginary equation between Stevens and
himself since they “know” the several problematic answer to the question: that within the neutral
domain of police business, prejudices do not exist; that black man and nigger exist as meaningful
identities; that there is some quantifiable difference between these supposed identities. These
answers, in turn, are meant to excuse Carver of his racist tactics.
We next see the men in another meeting, presumably shortly after their first meeting
since both men wear the same clothes, that is depicted in series of shot-reverse shots, both closeup shots and medium shots. The men sit across from each other at a desk, and the substance of
this meeting centers on Carver’s attempts to convince Stevens to work undercover in Los
Angeles as John Q. Hull, a drug dealer. Carver entices Stevens with the notion that he can do
more good as an undercover cop than he can as an officer in uniform. Furthermore, Carver
argues that John Q. Hull will be a “scumbag for the right side” in L.A. because he is
unencumbered by familial connections.4 Stevens’s potential for success, Carver notes, can be
found in his “psychological profile,” which suggests that Stevens will be particularly adept for
the job: he “score[s] almost exactly like a criminal [who] resents authority, [has a] rigid moral
code [with] no underlying system of values, [and has an] insufficiently developed sense of self
[that stems from his] rage [and] repressed violence.”
Implicit in Carver’s assessment is that Stevens’s personality traits are necessarily
character flaws and that such characteristics are an essential part of his personality that cannot be
altered. This logic is informed by an equation of blackness and criminality that links biology to
inherent criminal attributes and, in turn, is supported by the long-standing belief that innate
“criminal minds” and/or “criminal personalities” exist. Such reasoning allows Carver to label
Stevens a potential criminal even though he is a police officer with no criminal record. Carver
concludes, “undercover all [of Stevens’s] faults will become virtues. [He] will be a star.” In
Carver’s professional opinion, Stevens is the perfect candidate for the undercover job, and after
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Carver convinces Stevens of this, it is only a matter of time before he takes the assignment. We
then follow the development of John Q. Hull, a development that seemingly reflects upon
Stevens’s skill as an undercover police officer. Or does it?
This question about Stevens’s skill as an undercover officer is an interesting one because,
just as we do not know much about his career as a uniformed officer, we do not know how he
prepares to become an undercover agent. Soon after Stevens takes the assignment, a vertical
wipe transports viewers from Cincinnati to “Los Angeles, 2 Weeks Later” (noted in a
superimposed title) and the shabby hotel that Stevens, now known as Hull, calls home. We then
see a brief meeting between Stevens and Carver during which Carver shows Stevens slides of the
men who run the Latin American drug cartel and explains each man’s role. From this meeting,
the film immediately shifts to a highly stylized montage that shows Stevens as he buys drugs,
sells drugs, walks on the streets of Hollywood, and exchanges confiscated drugs for money with
Carver. The montage includes numerous jump cuts, canted angles, and a distinct red-tone
lighting throughout that occasionally highlights red cars and red clothing. The visually evocative
aspects of this sequence (and another later montage) and the fast-paced and bass heavy music on
the soundtrack communicate in visual and aural shorthand that Stevens has fully taken on the
persona of Hull. He has followed Carver’s orders and has acquired the accoutrements associated
with his “glamorous” drug-dealing lifestyle—an abundance of money, flashy cars, and a partylike atmosphere on the streets where he deals.
Up until this moment in the film, no one discusses Stevens’s professionalism and/or his
ability to carry out the undercover assignment, except that in Carver’s mind, Stevens is a
“natural-born” undercover cop because he thinks “almost exactly” like a criminal. Implicit here
is Carver’s conception of Stevens’s visible racial identity, a point that Chan notes as the manner
in which “race and racism...inform the psychological profile [Carver] uses to prove Stevens’s
‘criminal’ suitability for the assignment…Carver’s offensive choice to interview only black
officers for the undercover job reflects the racial specificity of criminal profiling (39).” For
Carver, the ability to “look” like a criminal apparently automatically resides in the amalgamation
of blackness and masculinity.5 Yet for several of the criminal characters in the film, it appears
that Stevens’s ability to “pass” as a drug dealer is not so clear-cut.
As the film begins to represent Stevens/Hull as a criminal, it also presents the criminals
whom Stevens is supposed to trick as scrutinizing his undercover identity and profession. If we
believe, as Carver does, that Stevens’s ability to maintain the cover of a drug dealer is
formidable, then why do several characters distrust the man they know as Hull and even
speculate as to whether or not he is a cop? Is it possible that Carver’s assessment of Stevens’s
psychological profile is uncanny in its precision—that Stevens is only “almost exactly like a
criminal?”
“This Guy is a Cop”
The first examination of Stevens by criminals is in a boxing gym when he meets David
and Eddie (Roger Guenveur Smith), the “middle-man” between David and various street-dealers.
Eddie has arranged the meeting between the two men at David’s behest, but Eddie has his own
Transgression and policing in Deep Cover
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motives for the meeting since he has been arrested and wants to betray Stevens to the police in
order to save himself.
A wide shot shows David as he glides into the meeting at the gym while he is jokingly
sparring with a boxer. The camera is placed slightly in front of David at a left angle, and it
tracks along with his movements until he stops directly in front of the ring. The now static wide
shot continues without a cut as David sits down in the center of the frame, between Stevens and
Eddie who sit facing each other from the left and the right edges of the frame, respectively.
Stevens and David verbally address each other as the camera shifts from the wide shot to present
the two characters in matching head-and-shoulders shot edited in shot-reverse shot pattern. This
representational strategy presents an intense bond between them as they stare at each other
during their otherwise brief conversation. Stevens immediately questions David about the nature
of the meeting and attempts to subvert David’s authority within the meeting to prove himself as a
worthy adversary-ally (the contradictory positions in their buyer-seller relationship). David
calmly tells Stevens that he wants to meet anyone who buys a lot of product from Eddie, and in a
somewhat amiable tone he asks Stevens, “Where are you moving this stuff?” Stevens gruffly
responds, “Do Macys tell Gimbels, motherfucker?,” and prompts David to abandon his amiable
tone. David breaks the exchange of looks, turns to Eddie and says, “Forget it Eddie. This guy is
a cop,” before he walks off-screen. A short time later in this sequence, David and Eddie are
shown outside of the gym in a wide shot where Eddie convinces David that Stevens is a
legitimate dealer. David capitulates to Eddie’s pleas and gives him the drugs that are to be sold.
The boxing gym sequence does not present one clear motive for David’s suspicion of
Stevens. If we take David at his word, we can conclude that he does believe that Stevens is a
cop, but why? Like Carver earlier in the film, David might be testing Stevens as a new recruit to
see how he deals with pressure. Another explanation is that this is one of David’s attempts to
prove his “toughness” as a drug dealer and as a man, a major narrative element within the film
from this point on. In David’s case, this toughness cannot be disentangled from his
preoccupation with his own masculinity, so it is possible to understand that David’s scrutiny of
Stevens is a way for him to flex his own muscles and define his own masculinity.
When we next see Stevens, David, and Eddie, Stevens and David have already
established a more substantial bond that is a direct result of their last meeting: Taft arrests
Stevens after the boxing gym sequence because Eddie has set him up, but Stevens does not
inform on the drug cartel. As a repayment for his loyalty, David acts as Stevens’s lawyer and
secures his release (the product that David gave to Eddie to sell to Stevens is actually a baby
laxative). David and the cartel now are assured of Eddie’s betrayal, so David orchestrates yet
another confrontational meeting in order to punish Eddie. Also present at this meeting is Felix
Barbossa (Gregory Sierra), David and Eddie’s Latino boss who is the first target on the Latin
American drug cartel hierarchy. Felix punishes Eddie by beating him to death with a pool-cue,
and this brutal action stands as a crucial moment within the film because it marks the decisive
beginning of Stevens’s foray into the cartel. So as to not “blow his cover,” Carver’s number one
rule of undercover work, Stevens cannot intervene to stop the murder. Instead, after Eddie’s
death, Felix ordains Stevens as Eddie’s replacement and David’s new “associate.” While
Stevens welcomes this promotion since it means that he has successfully infiltrated the cartel, his
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official entry into the cartel also means that he will, at the very least, continue to witness other
crimes and not be able to intervene.
Even though Stevens has been welcomed into the cartel and has passed David’s and
Felix’s tests, he cannot conclusively end speculation about his identity as the film continues its
proliferation of meetings as the center of drug sales and policing.6 As new associates, Stevens
and David attend a meeting with Betty McCutheon (Victoria Dillard), an African American art
dealer who specializes in “ethnic” art and who launders the cartel’s drug money, at which Betty
asks questions about Stevens’s identity.7 Unlike the boxing gym meeting, David is not visually
presented in a stable position of authority in this shot, yet he does aurally control this meeting
through his manic explanation of how Betty launders the cartel’s money.
The film present David’s aural control over the sequence as being incomplete, however,
when it shifts the wide shot of all three characters to a complicated and a slightly confusing shotreverse shot pattern that contains three distinct close-up shots. Stevens sits at the desk, Betty sits
across the desk from him, and David stands next to Betty and moves his gaze between the other
characters. Within this three-shot pattern, the film presents a more narrow focus on a shotreverse shot pattern established between Stevens’s and Betty’s close-up shots. The effect of this
shot-reverse shot pattern within another shot-reverse shot pattern is to create an aural-visual
tension between David’s monologue and Stevens and Betty’s visual exchange.
As in the earlier confrontation between Stevens and David at the gym, the structure and
the content of the shot-reverse shot exchange between Stevens and Betty highlights the staredown test-of-wills between the two characters. At the conclusion of David’s monologue, Betty
tells him that he “talks too much,” and offers Stevens a line of cocaine. When he refuses to snort
it, she announces that she doesn’t trust him. Stevens attempts to calm Betty with a response in
an affected Latino accent, and David defends Stevens, at first by stating that he is cool and then
with recourse to masculinity—“A man has two things in this world—his word and his balls.”
Much like Carver’s and David’s tests, it is possible that Betty forces Stevens’s hand to learn how
he responds to pressure. Betty is not explicit about the possibility that Stevens is a cop, but
David’s characterization of Stevens certainly responds to this potential fear.
Stevens is cool because he is loyal to the cartel and because he fully embodies the macho
swagger of a successful drug dealer, at least in David’s opinion. David then extends his wordballs assertion into another explanation of Stevens’s cool character, a glowing but racist
description of Stevens’s murder of a rival African American drug dealer named Ivy (James T.
Morris). David’s description starts with an assurance to Stevens and Betty that it is not a
demonstration of his “condescending infatuation with just everything black” but is of course just
that. He proceeds to compare Stevens to a “beautiful panther,” a “jungle storm,” and a
“dangerous, magnificent beast [who has] the gift of fury.” After Stevens verbally and physically
challenges David’s racism, Betty is convinced that Stevens is trustworthy, and the combined
support of David and Betty becomes foundational for Stevens’s self-conception as a drug dealer,
once his other trust-bound relationship with Carver is called into question.8
In one of the final meetings between Stevens and Carver, Stevens tells his superior that
he has an upcoming meeting with Gallegos, the number two man in the cartel. Carver agitatedly
Transgression and policing in Deep Cover
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responds that the assignment has been terminated because Stevens violated a direct order. A
series of medium shot-reverse shots depict Carver as he rages about Stevens’s insubordination
and Stevens quickly reasons that Carver is protecting Gallegos. Carver at first responds with
silence, then tells Stevens not to “make a conspiracy” out of his termination, and finally pulls his
gun and threatens to arrest Stevens. Stevens appears to comply, but as he moves toward Carver,
he grabs the much smaller man and slams him into the hood of the car.
Carver tells the truth at this point: the State Department has ordered him to stop his
pursuit of Gallegos because Gallegos’s uncle, Gúzman (René Assa), who is also involved in the
cartel, is now a political ally. Carver lied to Stevens, he claims, because the government lied to
him. Then, in a stunning reversal of his earlier approach to Stevens, Carver tells him that they
should become partners in Washington D.C. where they will have “the spoils of war...a budget
[and] clout.” The questions about Stevens’s identity that occur throughout his succession of
meetings culminate in this moment when in an angry but resigned tone Stevens tells Carver, “I
can get more money and clout on the street than [I can] following your ass to Washington. This
whole fucking time I’m a cop pretending to be a drug dealer. I ain’t nothing but a drug dealer
pretending to be a cop. I ain’t gonna pretend no more. I quit.”
This sequence should offer to us conclusive evidence about Stevens’s character, or even
suggest that he is now John Q. Hull, but as the remainder film demonstrates, Stevens’s selfdescription is not as comprehensive as it appears to be. Instead of cementing the boundaries of
his identity, Stevens’s repudiation of his old persona and his acceptance of his drug dealer
persona serves to make any essential or any fundamental conception of his identity irrelevant.
To put this another way, is it possible that Stevens’s self-description does nothing to resolve
questions about his identity because it does not matter if he is a drug dealer or if he is a cop?
CONCLUSION: NO COVER?
Carver’s “scumbag for the right side” logic and David’s conception of Stevens as
evidenced by his condescending admiration suggest that Stevens’s successful performance
develops from his ontological-essentialist identity, not from training or experience. This is
stressed further in the penultimate sequence in the film when Taft attempts to arrest Stevens,
David, and Gúzman at a nighttime meeting at which David and Stevens try to convince Gúzman
to invest in their synthetic drug scheme. Gúzman escapes arrest with diplomatic immunity, and
when it seems that Taft will arrest the other men and appears to have pulled his gun, David
shoots him. In actuality, Taft has reached for his bible, and the realization of this prompts
Stevens to run to Taft’s aid and to reveal his identity as an undercover cop. Somehow, Taft has
already deduced this.
While Taft recognizes that Stevens is a cop, David only understands this when Stevens
restates his admission. Surprisingly, David’s response is calm as he spells out the insignificance
of identity “labels”: “Forget this Judeo-Christian bullshit. The same people who taught us virtue
enslaved us, baby...We’ve had fun, and I know your dick gets hard for money, power and
women. And it doesn’t matter that you’re a cop, so let’s get in the van,” which is filled with the
cartel’s money. To underscore his point, David again shoots Taft and this time kills him, and in
response, Stevens kills David.
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Stevens’s actions, as well as Taft’s admission that he always knew Stevens was a cop,
allow Stevens to reclaim the professional status as a police officer while he simultaneously
rejects his drug dealer status. David’s statement, however, provides us with another
understanding of Stevens’s professions whereby his two professions only appear to be opposed.
Instead, David’s logic proposes that Stevens was a cop pretending to be a drug dealer, he was a
very good drug dealer, and actions speak louder than words, identity, or supposed affiliation. In
a dichotomy that we can characterize as the boundaries and the theory of law and order versus
the application of law and order, it is the application, in David’s estimation, that prevails.
By the end of Deep Cover, Stevens is once again wholly Stevens, but it is not clear which
of his competing professions he will pursue, perhaps an indication of David’s influence. The
film’s final sequence starts with Stevens at the U.S. Capitol Building where he severs
connections with the D.E.A. He secures immunity from prosecution for himself and for Betty
with the aid of a videotape of Gúzman’s involvement in the drug trade. Stevens then appears at
the grave of Belinda Chacon (Kamala Lopez), a Latina woman whom he knew and who has died
of a drug overdose. Through his voice-over, we learn that Stevens and Betty have adopted
Belinda’s son, James (Joseph Ferro), and that he has eleven million dollars taken from the cartel.
(The money is mentioned as Stevens leaves the Capitol Building, when Carver demands to know
what happened to the money. Stevens responds by asking Carver the same test-question that
Carver once asked Stevens, and then answers it himself: “the nigger is the one who would even
think about telling [where the money is],” and then punches Carver in the stomach.) In voiceover, Stevens tells us that if he gives the money to the government he is a fool and if he keeps it
he is a criminal, and then asks, “what would you do?” Given that Stevens announces two more
possible identities for him, a more appropriate question for us at this point might be, what
identity categories and social boundaries are now meaningful to Stevens?
One answer, I think, can be found in the fact that as a cop or as a drug dealer, Stevens is
bounded by organizational hierarchies, but if he keeps the ill-gotten money, it affords him some
freedom from these institutions. Again, we can read this possibility as the influence of another
of David’s last few statements voiced in the meeting with Gúzman before Taft interrupts it.
When Gúzman hears the terms of the synthetic drug plan, presented to him in a business
proposal that includes a product sample and “marketing and cash flow” reports, he calls David
and Stevens “racist Americans” and accuses them of trying to exclude the “poor Hispanics” from
the drug trade. David quickly contradicts this statement and states that Gúzman knows that
“there is no such thing as an American anymore. No Hispanics, no Japanese, no blacks, no
whites, no nothing. There’s just rich people and poor people.”
David’s claim about the irrelevance of established boundaries and identities, with the
exception of class, convincingly recasts the police-versus-criminal theme that threads throughout
Deep Cover. For Stevens to choose sides, he must take into account David’s perspective.
Although the film does not provide an explicit answer to Steven’s dilemma, his voice-over
suggests that he has acceded to David’s vision of a borderless social realm. (If not and Stevens
is affiliated with and committed to law enforcement, then what is the predicament?) We can
understand that Stevens’s identity crisis is produced by the absent boundaries that are suggested
at the film’s conclusion. Through Stevens, Duke presents a representational interrogation of the
Transgression and policing in Deep Cover
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conventional African American police officer character and the very boundaries and categories
that seem to define such characters—race and ethnicity, lawful and criminal, an historic outsider
inside. Stevens’s struggle to understand these categories as well as his transgressive presence
within the police institution provides the framework for Deep Cover’s narrative, yet as we learn
from David and Carver, and even Stevens’s own final voice-over, his struggle and these
categories perhaps no longer matter.
ENDNOTE
* Dr. Mark Berrettini is an Assistant Professor of English and co-director of Film Studies at the
University of Northern Colorado. His research interests include film noir, the representation of
social difference, and wildlife/animal film and television. His work has been published in
Cinema Journal, Camera Obscura, and JNT: The Journal of Narrative Theory.
Thanks to Marcelle Heath, Kelly Hankin, Randall Halle, John Michael, and Sharon Willis, as
well as the editors and anonymous readers at Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture for
their questions and comments.
1
The films are Ossie Davis’s Cotton Comes to Harlem, Mark Warren’s Come Back, Charleston
Blue, and Bill Duke’s A Rage in Harlem.
2
While the African American detective may or may not reject a racist address, I agree with
Stephen Soitos’s assertion that African American detectives are always aware of race. In The
Blues Detective: A Study of African American Detective Fiction, Soitos posits that, “the blues
detective always delineates the color line as primary in any case of social relation [and is]
interested in the social and political atmosphere [as] inscribed by racial prejudice” (31).
3
It is worth noting that Duke is an actor who appears as a corrupt African American police
officer and federal agent in Payback and The Limey, respectively, in addition to his numerous
roles in film and television where he is cast as a legitimate police officer.
4
At one point in the interview, Carver presents Stevens with precise details about his father’s
death and uses this detail to explain why Stevens has avoided drugs and alcohol his entire life.
5
Several authors discuss the intersection of blackness, masculinity and criminality, including
Phillip Brian Harper’s Are We Not Men?: Masculine Anxiety and the Problem of AfricanAmerican Identity and Kobena Mercer’s Welcome to the Jungle. Yvonne Tasker and Sharon
Willis offer discussions of the combination of these characteristics within cinematic
representation, Tasker in Spectacular Bodies and Willis in High Contrast. Also see the essay
collections Reading Rodney King/Reading Urban Uprising, Ed. Robert Goodings-Williams and
Representing Black Men, Eds. Marcellus Blount and George P. Cunningham.
6
Indeed, the film relies on a representation of the police and the criminals as business rivals,
complete with motivational and/or promotional slogans: Carver’s “A Scumbag for the Right
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Side”; Eddie’s “Stay Black” and “In God We Trust”; David’s “I Want My Cake and Eat It Too”
and “Never Again.” Also, when Eddie, who says that he wears a suit coat and a tie to work
every day, turns Stevens in to the police, he explains to Stevens that it was “just business.”
7
This sequence begins at the apartment of David’s African American mistress, Jacqueline
(Paunita Nichols), where Stevens meets David. As they leave Jacqueline’s, Stevens and David
briefly discuss David’s self-proclaimed and acute attraction to African American women.
Stevens speculates that it is a “slave thing,” which David misinterprets as a comment about
bondage, but that Stevens clarifies as a racist desire. In both of her essays, Lubiano writes that
“Betty McCutheon [is] David Jason’s mistress [who] Hull woos...away (“Don’t Talk” 140;
“Black Nationalism” 241). While Lubiano’s assessment of the film in both essays is compelling,
I’m not sure how she determines that Betty is Jason’s mistress. She does not offer any evidence
from the film to support this claim, and in my repeated viewing of the film, I cannot ascertain
any relationship between David and Betty that develops beyond their business association and
their occasional flirtation.
8
Betty’s trust of Stevens is cemented further by their personal, sexual relationship. As Lubiano
points out in “Don’t Talk with Your Eyes Closed,” a homoerotic dynamic helps explain David’s
interest in Stevens.
WORKS CITED
Chakoo, B.L., “Violence in American Crime Films: A Note on Deep Cover.” Indian Journal of
American Studies 25.2 (Summer 1995): 101-104.
Chan, Kenneth, “The Construction of Black Male Identity in Black Action Films of the
Nineties.” Cinema Journal 37.2 (Winter 1998): 35-48.
Deep Cover. Dir. Bill Duke. Perf. Laurence Fishburne, Jeff Goldblum, Victoria Dillard. 1992.
DVD. New Line Studios, 2000.
Diawara, Manthia. “Noir by Noirs: Toward a New Realism in Black Cinema.” Shades of Noir. Ed.
Joan Copjec. New York: Verso, 1993. 261-278.
Jones, Jacquie. “Under the Cover of Blackness.” Black Film Review 7.3 (1993): 30-33.
The Limey. Dir. Steven Soderbergh. Perf. Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda. 1999. DVD. Artisan
Entertainment, 2002.
Lubiano, Wahneema. “Black Nationalism and Black Common Sense: Policing Ourselves and
Others.” The House that Race Built. Ed. Wahneema Lubiano. New York: Pantheon,
1997. 232-252.
---. “Don’t Talk with Your Eyes Closed: Caught in the Hollywood Gun Sights.” Queer
Transgression and policing in Deep Cover
/ 159
Representations: Reading Lives, Reading Cultures. Ed. Martin Duberman. New York:
New York University Press, 1997. 139-145.
Payback. Dir. Brian Helgeland. Perf. Mel Gibson, Maria Bello. 1999. DVD. Paramount Studio,
2002.
Soitos, Stephen F. The Blues Detective: A Study of African American Detective Fiction.
Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996.
WORKS CONSULTED
Blount, Marcellus, and George P. Cunningham, eds., Representing Black Men. New York:
Routledge, 1995.
Come Back, Charleston Blue. Dir. Mark Warren. Perf. Godfrey Cambridge, Raymond St.
Jacques. 1972. VHS. Warner Studios, 1996.
Cop Land. Dir. James Mangold. Perf. Sylvester Stallone, Harvey Keitel, Robert DeNiro, Ray
Liotta. 1997. DVD. Miramax Home Entertainment, 2004.
Cotton Comes to Harlem. Dir. Ossie Davis. Perf. Godfrey Cambridge, Raymond St. Jacques.
1970. DVD. Mgm/UA Studios, 2001
Face/Off. Dir. John Woo. Perf. John Travolta, Nicolas Cage. 1997. DVD. Paramount Studio,
2002.
The Glass Shield. Dir. Charles Burnett. Perf. Michael Boatman, Lori Petty, Ice Cube. 1995.
DVD. Miramax, 2003.
Goodings-Williams, Robert, ed. Reading Rodney King/Reading Urban Uprising. New York:
Routledge, 1993.
Harper, Phillip Brian. Are We Not Men?: Masculine Anxiety and the Problem of African
American Identity. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Heat. Dir. Michael Mann. Perf. Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer. 1995. DVD. Warner
Studios, 2004
Himes, Chester. Cotton Comes to Harlem. New York: Dell, 1965.
---. The Real Cool Killers. Vintage Crime Edition. New York: Vintage, 1988.
---.
The Crazy Kill. Vintage Crime Edition. New York: Vintage, 1989.
---.
Blind Man with a Pistol. Vintage Crime Edition. New York: Vintage, 1989.
---.
A Rage in Harlem. Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Edition. New York: Vintage,
1991.
---.
Plan B. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1993.
160
---.
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JCJPC 10 (3), 2003-2004
The Harlem Cycle, Volume Two: The Big Gold Dream, All Shot Up, The Heat’s On.
Edinburgh, Scotland: Payback Press, 1996.
Hollinger, Karen. “Film Noir, Voice-Over, and the Femme Fatale.” Film Noir Reader. Eds. Alain
Silver and James Ursini. New York: Limelight Editions, 1996. 243-259.
Homicide: Life on the Streets. NBC. 1993-1999.
In the Heat of the Night. Dir. Norman Jewison. Perf. Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger. 1967. DVD.
Mgm/UA Studios, 2002.
Mercer, Kobena. Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies. New York:
Routledge, 1994.
NYPD Blue. ABC. 1993-present.
A Rage in Harlem. Dir. Bill Duke. Perf. Forest Whitaker, Gregory Hines, Robin Givens. 1991.
DVD. Buena Vista Home Video, 2003.
The Shield. FX Network. 2002-present.
Tasker, Yvonne. Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre, and the Action Cinema. New York:
Routledge, 1993.
Training Day. Dir. Antoine Fuqua. Perf. Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke. 2001. DVD. Warner
Home Video, 2004.
Willis, Sharon. High Contrast:Race and Gender in Contemporary Hollywood Film.
Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1997.
IMAGES OF PRIME TIME JUSTICE:
A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF “NYPD BLUE” AND “LAW & ORDER”*
By
Sarah Eschholz
Matthew Mallard
Stacey Flynn
Georgia State University
Department of Criminal Justice
ABSTRACT
In the past decade, two crime dramas have consistently led the Neilson ratings for this genre:
“NYPD Blue” and “Law & Order.” While these programs are fictional, they frequently borrow
and sensationalize story lines from newspaper and television news headlines across the country.
This blurring of fiction and reality may influence viewers’ perceptions of the criminal justice
system and criminal justice problems in the United States. Using a content analysis of the 200001 season of both “Law & Order” and “NYPD Blue,” this study explores the way “justice” is
done on television crime dramas by focusing on the race and gender composition of television
offenders, victims, and criminal justice personnel, civil rights violations, “control talk,” which
emphasizes an “us” against “them” mentality, and finally, the clearance rates for television
offenders. Each of these issues will be compared to relevant statistics in the real world in an
attempt to gauge the degree that these programs depart from reality. Implications of these
findings for the social construction of crime, race, gender and justice are discussed.
INTRODUCTION
Crime drama television programs have captured the attention of millions of viewers in
both the United States and abroad. Since The Untouchables and Dragnet first gained popularity
in American television in the 1950s, crime dramas attempting to imitate real life have occupied a
prominent role in primetime television (Surette, 1998; Kurtz, 1993). Crime dramas are generally
fictional portrayals of the criminal justice system focusing primarily on violent offenders. These
programs are usually presented from the perspective of either law enforcement officials or
prosecutors. The dominant theme of all of these programs is “justice,” brought about by an
offender being caught and/or punished for a crime (Kurtz, 1993; Sparks, 1995; Surrette, 1998).
Each new television season offers a host of new programs that attempt to capture viewers hooked
on this genre.
In the past decade, two crime dramas have consistently led the Neilson ratings for this
genre: “NYPD Blue” and “Law & Order.” While these programs are fictional, they frequently
borrow and sensationalize story lines from newspaper and television news headlines across the
country. For example “Law & Order” advertised its 2001 season with the following:
 2004 School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany
Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 10 (3) 161-180.
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REAL LIFE CRIMES
Don’t take us the wrong way. “Law & Order” has excellent writers. But when you’re
coming up with story lines for a real life crime drama set in New York, you don’t have to
look far for inspiration. Just open up the newspaper. There’s enough material for a
season. (Time Warner, 2001)
And the producers of “NYPD Blue” (2001) describe the show on their web site as:
Set against the gritty and volatile backdrop of New York City, “NYPD Blue” powerfully
portrays realistic characters devoting themselves to the pursuit of justice while struggling
to maintain an ever-elusive sense of humanity. In spite of -- or perhaps because of -- the
danger of the streets, the chaos of the squad room and the fragility of their own private
lives, the members of the 15th Precinct share a strong commitment to the job -- and each
other.
The similarity of many of these story lines to sensational crimes in the news, in addition to
advertising that promotes the “realistic” nature of these programs, may lead viewers to believe
these programs mirror the actual crime problem in New York, specifically, and the United States
in general. In turn, crime dramas may help to shape viewers’ perceptions of the crime problem,
their interpretations of the bill of rights, and their sense of the meaning of justice.
If these programs shape attitudes and feelings about crime in New York and the United
States, they also have the potential to indirectly influence public policy concerning crime.
Because of the potential impact of these programs on viewers’ social construction of the reality
of crime and their resulting political action or inaction, it is important to explore the content of
these programs and the nature in which justice is presented in this television genre. Using a
content analysis of the 2000-01 season of both “Law & Order” and “NYPD Blue” this present
study will explore the way “justice” is done in television crime dramas by focusing on the race
and gender composition of television offenders, victims and criminal justice personnel, civil
rights violations and reactions to them, “control talk,” which emphasizes an “us” against “them”
mentality, and finally, the efficiency of the criminal justice system in processing cases. Each of
these issues will be compared to relevant statistics in the real world in an attempt to gauge the
degree these programs depart from reality. Qualitative examples from the two programs will be
used to highlight these findings.
Images of prime time justice /
163
LITERATURE REVIEW
While research on television programming in general has been commonplace since the
1960s, few studies have focused on the content of crime drama, particularly in terms of civil
rights violations and “control talk.” The past research can be divided into three general areas:
“effects” research (focusing primarily on the impact watching television has on fear of crime or
other perceptions), research focusing on how race is portrayed on television, and research that
focuses broadly on how justice and the criminal justice system are represented on television.
Beginning with the work of George Gerbner and his colleagues with the Cultural
Indicators Project (1976; 1978; 1980), researchers have frequently found relationships between
watching television and concern about crime. While the initial “cultivation model” approach,
that any and all television viewing (regardless of the content) increases viewers’ perceptions of a
mean and scary world (Gerbner, 1976), has been largely deemed too simplistic (Hughes, 1980;
Hirsh, 1981), several promising refinements and alternative hypothesis that account for both the
type of programs watched and specific audience characteristics in models of attitudes relating to
crime have been developed (Heath & Gilbreth, 1996; Eschholz, 1997).
Sparks (1995) predicts that crime dramas may actually assuage or reduce fear of crime
because the stories are resolved at the end of each episode. “Perhaps it is television’s practice to
frighten and demoralize its audience with one hand (the news) and console it with the other (the
drama)” (Sparks, 1995:151)? Contrary to this hypothesis, empirical data show crime dramas
actually increase fear of crime, especially for men (Eschholz, 2002; Heath & Petraitis, 1987). If
watching crime dramas influences fear of crime, then it is conceivable that these changes in
perception could also influence public policy concerning fear of crime.
The possibility that television crime drama portrayals influence public perception is
particularly problematic if the images presented on television are inconsistent with actual crime
trends, or distort/exaggerate the racialized nature of crime or the sex division of individuals
involved with the criminal justice system. At issue is how often and how members of different
races and sexes are shown on crime dramas. Entman (1992; 1990) argues that how offenders of
different races are shown on television is critical to the way audiences perceive individuals in the
real world and may contribute to the phenomenon of “modern racism”. Therefore, even if
Blacks are not shown disproportionately as offenders, compared to Whites, their portrayals may
still reinforce the stereotype of the “young Black male” criminal if their portrayals suggest
Blacks are more threatening, violent, and dangerous. Similarly, one explanation offered for the
fact that women have lower victimization rates than men but higher fear levels is that they are
disproportionately shown as victims on television and in the movies (Gerbner, et al., 1978).
Several content analyses of television programs have explored television depictions of
crime and justice. While the majority of this research has focused on television news (Dixon &
Linz, 2000; Entman & Rojecki, 2000; Romer, et al., 1998; Chermak, 1995; Chiricos & Eschholz,
2002; Meyers, 1997), a couple of studies have begun to look at other genres such as reality
police programs (Oliver, 1994; Oliver & Armstrong, 1995; Cavender, 1993; Doyle, 1998;
Kooistra, et al., 1998) and crime drama (Sparks, 1995; Chiricos & Eschholz, 2002). While news
portrayals are not the emphasis of the present study, we consider these findings in our literature
review because of the tendency of both news agencies and drama producers to blur the lines
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between news and entertainment (Surrette, 1998; Manning, 1996; Krajicek, 1998; Barak, 1996).
Findings concerning the news are especially relevant to the present study because of the hybrid
nature of the two crime dramas included in the present analysis. Both the shaky camera “docudrama” style of “NYPD Blue” and the “ripped from the headlines” advertising of “Law &
Order” illustrate an attempt to blur reality and fiction.
Various forms of television content, such as drama and news, are widely known for
exaggerating and distorting the frequency and types of crime in the United States (Gerbner and
Gross, 1976; Gerbner et al., 1977; Gerbner et al., 1978; Surrette, 1998; Chermak, 1995; Potter
and Ware, 1987). Both news and entertainment media consistently portray a more violent and
dangerous view of our world than exists in reality.
As most television viewers are not regularly involved with the criminal justice system as
offenders, victims or representatives, news programs and drama productions that promote their
realistic nature give viewers more exposure to crime and the criminal justice system than they
experience in real life.
The contributions of the mass media are likely to be especially powerful in cultivating
images of groups and phenomena about which there is little first-hand opportunity for
learning; particularly when such images are not contradicted by other established beliefs
and ideologies (Gross, 1995: 63).
The figures in these non-fictional and fictional criminal justice systems on television may be
representative of reality for many viewers who may use these roles to develop their own ideas
and beliefs about who should be feared in society, how crimes are solved and how criminals
should be punished.[1]
Offenders
An overview of the crime and media literature reveals a widely accepted assumption that
minorities, especially African Americans, are frequently treated unfairly or portrayed in a
negative light (Anderson, 1995; Entman, 1992; Edsall & Edsall, 1991; Gomes and Williams,
1990; Gilliam, et al., 1995; Fishman, 1998; Martindale and Dunlap, 1997; Sullivan 1990;
Drummand, 1990). Some research has shown that when non-Whites are seen on television, they
are more likely to be portrayed as perpetrators or suspects of crime than Whites (Entman, 1990;
Chiricos & Eschholz, 2002; Romer, 1998).
This does not mean that persons of color are always over-represented as criminals on
television. One study of both news and drama found that Blacks are generally under-represented
as the perpetrators of all crime when compared to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports (Eschholz,
1998). Another study of the news found that Blacks are represented roughly in proportion to the
UCR arrest reports (Chiricos & Eschholz, 2002). Potter and Ware (1987) found White males
were more likely to be portrayed as the perpetrators of the most violent felonies, though
minorities were more often seen committing less serious anti-social acts ranging from deceit to
minor crime. Others have found the exact opposite; Black suspects are not disproportionately
shown committing all crimes or minor crimes (Chermak, 1995; Dixon & Linz, 1999; Entman,
1992; Entman & Rojecki, 2000; Klite, et al, 1997; Gilliam, et al., 1995; Romer, et al., 1998).
Images of prime time justice /
165
However, when violent crimes, robbery or felonies are the focus, Black suspects are shown in
disproportionate numbers (Dixon & Linz, 2000; Gilliam, et al., 1995; Romer, et al., 1998; Sheley
& Askins, 1981).
Though the representation of the race of all television offenders appears similar to official
statistics, where White offenders outnumber Black offenders (Eschholz, 1998; Chiricos &
Eschholz, 2002; Chermak, 1995; Dixon & Linz, 1999; Entman, 1992; Entman & Rojecki, 2000;
Klite, et al, 1997; Gilliam, et al., 1995; Romer, et al., 1998), a recent survey revealed that 69% of
respondents thought that Blacks were shown as offenders more often than Whites on television
(Eschholz, et al., 1998). This may indicate that how race is portrayed in the media is more
influential to viewers’ perceptions than the actual quantity of portrayals of a given race.
Some studies included more qualitative measures of how race is portrayed on television,
such as a suspect being shown as physically restrained, in hand cuffs or in mug shots (Chiricos &
Eschholz, 2002; Cavender, 1993; Entman, 1992). Entman (1992) found that Blacks were more
often shown as not moving, poorly dressed, unnamed and physically held than were Whites.
Similarly, Chiricos & Eschholz (2002) found, when comparing Whites, Blacks and Hispanics,
that Blacks were most likely to be shown in mug shots, and that both Blacks and Hispanics were
more likely to be linked with stranger victims in news reports, compared to Whites. These
“symbols of menace” (Entman, 1990, p.337) are just a few of the media distortions that are likely
to increase Whites’ fear of Blacks, forming some of the basis for “modern day racism” (Entman,
1990, 1992).
On television news and in the real world, men, especially younger men, are more likely to
be offenders (UCR, 2000; Potter & Ware, 1987; Chermak, 1995). However, studies of crime
dramas, reality television and general programming find that the majority of offenders are men
over the age of 30 (Gerbner et al., 1977; Cavendar, 1993).
Sympathetic Roles
Though Black males are most often the victims of violent crime (UCR, 2000), this has
not been found in television portrayals, where Whites are more likely to be shown as the victims
of crime - especially violent crime (Chiricos & Eschholz, 2002; Romer, et al., 1998; Gerbner,
1977). In reality television, Cavender (1993) found that approximately one-half of the victims
portrayed were females; the least likely group to become victims of violent crime as measured by
official statistics (UCR, 2000). Chiricos & Eschholz (2002) found that White criminals and
victims appeared in television news at about the same rate, but non-White victims were shown
about one-quarter as often as non-White suspects. Other studies have also shown that Blacks
appear 40% to 50% more often as suspects than victims (Chermak, 1995; Klite, et al, 1997;
Romer, et al, 1998) whereas Whites are 1.5 to 2.5 times more likely to be shown as victims than
offenders (Entman & Rojecki, 2000; Klite, et al, 1997).
Several studies show that Whites are much more likely to be shown as police and other
non-criminal roles than non-Whites (Entman & Rojecki, 2000; Klite, et al., 1997). Chiricos &
Eschholz (2002) found that Blacks had a 3.3 times greater likelihood and Hispanics a 15.5 times
greater likelihood of being shown as suspects than police officers than their White counterparts.
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JCJPC 10 (3), 2003-2004
Studies by Dixon and Linz (2000) and Klite, et al. (1997) also find that Blacks are more
frequently shown as suspects/offenders than as law enforcement officials.
Civil Rights Violations and “Control talk”
Violations of civil rights on crime drama programming have rarely been examined.
These portrayals may lead viewers to distrust police officers and other legal officials, or,
conversely, to support a system that routinely violates civil rights in the name of catching the
“bad guys”. “NYPD Blue” and “Law & Order” both claim to emulate real life. In doing so, they
encourage viewers to believe that the treatment of civilians in these shows is a reflection of
justice departments in real life, including the level of respect legal officials afford to civil rights.
The term Civil Rights relates to government’s role in protecting citizens’ rights to
freedom, justice and equality, regardless of personal or physical characteristics (Goldman, 1991).
Law enforcement officers and other criminal justice officials have the responsibility of upholding
the civil rights of civilians. These rights are enumerated in the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth
Amendments, and specifically include: the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure,
the right to due process of the law, the right to council, and the right to be free from cruel and
unusual punishment.
U.S. crime policy today operates under the “crime control model”, which posits crime is
a considerable threat to the American social order and must be dealt with in a punitive manner,
even if that involves restricting civil rights. A critical ideological component of the “crime
control model” is “control talk”. “Control talk” is a form of political language that is used to
discuss the crime problem and what should be done to solve it (Cavender & Fishman, 1998).
“Control talk” seeks to make the criminals appear “different” from the rest of society. It seeks to
portray an “us against them” model of crime in society (Cavender & Fishman, 1998). “Control
talk” works to portray our society as separated into good citizens and bad criminals.
Previous research has identified the distorted crime picture that television media often
delivers. Many content analyses have revealed both quantitative and qualitative differences in
the way race is portrayed in the televised criminal justice system. The combined research
suggests a picture that although Whites are portrayed more frequently in raw numbers as
offenders, the relative proportion of offenders to victims or police officers is much higher for
minorities (African American and Hispanics) than for Whites. Prior research focused almost
exclusively on news or reality programming, while ignoring the crime drama genre. Also
lacking in prior research is an examination of the investigative and adjudication process, weapon
use, law enforcement's use of civil right violating behavior and “control talk”. The present study
explores the issues raised in prior research while introducing these new, more qualitative
questions regarding the mechanics of television's criminal justice system.
METHODOLOGY
The entire 2001 seasons of “NYPD Blue” and “Law & Order” were taped for subsequent
coding. The sample included a total of 44 one-hour episodes, with 20 from ABC’s “NYPD
Blue” and 24 from NBC’s “Law & Order”. Though there are fewer “NYPD Blue” episodes, the
entire season of both shows is represented.
Images of prime time justice /
167
Five coders analyzed shows using both individual characters and crimes as the units of
analysis. Altogether, every show included in the analysis was coded by at least two coders to
provide the basis for inter-rater reliability. Training for the coders consisted of two, one-hour
training sessions in which the coders were instructed on the use of the coding categories and
operational definitions. The coders then scored sample episodes with follow-up discussion of the
results. The shows for coders to score were selected by coin toss and all coding was performed in
solitude, with the coders encouraged to watch each episode in its entirety to become familiar
with the overall plot and record certain qualitative data before proceeding to a second viewing
and the more detailed quantitative features of the instrument. There were three Black female
coders, one White female coder and one White male coder.
Characters with speaking parts, or characters who did not speak because of their
victimization, were coded one time per episode into the following categories: violent offender
(including criminal homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault and simple assault), nonviolent offender,[2] violent suspect, non-violent suspect, police, defense attorney, prosecuting
attorney, other criminal justice officials (including police ranks of lieutenant and above, medical
examiners, crime scene and forensic technicians, police administrative assistants, court and
prison officials, judges, fire marshals, and all other non-police officer criminal justice
employees), witness (including anyone who is a direct witness to the crime or anyone who is
questioned by a CJ official for the purpose of obtaining information to solve the crime), expert
witness (including anyone paid, whether for prosecution or defense, to offer evidence and/or
testimony in court), rat/junkie/informant (including anyone involved in the criminal subculture or
with a prior record that is sought out by police for information or individuals who exchange
information for leniency), victim of violent crime, victim of property crime, family of victim,
family of offender and general public. Each category was sub-divided by race and gender (based
on physical appearance, accent, cultural context and supported by last name when available).
Average inter-rater reliability for these categories was a = .85.
A separate instrument focused on individual crime stories on the programs as the unit of
analysis. For example, an episode of “NYPD Blue” that covered a homicide, a robbery, and a
domestic violence case would have three individual crime stories. Data were collected
including: crime type (utilizing the classifications defined by the FBI Uniform Crime Report),
type of weapon used, civil rights violations committed while apprehending/processing the
offender(s), number of offenders/suspects (and whether arrested, or convicted), “control talk”,
language that is used to classify the suspects or offenders as different or bad (ex: “No good lousy
dope slinger”) and officers and civilians as good, race, gender of suspects/offenders, victims and
if suspects/offenders were shown in handcuffs.
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
Throughout the analysis we show comparison data from the United States or New
York City when comparable statistics were available. Table 1 explores the racial composition of
all characters, offenders, victims and CJ personnel. Generally speaking, what characterizes this
table is not that African Americans are over-represented as offenders. It is that Whites are
168
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JCJPC 10 (3), 2003-2004
significantly over-represented in all categories compared to New York City data (this trend is
more pronounced on “Law & Order” than on “NYPD Blue”).
Table 1: Racial Composition of Characters on “NYPD Blue” and “Law & Order”
“NYPD Blue” (N=478)
“Law & Order” (N=843)
Roles
Black
White
Other
Black
White Other
__________________________________________________________________
All Characters
26% 65%
9%
18%
75%
7%
NYC Census
26% 45%
29%
26%
45%
29%
Offender/Suspect
Violent Off./Sus.
Handcuffed
NYC Data*
38%
43%
14%
51%
50%
46%
79%
13%
11%
10%
7%
33%
16%
14%
19%
51%
65%
75%
71%
13%
1%
1%
10%
33%
Victim
NYC Data*
19%
41%
50%
19%
30%
40%
3%
41%
76%
19%
66%
40%
CJ Personnel
LE Officers
Attornies
25%
19%
78%
69%
78%
23%
5%
3%
0%
20%
18%
6%
78%
81%
94%
2%
2%
0%
* New York City Police Department citywide stop and frisk data for victim
identified violent crime.
Note: Bold numbers indicate significant chi-square tests (p < .05) for the difference
between New York data and TV data.
White lead characters on “NYPD Blue” include Detectives Sipowicz (Dennis Franz), Sorenson
(Rick Schroder), Kirkendall (Andrea Thompson) and Russell (Kim Delaney). “Law & Order’s”
detective Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), and Assistant District Attorneys McCoy (Sam Waterston) and
Carmichael (Angie Harmon) are White.
Likewise, Hispanic and other races are under-represented in all categories. This disparity
is most exaggerated in terms of criminal justice personnel, where the “other” category makes up
only five percent of criminal justice personnel on “NYPD Blue” and a mere two percent on “Law
& Order.” In terms of offenders, the category most focused on in past media studies concerning
race and minorities, including African Americans and “others”, are under-represented compared
to NYC arrest data.
Table 2 breaks down character roles within racial categories because it is possible that,
even if African Americans are not shown in greater numbers as offenders, they will be shown
predominantly as offenders when they are shown. On both "NYPD Blue" and "Law & Order,"
African Americans and "others" have a statistically significant higher ratio than Whites of being
portrayed as offenders to other character roles in six and seven (respectively) out of the ten
comparisons. On "NYPD Blue," African Americans have a higher ratio of being portrayed as an
Images of prime time justice /
169
offender than a victim, CJ personnel, police or attorney, than their White counterparts. On "Law
& Order," African Americans have a higher ratio of handcuffed offender to offender (with
handcuffed offenders appearing more dangerous) offender to victim, and offender to attorney
than their White counterparts. In four of these cases for Blacks and seven of these cases for
Hispanics, minorities are at least twice as likely to be shown as offenders than in other roles than
their White counterparts. Neither program showed a single Hispanic attorney with a speaking
role during their 2000 seasons.
Table 2: Ratio of Offenders to Positive or Sympathetic Roles on “NYPD Blue” and “Law &
Order” within Racial Categories
Roles
Off HC/Off. No HC
“NYPD Blue” (N=478)
Black
White
Other
.3
.3
.3
“Law & Order” (N=843)
Black
White
Other
.7
.4
100*
Off./Victim
4.3
2.2
.8
15
3.1
1.8
.5
.2
1.8
.2
.2
1.4
1.0
.4
1.8
1.4
1.4
Off./CJ Personnel
Off./Police
11
Off./Attorney
1.8
7.8
100*
2.5
.7
100*
* unable to compute ratio because denominator is 0
Note: Bold numbers indicate significant t-test (p= <.05) for the difference between White
category and Black or other category.
“NYPD Blue” focuses on policing, but the one attorney who is regularly shown is an
African American female. This may explain why, for “NYPD Blue,” Whites have a much higher
offender to attorney ratio than African Americans. Similarly, on “Law & Order,” which focuses
on attorneys rather than police officers, the offender to police ratio is equal for Whites and
Blacks. This finding leads one to believe that positive minority roles on crime drama television
are often minor ones.
For example, on NYPD, Lieutenant Fancy (James McDaniel), an African American male,
and his replacement Lieutenant Rodriguez (Esai Morales), a Hispanic male, are shown in
leadership positions. However, their roles are minor, and unlike many of the White characters,
little information about their personal lives are ever revealed. Similarly in “Law & Order,”
Lieutenant Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson) may be in charge down at the precinct, but her
screen time is minimal and the humanity of her character is underdeveloped, compared to her
White co-stars. The one exception to this pattern is detective Green on “Law & Order,” played
by Jesse Martin. Martin’s character has both depth and screen time.
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JCJPC 10 (3), 2003-2004
Table 3: Sex Composition of Characters on “NYPD Blue” and “Law & Order”
“NYPD Blue” (N=478)
“Law & Order” (N=843)
Roles
Female
Male
Female
Male
__________________________________________________________________
All Characters
28%
72%
35%
65%
NYC Census
52%
48%
52%
48%
Offender/Suspect
Violent Off./Sus.
UCR Data*
6%
5%
22%
94%
95%
78%
17%
15%
22%
83%
85%
78%
Victim
NCVS Data
UCR Homicide
33%
43%
24%
67%
57%
76%
41%
43%
24%
59%
57%
76%
CJ Personnel
LE Officers
Attornies
21%
20%
78%
79%
80%
23%
34%
11%
33%
64%
89%
64%
* New York City Police Department citywide stop and frisk data for victim
identified violent crime.
Note: Bold numbers indicate significant chi-square tests (p < .05) for the difference
between New York data and TV data.
Table 3 shows that for both “NYPD Blue” (72%) and “Law & Order” (65%) the
overwhelming majority of all characters all male. This disparity is not found in New York City
where Census data for 2000 estimated that females make up over half of the New York City
population. The disparity is largest when looking at offenders, which is logical, given that both
UCR and NCVS report significantly more male offenders than female offenders, but the
television gender gap is larger than the real life gender gap. Although the differences between
TV victims and NCVS and UCR victim counts are statistically significant, victimization
percentages for both programs fall right between UCR and NCVS reports, and therefore may
approximate a realistic portrayal of the gender gap in victimization. Generally speaking,
approximately 75% of all CJ personnel shown on the crime drama programs were males. The
one exception was that on “NYPD Blue,” more female attorneys were shown than male
attorneys. As noted above, attorneys play a very minor role on this program.
The findings from Table 4 reiterate the conclusion that males are shown significantly
more frequently in all roles, but especially as offenders. When females are shown in crime
drama programs they are more likely to be shown in positive and sympathetic roles, such as
victim or CJ personnel including police officers and lawyers, than as offenders, compared to
their male counterparts. The one exception is on “Law & Order,” where women are more likely
to be offenders than police officers and this ratio (2.3) is higher than it is for men (1.4).
Images of prime time justice /
171
Table 4: Ratio of Offenders to Positive or Sympathetic Roles on “NYPD Blue” and “Law &
Order” by Sex
Roles
“NYPD Blue” (N=478)
Female
Male
“Law & Order” (N=843)
Female
Male
Off./Victim
.4
3.0
1.3
4.7
Off./CJ Personnel
.2
.4
.1
.3
Off./Police
.2
.5
2.3
1.4
Off./Attorney
.29
14.6
.3
1.2
Note: Bold numbers indicate significant t-test (p= <.05) for the difference between White category and Black or
other category.
In addition to exploring the race and gender characteristics of characters in crime drama
programs, this analysis also explored variables such as the types of crimes shown, the types of
weapons used, civil rights violations and “control talk.” Table 5 shows the types of crime on
“NYPD Blue” and “Law & Order,” compared to Uniform Crime Reports. Both “NYPD Blue”
(79%) and “Law & Order” (92%) tremendously exaggerate both the number and the relative
proportion of homicides in New York City (.22%), compared to actual crime report data. This is
consistent with past studies of the media that report that the media (both print and television),
whether it be the news, reality programs, or drama programming, all greatly exaggerate the
number of violent crimes, particularly murder in their presentations (Surrette, 1998; Chermak,
1995).
Table 5: Index Crimes Shown on Crime Drama and Crime Reported to the Police in New York
City
Offense
“NYPD Blue”
“Law & Order”
UCR
Homicide
79%
92%
0.22%
Forcible rape
3%
0%
0.57%
Robbery
3%
0%
12%
Agg. Assault
9%
0%
14%
Simple assault
3%
0%
0%
Drug abuse violation
3%
0%
0%
Motor vehicle theft
0%
0%
13%
Other
0%
8%
60%
100%
100%
100%
Note: Bold numbers indicate significant chi-square tests (p < .05) for the difference between
New York data and TV data.
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JCJPC 10 (3), 2003-2004
Uniform Crime Reports show that 66% of all murders are committed with a firearm.
Both “NYPD Blue” (50%) and “Law & Order” (46%) under-represent the percentage of
homicides committed with a firearm. Alternatively, knives and cutting instruments are overrepresented on “NYPD Blue” (21% compared to UCR’s 13%), blunt objects are overrepresented on “Law & Order” (17% compared to UCR’s 5%) and personal weapons (hands,
feet, etc.) are disproportionately shown on both “NYPD Blue” (23%) and “Law & Order” (17%)
compared to UCR (7%). For example, on “Law & Order,” murder weapons included a cement
block, a ratchet, fists and feet, knives and guns.
While these crime drama programs depict New York as more violent than it actually is,
they also depict police officers and prosecuting attorneys as more efficient and effective than
they are in reality. In terms of clearance rates, the cops on “NYPD Blue” and the lawyers on
“Law & Order” fair much better than their real life counterparts. The typical program for both
“Law & Order” and “NYPD Blue” starts with the discovery or report of a crime. The focus of
both programs is on the investigation of the crime. “NYPD Blue” normally concludes with the
arrest of the “bad guy”, and “Law & Order” usually ends with a criminal conviction in court
accompanied by a long incarceration sentence. Using the 1999 Uniform Crime Reports, crimes
known to police and arrest data, the average clearance rate for violent crimes is 29% [3].
“NYPD Blue” had a phenomenal 78% arrest rate, and “Law & Order” had a 61% conviction rate.
In addition to high arrest and conviction rates, civil rights violations are often used to
obtain evidence and confessions. Table 6 shows the number of civil rights violations shown on
each program throughout the season.
Table 6: Civil Rights Violations Shown on Crime Drama Programs
Violation
No Miranda warning
Physical abuse
Forced confessions
Promises of leniency
Total
“NYPD Blue”
24
17
2
21
64
“Law & Order”
15
1
2
NA
18
“NYPD Blue” showed an average of 2.7 civil rights violations per episode of the
program. These violations were relatively evenly distributed among no Miranda warnings,
physical abuse, and promises of leniency. “Law & Order” showed an average of .9 civil rights
violations per episode, which were predominantly the lack of Miranda warnings at the time of
arrest. These violations were alarming considering that the program focuses on the court system,
whose job it is to ensure due process. While the legal and moral implications of a few of the
violations were addressed on the programs, the vast majority were not even brought up in
discussion or proceedings in the course of the program.
Physical brutality was especially prevalent on “NYPD Blue.” Officers frequently shoved
suspects, and in some cases witnesses and informants, into walls and onto police cruisers, and
punched or kicked suspects in the course of an arrest. In one instance, the detectives grabbed a
Images of prime time justice /
173
suspect by the back of the neck and forced his head into a car trunk that contained the
decomposing remains of a victim. Another example involved a forced confession where a
detective dunked and held a suspect’s head underwater. The casual use of civil rights violations
with no repercussions may prime viewers to believe that this is how policing is and “should” be
done, and that these behaviors and tactics are justified if they result in the “bad guys’” capture
and punishment.
Insulting language, one form of “control talk,” was prevalent in both of these programs.
The “us” against “them” mentality pervading the programs often depicted the criminals as less
than human, where any means necessary was appropriate for the their capture. On “NYPD
Blue,” the terms “asshole,” “dickhead,” “deadbeat scumbag,” “jerk,” “skank,” and “idiot” were
all synonymous with suspect. Similarly, on “Law & Order,” defendants were referred to as “dirt
bags,” “low lives,” “riff-raffs,” “bitches,” “bastards,” “thugs,” “faggots,” and “freaks.” An
“NYPD Blue” detective once told a suspect during interrogation: “the fact is we don’t want you
to talk, you might express remorse and we want you to go into trial a picture of evil. I ought to
beat you the way you beat that girl.”
Another common occurrence, especially on “NYPD Blue” was the use of derogatory
terms to describe someone’s race or ethnicity, therefore symbolically connecting race and crime.
Additionally, these programs, with their focus on arrests and convictions resulting in prison
terms for violent crimes, imply that incarceration is the only way to deal with these offenders.
Treatment, probation and parole are rarely addressed as options, and their occasional mention is
usually in a negative light.
What was not as prevalent was the other side of “control talk” that focuses on the
“goodness” of criminal justice personnel as the protectors of society. Although this was not
verbally stated, law enforcement officers and lawyers often implied that they were the good guys
who were protecting society from evil, and the very format of these programs transmitted this
same message.
CONCLUSION
In 1976, Gerbner and Gross argued that the images that viewers see on television are
important to viewers’ perceptions of the world.
Casting the symbolic world thus has a meaning of its own: the lion’s share of
representation goes to the types that dominate the social order. About three-quarters of
all leading characters are male, American, middle- and upper-class and in the prime of
life (183).
It appears that times have not changed. The world of television is still predominantly male and
predominantly White.
A closer examination of the types of roles that individuals of different races and sexes are
cast in reveals that minorities are disproportionately more likely to be cast as offenders than their
White counterparts. This is especially true on “Law & Order,” where African Americans
offenders are 1.75 times as likely to be shown in handcuffs than White offenders, almost 5 times
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JCJPC 10 (3), 2003-2004
as likely to be shown as an offender than a victim, and 3.57 times as likely to be shown as an
offender than an attorney.
Female representation does not suffer the negative image associated with being
stereotyped as offenders that minorities do, and, unlike a past study of the news (Chiricos, et al.,
1997), women were not stereotyped as victims on these crime drama programs. Female
representation is equally deficient in all categories of characters on “NYPD Blue” and “Law &
Order,” but this is especially true of “NYPD Blue” where almost three-quarters of all the
characters are male.
Crime dramas also dramatically misrepresent the crime statistics in New York City and
the United States. Almost all of the crimes shown on these programs are murders, whereas
murder is one of the least frequently occurring crimes in the United States. The emphasis these
programs place on murder and violent crime is coupled with regular civil rights violations and
the use of “control talk” to further the ideology of the crime control model. The model
emphasizes the need to get tough on criminals and to unshackle police and the legal restrictions
that are currently placed on them so they can do their jobs (Cavendar, 1993). The abnormally
high clearance rates on both of these programs may also lead viewers to have more confidence in
the police and to see police officers as the solution to the crime problem (Doyle, 1998; Sparks,
1995; Eschholz, Blackwell, Gertz & Chiricos, 2002).
The combination of the crime control model and the criminal typification of minorities
(the relative appearance of minority offender characters compared to White characters) may
reinforce the perception that minorities pose a “social threat” to the White majority (Blalock,
1967; Chiricos & Eschholz, 2002) and that the only way to deal with this threat is by giving the
police more power and punitive policies, such as three strikes laws, mandatory minimum
sentences and the abolition of parole.
ENDNOTES
* The authors would like to thank Benjamin Karably and Brandon Meade for their assistance in
developing the idea for this project, and Jaclyn Flynn, Keywanna Hall, Nekeidra Middleton,
Tammy Jacobs, Jennifer Dezouche and Mark Price for their assistance coding the programs.
[1] We also recognize the possibility that some viewers will negotiate meaning with the text that
is not consistent with the dominant message (Caraggee, 1990). For instance some viewers
watching crime drama programs may identify more with the injustice of the civil rights
violations used by officers to fight crime, rather than the dominant message that justice prevails
in the end.
[2] Non-violent crime includes burglary-breaking or entering, larceny theft, motor vehicle theft,
arson; -forgery and counterfeiting; fraud, embezzlement; - stolen property-buying, receiving,
possessing; - vandalism, weapons-carrying, possessing; - prostitution and commercialized vice,
sex offenses (except forcible rape), drug abuse violations, gambling, offenses against the family
and children, driving under the influence, liquor laws, drunkenness, disorderly conduct,
vagrancy, suspicion, curfew and loitering laws, runaways, other.
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175
[3] UCR Violent Crimes are used as a comparison number due to the fact that the overwhelming
majority of all crimes shown on both “NYPD Blue” and “Law & Order” are violent in nature.
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PRISON WITHIN A PRISON:
A BURKEAN ANALYSIS OF THE SING SING STAGE PRODUCTION OF "SLAM"
By
Lorraine Moller, Ph.D.*
ABSTRACT
This essay is an analysis of a stage adaptation of “Slam” directed at the Sing Sing
Correctional Facility in which forty inmates participated as actors, poets, stagehands and
production crew. The first half of the essay applies Kenneth Burke’s cycle of rebirth to the play
“Slam”, tracing the journey of the central character from his incarceration as a drug dealer to his
transformation as prophet through the redemptive quality of performance poetry.
The second half of the essay examines the impact of the production on the inmate cast
and crew as they experience, through rehearsal and performance, the redemptive quality of
theater, by applying the Burkean cycle to the creative process of the prisoners involved in
performing the play for fellow inmates and invited guests. In the case of “Slam,” the
identification between audience and performer and actor and role, and the reflexivity between the
characters’ redemptive experience of poetry within the play and the actors’ cathartic experience
of the theatrical performance, delivered an impact that was cathartic to the performers and
civilian audience alike.
INTRODUCTION
In November, 2002, Sing Sing Correctional Facility, a 175-year old maximum-security
prison for men, became the venue for the first stage production of the rap/drama "Slam." Three
performances by the inmate cast of 45 played to an audience of 1,500 incarcerated men, in total.
On the fourth night of performance, "Slam" was presented to an audience of 200 civilians and
100 honor block inmates. After the 1-hour and 45-minute performance, the audience validated
the players' success with vigorous applause and a standing ovation in an unprecedented moment
of triumph for the inmates.
"Slam" dramatizes the journey of a young African-American male's ascension from
victim of circumstance to master of his own destiny through "slamming." The play traces the
journey of Raymond Joshua, a small time drug dealer struggling to survive, from the inner city to
the D.C. Jail, through his growth as a poet to the role of prophet and redeemer.
Utilizing Kenneth Burke's "cycle of rebirth", which consists of the stages of guilt,
purification and redemption, I will analyze the play as performed by the Sing Sing prison theater
group, Rehabilitation Through The Arts (RTA). In my analysis, I focus on the extraordinary
power of reflexivity for the rhetor and audience alike as reflected in the performance of "Slam,”
a prison play about the injustice of the criminal justice system presented by inmates in a
 2004 School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany
Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 10 (3) 181-198.
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maximum-security prison. Like the characters in the play that experienced the redemptive
quality of poetry, the prisoners involved in the production reaffirmed the redemptive quality of
theater through their enactment of the story.
I will also apply the cycle of rebirth to the inmates' production process, thereby
examining these themes: the state of incarceration as a site of guilt and pollution; challenges for
the inmate involved in the production process as purification; and the act of performance as
redemption. The simultaneity of the characters' redemption, the actors’ therapeutic processes
and the audience's identification with the actors both in and out of role, resulted in a cathartic
theatrical experience for all present.
Kenneth Burke's Cycle of Rebirth
Burke's concept of hierarchy is integral to this analysis. In his seminal work, On
Symbols and Society, he explains, "It is the fact of authority (hierarchy) that is the source of
order and rejection in society" (1989, p. 33). Differences of class, culture and division of labor
exist in a hierarchal order, and one's placement on the ladder distinguishes privilege from
deprivation, the powerful from the powerless. According to Burke, humans are compelled by the
pressures of hierarchy to move upward and, failing to understand or accept the "rules" that
maintain the laddered society in which they live, may fall into a state of guilt and rejection. In
this analysis, I will interpret this state of guilt and rejection as social deviance or crime.
Hierarchies set in motion a drive to get to the top and to avoid the dreaded threat of
descending and losing one's status, two tensions that perpetuate a structured society. Prejudice-racial, cultural, religious or economic--is a common by-product of an institutionalized hierarchy,
resulting in oppression or punishment of a small minority at the bottom. In some cases,
individuals at the bottom are held back by their own community, who perceive upward mobility
as an act of betrayal or selling out (p. 201).
Rituals, dramatic enactments and other media generate symbols in which hierarchy is
represented and guilt is symbolically atoned for, enabling society to feel secure that the deviant
has been appropriately condemned and punished. It has often been said that the function of the
criminal justice system is to institutionalize the guilty so society can be assured that an
appropriate sacrifice has been made. The prison system, an aspect of the criminal justice system,
is a microcosm of society. It is a hierarchy unto itself, from the administration at the top,
symbolizing authority with its concern for containment and rules, to the child molester at the
bottom symbolizing to many within the system the most socially depraved of inmates.
Kenneth Burke identifies the stages through which guilt is symbolically transformed.
Burke's cycle of rebirth, a secular version of the journey of the self from Hell, through Purgatory,
to Heaven, consists of three stages: pollution, purification and redemption (1989, pp. 294-302).
In the first stage, the conception of rules implies its opposite, the failure to observe them
perfectly, and so, as part of the human experience, the individual experiences the initial stage of
guilt or sin (p. 69).
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In the second stage, Burke contends that, in order to cleanse the sinner from the guilt suffered by
deviant behavior, the human struggles to achieve a better place on the ladder by purifying
himself through mortification, whether legalistic or self-inflicted punishment. Or, as an
alternative, the sinner dispels the negatively charged tension through scapegoating, a process of
battling an external enemy instead of battling the enemy within (p. 73).
In the final stage, the self undergoes a metamorphosis through which a new identity
emerges. This can only occur if a total transformation takes place, with death to the former self
and symbolic re-identification. The stage of redemption completes the cycle (p. 295).
The Program: Rehabilitation through the Arts
Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) produces theater projects for and by the inmates
at Sing Sing. RTA started with nothing but the passion, discipline and raw talent of the inmates
and a small team of volunteer theater professionals. With the explosion of the prison population,
the withdrawal of state and federal money to finance amenities and programs, the public’s
punitive attitude toward incarceration, and in recognition of the enormous talent that languishes
behind the walls and the limited opportunity for the inmates’ creative voices to be heard, RTA
developed.
As educational theatre, RTA has a three-pronged mission: to nurture the creativity of the
individual, to send positive messages to the prison population, and to raise awareness of the
humanity behind the walls. That RTA is not a therapy program, per se, is one of its great
advantages. Prisoners acquire a resistance to efforts to “civilize” or “pacify” them, so a program
that fosters individuality, talent, personal growth and social responsibility is an indirect and
rewarding method of rehabilitation. RTA meetings are run by a steering committee of inmates.
Rehearsals suggest a positive environment characterized by openness, discussion, vitality and
interdependence. As opposed to rigidity and conflict, the environment that surrounds RTA is
built on flexibility, negotiation, and frequent displays of emotion and support in the form of hugs
and spontaneous laughter. One inmate, describing a dance rehearsal for “Slam,” suggested that
the program creates a “safe haven.” In his journal he shares these insights:
I saw some men socializing in a peaceful and respectful manner with the
civilian members. I was dancing and paused in mid-move because I almost
forgot I am dead smack in the middle of a maximum-security prison.
(Participant C)
RTA mounts two productions per year and offers satellite courses in playwriting and
performance year round. Original and established plays are performed for the inmate population
as full-scale productions complete with costumes, lighting, and set, with roughly 400 inmates in
attendance at each performance. A production cycle runs approximately three months, including
time for script development, rehearsal and performance. Improvisations and theatre games are
used in the rehearsal process as warm-ups or to help actors develop concentration, spontaneity
and develop characterization. Inmates experience the casting process and often learn more than
one role, filling in for other actors who are absent due to outsider visitations, other programs,
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trips to the commissary or time in keeplock.1 Rehearsals are held regularly two times per week
after the inmates’ workday and four to five times immediately prior to opening.
In addition, the program seeks to sustain a unique sub-culture of artists, writers and actors
that are hungry to channel their creativity into a collaborative project. As the membership body,
now consisting of approximately forty-five men, becomes more experienced with mounting
productions, the inmates co-direct, stage manage, run lights and sound, help prepare packets for
call-outs, locate "inside props" and equipment, do internal publicity and expedite the
construction of set pieces. The Vocational Program builds the sets out of scrap wood and surplus
construction material from the department. Performances are held on the stage in the auditorium,
which has permanent seating for 500 men and is used for screening movies or holding events cosponsored by inmate groups.
Performance Poetry
The title of the prison play "Slam" is a double entendre. First, "slam" is the root of the
slang word for prison, "slammer"; second, a slam is a contest of rap, hip-hop or poetry written
for oral presentation. Intrinsic to the form and content of the play is a genre of poetry popularized
by the explosion of rap as part of mainstream pop culture, identified as performance poetry.
Some regard slam poetry as growing out of an Afrocentric oral tradition that has opened poetry
to a new generation. In his essay on black poetry, Kalamu ya Salaam (2002) identifies three
characteristics that distinguish performance poetry from the traditional literary variety. First, it
stresses the vernacular and includes the work of those who may have been excluded from higher
education and the study of text-based poetry. Second, the form utilizes a strong performance
orientation that moves the audience to be passionately involved with the poet’s words and ideas.
Third, because it is written for immediate consumption and sometimes presented in the context
of a contest judged by a non-literary audience, its success is determined by popular appeal rather
than literary quality. In the words of literary activist Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, "it [performance
poetry] has provided a forum for those who have no home in the ivory towers of academia and
an alternate outlet for those that do." In this way, "slamming" is a powerful art form for those
who see themselves as anti-establishment or for minorities who have been denied access to
formal education.
Burke (1989) states that "when we use symbols for things, such symbols are not merely
reflections of things symbolized or signs for them; they are to a degree a transcending of the
things symbolized" (p. 200). The distinguishing feature of humans is that we use "words about
words." When the character Ray Joshua prevents a violent clash in the prison yard between two
rival gangs, with a stunning outburst of poetry on the destructive dimension of black masculinity,
he transcends the role of criminal or "thug" and becomes Ray Joshua the prophet, like the
Biblical Joshua who led his people out of bondage. His use of poetry as a weapon of nonviolence is the ultimate example of the human species’ potential for advanced moral
development. In "Slam," the powerful influence of poetry on Ray and others--the fact that
original rap/poetry in the play expresses the oppression of blacks in a criminal justice system
gone awry and is presented by prisoners who are victims of that oppression--takes the rhetorical
experience beyond connotative resonance to a reflexivity that is moving and empowering.
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PART I: THE BURKEAN CYCLE AND THE STORY OF "SLAM"
Pollution, the Ghetto and the D.C. Jail
The play "Slam" is set against the social backdrop of massive incarceration of blacks in
America. To use a Burkean term it is a site of systemic pollution. By the end of the twentieth
century, nearly two million Americans were living behind bars, over one-half million more than
in China with its vast population (Butterfield, 2003, p.A12). According to the State of New York
Department of Corrections, statistics reveal the shocking reality of the disproportionate number
of people of color (84%) trapped in the system by the year 2002.
Figure 1: Breakdance from Slam. © 2004 Richard Moller
The film is set in the Southeast section of Washington D. C., an urban ghetto in the
shadow of the seat of the American government, the country's seat of democracy and justice. The
Capital epitomizes the top of the laddered structure of political power, and the Southeast section
the lowest rung. In the film, the ghetto is a metaphor for The American Dream gone sour, one
which suffers the symptoms of urban blight: inadequate housing, economic instability, substandard schools, gangs and crime. The parallel between the ghetto and prison as a site of
pollution is explicit: dehumanization and violence pervades; hierarchy rules; and powerlessness
prevents escape. The "hood" is alive with illicit activity, or in Burke's cycle, sin: a customer
buys drugs; a gang shoots a game of craps; an alcoholic attempts to thieve some cash; a hooker
on the street solicits business. Ray offers a ray of hope as he mentors a few teens that ask, "You
got a rhyme or somthin?"2 Shortly after, the gang leader, Big Mike asks Ray for a poem for his
girl; "I got this new chick, right. I want you to give me …some slick shit to say to her, you know
what I'm saying?" Ray composes some verse for Mike. His poetry is used in the service of
womanizing, to give Mike the power to score with his girl. "You massage the universe's spine.
The way you twirl through time and leave shadows on the sun.” Before the night is over, Ray
buys some marijuana from Big Mike. During the transaction, Big Mike is shot, the victim of a
gang motivated shooting, and left in a pool of blood as Ray attempts to escape arrest.
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After Ray is apprehended, he resorts to verse as he sits in the holding pen, awaiting
processing at the jail; he uses poetry to dispel fear and make order of the chaotic world that
surrounds him. "Thinking of a master plan. It ain't nothing but sweat inside my hands." We
follow Ray as he goes through the de-humanizing experience of being given his greens and his
number by a black, middle-aged corrections officer named Lucas who lectures Ray about the
disproportionate number of incarcerated black males:
Do you understand where you are? Your number is going to be given to you. It's a
sequential number, son. It's your number, now, 276,000. You know what that number
represents, son? . . . We have less than 500,000 people in the District of Columbia, son.
And 70% of them are black . . .Now how the devil have we got only 75-80,000 back adult
males like yourself and this number is 276,000. . . DO THE MATH, son. Do the Math.
Figure 2: Ray's mug shot. © 2004 Richard Moller
The lawyer assigned to his case tells him his limited options: cooperate, do mandatory
time, or plead guilty and get a sentence of 2-3 years. After he is processed and locked in his cell,
stung by his bleak options, he joins in a rap with a black youth in the neighboring cell, using his
poetry to overcome the literal walls between them.
If you ain't ready for this fruit then put it back on the tree . . . Never been here and never
planned to be. But my own plans had plans for me. And now that man had plans, so I
jetted and ran. The mic cord pulled me back. I shoulda dropped it from my hand . . . at
the scene of the rhyme. Now we're all serving time.
Inside the prison, rumors run rampant about Ray's setting up Big Mike so he is harassed and
finally beaten by members of one of the gangs. Apprehended, given his sentence, reprimanded
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by a black corrections officer for his denigrating act against his race, and beaten by gang
members, Ray is the embodiment of guilt.
Purification
Hopha, the leader of the rival gang, believes Ray is innocent and tries to recruit him, but
Ray rejects the gang scene and retreats into his poetry. If Ray has shared in the hierarchy before,
aspiring upward by identifying with Big Mike in the purification stage, the old world view now
shifts out of focus as he retreats into his poetry in search of himself.
Figure 3: Rapper. © 2004 Richard Moller
Obscenities and reference to fecal matter are part of the persuasive language of the prison
world rife with animalism and brute violence.
HOPHA: Ain't no way out of this man! If you move into the record--if you move into shit
with us, man you taking the game with you. It's all in sync, man.
RAY: I ain't trying to be part of the whole game, gang bullshit. I'm trying to write – I
need a pen and some paper. A pen and some paperHOPHA: Listen. . . you in jail, man. Bottom line. You down with us. There ain't no
coming out of this shit. This shit's the same shit on the fucking street. The beef ain't
gonna stop for you. You gonna stop this beef? You can't stop it.
RAY: I'm trying to think straight man. I need a pen and a pad.
In the climactic scene in the yard, tension between the rival gangs builds to a crescendo
as they prepare to fight. Hierarchy is in place as gang leaders psyche up their crew and the
guards look on from their watch post. Members of the rival gang pump iron, smoke pot and
exchange insults across the yard with the opposition. Defectors are treated with scorn for their
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lack of blind allegiance. The gangs provoke one another and Ray is defenseless in the midst of
them. Just as they are ready to converge, Ray breaks out into poetry, stopping the conflict and
leaving the two gangs stupefied. He begins with a representation of a street corner society:
I stand on the corner of the block, slinging amethyst rocks, drinking 40's of Mother
Earth's private nectar stock, dodging cops . . . and I need a fix of that purple rain, the
type . . . that drives my membranes insane.
He speaks with sarcasm about the slick way his black brothers conduct business in the street:
Oh yeah, I'm in the fast lane snorting . . . candy yams that free my body and soul and
send me like Shazam! . . . Yeah, I'm Sirius B. Dogon niggas plottin shit, lovely.
With a note of irony, he warns them that there is a conspiracy against the black male formulated
to maintain the existing power structure.
But the Feds are also plottin’ me. They're tryin' to imprison my astrology. To put my
stars behind bars. My stars in stripes. Using blood-spattered banners as nationalist
kites . . . Stealing us was the smartest thing they ever did. Too bad they don't teach the
truth to their kids.
He attributes society's scorn to the black community's proclivity to violence and crime:
So what are you bound to live, nigga, so while your're out there serving your time…I'll be
in sync with the moon while you run from the sun, life of the womb reflected by guns . . .
we are public enemies number one. One, one, one! ONE. ONE. ONE.
Figure 4: Hopha and Ray. © 2004 Richard Moller
The armor of poetry protects Ray from assault in the yard, not because it is an oddity, but
because Ray Joshua, like Joshua of the Bible, is calling his people out of captivity, out of the
structural tension to conquer or be consumed. In this, his poetry has become the language of
purgation for himself and his people.
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The response of the gang leader, Hopha, is cathartic. In the next scene, he speaks about
Sun Tzu, a Chinese warrior he never understood until now.
He wasn't no sucker, now—he'd get ready to get down. But he won wars from the
beginning without ever having to use violence. He said that's where real power is.
Figure 5: Big Mike embraces Ray . © 2004 Richard Moller
Hopha offers him bail money, gives Ray his gang leader badge as symbolic of passing on
the power to lead, and in return, asks Ray to tell Big Mike and his gang to stop the violence.
When Ray returns to the outside, he assumes the role of prophet and leads Big Mike, who is
bandaged about the face and blind from the shooting, to enlightenment about the futility of
violence. When Big Mike ventures out for he first time after the shooting, he is literally led by
Ray who tries to open the eyes of a gang seeking vengeance:
You live in the mother fuckin' projects. It's an experiment. Projects experiment.
Government experiment. You serving time outside of the penitentiary, doing exactly what
they want you to do, pow pow, all day. That's the mother fuckin' master plan. That's the
mother fuckin' master plan.
That evening, Ray and Lauren, a poet and writing teacher at the prison, become intimate
and he sheds the final vestige of guilt, his ambivalence about facing trial and the inevitable
consequence of returning to prison. In a powerful scene, Lauren holds up a mirror to him urging
him to accept responsibility for his actions, charging that by selling drugs he enslaved others,
including herself, a one-time crack addict and prostitute. She tells him that he must serve out his
sentence—think, read, write, and find his voice in prison.
Just trust me, baby. . . All you gotta do is go forward. Don't fall into their traps; don't
fall into their games. Cause if you run away from it, you just gonna get caught up later.
Your freedom is there; it's waiting for you. And oddly enough, baby, it's waiting for you
in the goddamn prison.
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Redemption through Poetry
That night, Ray performs a cataclysmic piece at the Nuyorican Café, the Mecca of the
performance poetry world. He brings the audience to their feet with a poem that protests the
massive incarceration of blacks. He begins with a powerful assertion of his identity, one that
transcends the narrow experience of slavery.
Figure 7: Ray performing Sha-clack 1
I am Negro
Negro from necro, meaning death
I overcame it
So they named me after it
And I be spittin' at death from behind
And putting "kick me" signs on its back
Because
I am not the son of sha clack clack
I am before that
Using the metaphor of a whip (sha clack clack), the oppression he feels equates
imprisonment with slavery.
But my flight does not go undisturbed
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Because time makes dream defer
And all of my time fears are turning my days into day-mares
And I life day-mares reliving nightmares that once haunted my past
Sha clack clack
Time is beatin' my ass
He shares his dream of abundance in rich images of fried chicken, and piñatas, but the
dream is tinged with the atrocity of death to the innocent:
And I be having' dreams of chocolate covered watermelons filled with fried chickens like
piñatas. With little pickaninny sons and daughters standing up under them with big sticks
and aluminum foil, hitting' them, trying to catch pieces of fallen fried chicken wings. And
aunt jemima and uncle ben are standing in the corners with rifles pointed at the heads of
the children. "don't shoot the children," I shout. "don't shoot the children." But it's too
late. They've already been infected by time…….but it's too late. They start shooting at
the children and killing them:
One by one
Two by two
Three by three
Four by four
Five by five
Six by six
In the line “Time is beatin’ my ass” the double meaning of the word, "time" resonates
powerfully with the on-stage audience at the club, and with even greater profundity with the
audience that comes to see the play, as performance, in its reflection of their own reality as
prisoners. The poem ends with: "my niggas are serving unjust time. my niggas are dying
because of time," and the audience is stung by the reality of the message. Ray's transmutation
is almost complete, from sinner, to prophet and messenger.
The next scene depicts Ray's symbolic flight from justice. He runs through the neon-lit
streets, out of the Southwest section to the empty streets of the nation's capital. He comes to an
abrupt stop when he is confronted with a padlocked iron gate and looks up to see the giant
phallic symbol of the Washington Monument lit up against the darkened sky. Ray’s fate is left
up to the audience to decide, but most interpret the scene to mean that Ray submits to the power
of the criminal justice system, not unlike a sacrificial lamb. Ray becomes the black Jesus, the
Redeemer, whose symbolic death through incarceration is atonement for the sins of his race.
PART II: THE BURKEAN CYCLE AND THE THEATRE PRODUCTION PROCESS
The Reality of Prison as a Site of Rejection, Guilt and Pollution
The play "Slam" captures the real life experience of prisoners living behind bars at Sing
Sing. The storyline reflects the demographic reality of the disproportionate number of prisoners
in custody at Sing Sing that are Black or Hispanic (89%), and the inmate performers reveal a
parallel. Of the fifty-seven participants in the theatre production, fifty-five are men of color.
Like the inner-city characters in "Slam" that are from ghetto areas of the nation’s capital, most of
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the Sing Sing prisoners are from the same five economically depressed areas surrounding New
York City. Many were incarcerated in a maximum-security facility since they were 16; several
were institutionalized as juveniles. With the exception of one man, all are classified as violent
felons.
The custodial force and the other inmates that comprise the prison culture create an
environment of rejection, isolation, distrust, competitiveness and the continual threat of violence
that stays with the offender long after his incarceration is over. In general, most prisoners enter
the system knowing that they are rejected by a society that perceives them as monsters. Most
feel rejection from family and from the communities from which they come. Since the primary
concern in prison is containment and punishment, the interaction between officer and prisoner is
defined through the implementation of rules and the meting out of punishment. Characterized by
control strategies that use negative reinforcement, the interactions between "captor" and prisoner
routinely reinforce the role of the prisoner as "rejectee." Social science scholars believe rejection
is almost invariably reciprocated, so it is likely that inmates perceive the custodial force as the
enemy (Haskell, 1974, p. 151), thus creating a situation that is not conducive to rehabilitation.
In the play, Ray's experience with Officer Lucas is a chilling reminder of the condescending tone
often used by corrections officers to de-personalize the inmate and regulate his behavior.
Further, staff members often regard inmates involved with theatre programs with distrust; they
resent the elevated status they earn with fellow inmates based on the erroneous conception that
"all prisoners are con artists that act all the time" or that "theatre doesn't help to make criminals
better [healthier], it teaches them to become better [more effective] criminals."
Haskell states, "the criminal group becomes the reference group of the prisoner" (p. 151).
The longer a prisoner is incarcerated, the more he unconsciously assimilates the worldview of
those around him. The reaction of staff and outside civilians to his guilt as a criminal offender is
internalized, completing the socialization process, and makes the prisoner inseparable from his
crime. Some inmates refer to the "masks" they wear in order to fit into the criminal culture,
masks that become a means of surviving the pollution of incarceration. Researchers and
practitioners who use drama-based methods in prisons believe that prisoners get trapped behind
these masks in the role of criminal, preventing them from exploring new roles and behaviors.3
Prison is a conflict-habituated environment because of the custodial presence, formal
prison regimes and informal codes of behavior that require prisoners to respond in a socially
prescribed manner. Many inmates take up bodybuilding to create a façade of strength in order to
deter predators in the population. Explains one inmate, "the ultimate insult is someone
disrespecting you." An inmate who plays by the rules of the culture responds with violence so
that he is not seen as soft. Gangs, a constant source of conflict, engage in an unending cycle of
violence and revenge. They provide some protection but require blind allegiance in exchange.
For the loner, constant exposure to predators and unpredictable outbursts of aggression result in a
continual fear of being physically hurt or exploited.
In "Slam," Ray gets beat up on his first day in jail by members of a gang who think he set
up Big Mike. Other prisoners see him as a snitch, one of the lowest positions in the prison
hierarchy, because snitching is seen as an act of betrayal. On the "inside," seeking help from
prison staff is also condemned as a sign of allying with the enemy. Several years ago, a staff
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member informed one of the volunteers at Sing Sing, that the previous week, an inmate reported
chest pains and a severe headache. After an examination, the facility nurse sent him out of the
facility for tests. The staff member reported that X-Rays taken at the local hospital indicated that
the prisoner had several broken ribs and a cracked skull. The inmate's explanation of the event
was simply, "I fell." Presumably, he understood that if he "ratted" on his assailant, he would
suffer an even worse fate.
Little privacy exists for prisoners who live in open cells under constant surveillance. A
man can be ticketed at the discretion of an officer for hanging a sheet to relieve himself. One
inmate shared his habit of hanging a small cloth near his head while lying in his bunk to give
himself the illusion of privacy; he knew others could see him, but at least he was insulated from
the offensive sight of others.
Prison is an oral culture and news of an altercation travels quickly. So too do bits of
personal information that may be overheard in the yard, on the tiers, in the visiting area or on the
telephone. Personal disclosures or revealing one’s emotions, unless it is anger, an “acceptable”
emotion of power and control, leave a prisoner open to exploitation.
Purification through Sacrifice
Managing the physical aspects of production in a maximum-security prison is like
building a chair out of matchsticks; it requires extraordinary skill, good luck, tenacity and
patience. The inmate is not permitted to forget where he is. The simplest objects can be
construed as a menace to security or as an infraction of the rules for which the prisoner serves
time in keeplock (locked in his cell) or time in the Special Housing Unit (solitary confinement).
To provide some specific examples: masking tape is contraband, a screwdriver is a
weapon, and a blue shirt and chinos are potential get-away clothes. All dangerous props, from a
metal fork to a ceramic vase, are prohibited, along with props, such as a toy gun, that represent a
weapon. Props and costumes are secured in a locked space until a few hours before curtain,
which means that the experience of rehearsing with them does not occur until the performance
date. The movement of props and costumes in and out of the prison, on top of the more
immediate responsibilities of maintaining order in an often under-staffed overcrowded facility,
causes tension between inmates, program facilitators and security staff. All costumes going in
and out of the facility must be approved for gate clearance, itemized in detail on lists and
individually inspected at the gate for inconsistencies and contraband. Every costume detail must
be accounted for; a missing belt or tie could do irreparable damage to the program. In an age
when programs can be terminated at the whim of the administration, the inmates must guard the
privilege of having a voice through theatre by accepting procedures that are more restrictive than
their ordinary day-to-day regiments.
Participating in a play may seem strictly recreational, but the long hours of rehearsal
constitute hard work; the inmate must give up his evening free time in order to take on a activity
that is structured and goal-oriented. Most of the men work during the day at various jobs and the
evening hours offer them a rare freedom of choice such as seeing a movie or going to the yard,
the law library or the gym; spending evenings in rehearsal is a big sacrifice, especially if an
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inmate has a small part. The Sing Sing production of "Slam" took on a life of its own, with
music, dance, original poetry, costumes and scenery added to the film script to translate it into
the language of theatre. The production team put their trust in the director's vision of the play
and tried to remain flexible about changes in the script, blocking, or set design because the Sing
Sing production was the first stage adaptation. Two set pieces built by the Vocational Program
Department consisting of revolving towers with four facades each were made of constructiongrade salvage material rather than stage-appropriate light weight board, requiring the strength of
several men working in unison to facilitate frequent scene changes. In the final days of
rehearsal, in order to meet the standard of a discriminating and vocal audience, the cast and crew
rehearsed their scenes with set changes until the play was fluid. Roman Gordon, director of Cell
Block Theatre, speaks to the rewards of this demanding process, explaining how the rehearsal
process re-socializes participants through the development of delayed gratification: "Theatre
training begins to remove the unrealistic attitude of instant everything and builds a concept of
future. Rehearsal means repetition, practice over and over again . . . the offender gradually learns
that the work process is, in itself, both necessary and rewarding" (Ryan, 1976, p.35).4
For the inmates in the theatre program who act and play a diverse range of characters, the
acting process is a risky business because it requires honesty and self-awareness. From the first
audition throughout the rehearsals period, the men risk rejection. When RTA produced "One
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," one of the biggest challenges was portraying mental patients who
were emasculated by a health care system that sedated rather than rehabilitated patients.
Difficulties with initial attempts to play the characters reflected the cast's reluctance to expose
that side of themselves to an audience of hardened criminals.
Accepting criticism is an additional challenge, requiring the actor to accept the learning
nature of the rehearsal process, a difficult task for men who must constantly be on the defensive
to avoid being victimized or judged as weak. Taking direction in and of itself is a trying task that
conflicts with the attitude of defiance many prisoners must adopt in order to maintain
psychological survival. Finally, the performance itself is a risk of great magnitude, not only
because a prison audience is a tough one to please, but also because prisoners generally have a
long list of failures that haunt them. Director Jean Troustine (2001), who a ran a writing/theater
program at a women's prison in Massachusetts, suggests that the greatest challenge for prisoners
is to overcome their own fear: "Theatre gave them [the inmates] both a chance to study a part
and then to act it, to go through the many steps of fear and refusal along the way, and in the end,
to overcome obstacles" (p. 237).5
This is only the beginning in the long process of prioritizing the play over an inmate's
own immediate wants and needs; this process constitutes a significant part of the purification
stage. The inmate must learn that sometimes he must sacrifice some of his individuality for the
benefit of the whole. In a recent original production at Sing Sing, "Voices From Within,” five
playwrights reluctantly relinquished ownership of their individual one-act plays so that they
could be fused into one, unified, tapestry of survival experiences behind the walls. In "Slam,"
several men submitted original poetry that did not get into the show for thematic or stylistic
reasons, but they accepted rejection without malice, knowing that the final product would reflect
a unity that was important to the success of the play.
Burkean analysis of “Slam”
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195
One challenge of working this intensely with prisoners under adverse conditions is the
potential for conflict within the group. Inmates discover they must choose their words carefully
in order to avoid an altercation that might end in violence, at a risk to themselves and others as
well as to their disciplinary record or to the program. They learn to harness their anger and
channel their emotions into a scene; if it is a fight scene, like professional actors, they must
exercise control so no one gets hurt.
A myriad of security measures exist that are specific to working within a maximumsecurity prison. Inmates cannot leave their respective cellblocks unless they are on the "callouts" to attend rehearsals; this causes frustration and delay for the group. Inmates have to stop
rehearsal and sit in silence "for the count," a ritual which occurs several times a day to check for
missing inmates. Inmates must submit to a search and frisk, which, in the presence of civilians,
is demoralizing and a continual source of embarrassment. Intense surveillance is required when
female civilians are present or when costume changes occur backstage to insure that all activities
are monitored and occur in full view of the guards.
Redemption through Theatre
Given the challenges and sacrifices of mounting a play in a maximum-security prison, for
most of the inmates redemption comes through performance, the climax of the life of the group.
That men in the population come to see the performance provides the initial motivation to face
the fear that lies in wait. Before the curtain rises, the actors peer out through the tears in the
curtains to identify the blocks as they enter the auditorium. After the curtain opens, the audience
's first response validates all they have been through. The drama therapy work of Renee Emunah
and David Johnson (1983) with psychiatric patients confirms that the achievement of performing
is compounded when the audience shares the same reality as the performers. The applause by
the inmate audience is not just for the actors but also for the inmates as fellow humans who have
achieved not only something positive, but something extraordinary. That a group of confirmed
"rejectees,"or in Burke's term "sinners," brings about the performance heightens the feeling of
success. "The reaction [of the performers] is one of exhilaration, pride and affirmation of an
identity" (p. 236).
Facilitators of other prison theatre programs also describe the performance experience as
cathartic. For Clean Break Theatre, performance is a healing process--an emotional reenactment
for whom applause is the formal recognition of communication. "There were tears of
recollection and these tears touched the invisible and tenuous border between working within an
arts process and stepping over into something that might feel closer to a psychodramatic/
therapeutic process" (Gladstone & McLewin, 1998, pp 72-3).6
Any initial fear that the audience will be rude or harsh because the players are inmates
like themselves subsides. As the play progresses, the cast and crew receive the same respect
from the prison audience as from any civilian group, and perhaps more. This is not in spite of,
but because of, the shared identity with the players. As the audience watches "their own"
succeed, they experience a feeling of kinship. The challenges of the players become symbolic
for the challenges of an audience who hangs on their every word. As the audience is
transformed from criminals to actors, writers, directors, stage managers, lighting and sound
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technicians, set builders and stage crew, the audience, too, becomes more than just their crime.
The performance is everyone's triumph, dissipating isolation, guilt and rejection, purifying and
redeeming all present. The characters in the play that experience the redemptive quality of
poetry are paralleled by the actors who enact the story of "Slam," creating a rhetorical event
about the redemptive quality of theatre. Just as Ray becomes spokesperson to his community
about the atrocity of massive incarceration of blacks, the cast and crew of "Slam" become
spokespersons for an important message to the prison population about personal responsibility.
Sharing the message of the play with the prison audience transforms the performance into an
epiphany, expanding the experience from personal enlightenment to public testimony on the
possibility of social change. Player and audience alike see themselves meaningfully reflected as
part of a community, and, with outside civilians as witnesses to the event, find dignity through
the power of shared meanings in a world of isolation, rejection, and shame.
* BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Lorraine Moller is an Assistant Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in
the Speech, Theatre and Media Studies Department. In addition to teaching and directing theatre
at the college for the last seven years, she has directed inmate theatre projects for a prison theatre
program, Rehabilitation through the Arts (RTA), based at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. She
has also run sociodrama workshops in pre-release training at various prisons throughout the
Hudson Valley area.
Dr. Lorraine Moller
Department of Speech and Theatre
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
899 Tenth Avenue
New York, New York 10019
(212) 237-8320
[email protected]
178 Upper Shad Road
Pound Ridge, New York 10576
(914) 764-4031
[email protected]
Doctorate, 1999; Degree Granting Institution: NYU
Burkean analysis of “Slam”
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197
ENDNOTES
1
Keeplock is a term that means an inmate is locked in his cell or in a special housing unit for a
designated period of time due to a disciplinary violation.
2
This and other textual quotes from “Slam” are from the unpublished stage adaptation of the
original 1998 Mark Levin film. For the film script and an account of the script development, see
the book Slam edited by Richard Stratton and Kim Wozencraft.
3
For more on this mask theory, see Bergman, Hewish & Ruding, 1996;Cogan & Paulson, 1998.
4
Cell Block Theater operated mainly in New Jersey prisons, although one of their best-known
"therapy" programs was tailored to ex-offenders in New York City. The program's aim was to
teach participants to listen, observe and respond thoughtfully to situations as an alternative
solution to violence.
5
In Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama in a Women's Prison, Jean Troustine
describes how play production evolved from her ten-year work as a writing instructor for a
college program at Framingham Women's Prison in Massachusetts. She highlights her
experience with six inmates who discover drama as a catalyst for transformation while
rehearsing and performing an adaptation of Merchant of Venice.
6
Gladstone and Mc Lewin discuss process and product, comparing drama and psychodramatic
methods while focusing on Clean Break Theatre's work with domestic violence. The issue of deroling is addressed here which enables the actor to step back out and assimilate the experience.
References
Bergman J, Hewish S. (1996). The violent illusion: Drama therapy and the dangerous voyage to
the heart of change. In Liebmann M (Ed) Arts approaches to conflict. London: Jessica
Kingsley.
Burke, Kenneth (1989). On symbols and society. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Butterfield, F. (2003, April 7). Prison rates among blacks reach a peak. New York Times, p. A12.
Cogan, Karen B., Paulson, Barbara L. (1998). Picking up the pieces: Brief report on inmates
experiences of a family violence drama project. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 25 (1), 3743.
New York State Department of Corrections. (2002). Sing Sing report: Prisoners under custody,
7/1/.
Correctional Association of New York. (2/2001).Prisoner profile.
Emanah, R. & Johnson, D. (1983). The impact of theatrical performance on the self-images of
psychiatric patients. The Arts in Psychotherapy 10, 233-239.
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Gladstone, Pauline & McLewin, Angus. (1998). Treading on tales: Telling all stories. In J.
Thompson (Ed.) Prison theatre: Perspectives and practices. London: Jessica Kingsley,
67-88.
Haskell, Martin. (1974). The contributions of J.L. Moreno to the treatment of the offender.”
Group Therapy and Psychodrama 27, 147-156.
Ryan, P. (1976). Theater as prison therapy. The Drama Review, 20 (1), 31-32.
Salaam, Kalamu ya. “Black Poetry Text & Sound.” Chicken Bones: A Journal for Literary and
Artistic African-American Themes.
http://www.nathanielturner.com/whatisblackpoetry.htm. 9/17/2000
Stratton, Richard & Wozencraft, Kim. (Eds.) (1998) Slam: The screenplay and filmmakers
journals. New York: Grove Press.
Troustine, Jean. (2001). Shakespeare behind bars. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
DEAR BOSS: HOAX AS POPULAR COMMUNAL NARRATIVE IN THE
CASE OF THE JACK THE RIPPER LETTERS
By
Ted Remington*
University of Iowa
ABSTRACT
This essay explores the phenomena of hoaxes as communally constructed narratives by
examining the series of letters sent to authorities claiming to be from Jack the Ripper. The study
looks at how and why the character of Jack the Ripper was created through these letters, and why
this figure became a site of public fascination at the time (and remains so today). More than
simply the work of cranks or psychotics, a study of the letters reveals them to be a way of
articulating and managing collective anxieties. Through the work of Kenneth Burke, the essay
suggests that the "Ripper letters" provided a symbolic way of dealing with the social trauma and
complex emotional responses triggered by the brutal murders of several prostitutes that gripped
London's East End in the autumn of 1888.
INTRODUCTION
Consubtantiality is established by common involvement in a killing.
-- Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives
A letter to the editor of a newspaper falsely claiming responsibility for an unsolved
homicide shares a number of characteristics in common with an Agatha Christie murder mystery.
Both tell stories about a violent crime. Both create characters. Both seek to play upon the
reader's emotions. Both, if well done, generate excitement, interest, and anticipation. In short,
both tell stories that revolve around the drama of death and the mystery of who bears
responsibility for it.
Yet, most of us would balk at placing these two texts in the same category. In all
likelihood, we would place the Christie novel in the category of entertainment, literary fiction,
perhaps even art. On the other hand, the letter to the editor would likely be branded as a "hoax,"
with all the negative connotations that word carries.
The rationale for this distinction seems reasonable. After all, the murder described in the
novel presumably never happened. The crime itself is as fictional as the characters and
circumstances surrounding it. The reader enters into a dialogue with the novel presuming that
none of what is being represented relates in any specific way to a reality outside the world of the
story. Any truths we might look for in the novel are of a more general sort (e.g., observations
about human interactions, the ageless willingness among some to do wrong for personal gain, the
 2004 School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany
Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 10 (3) 199-221.
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triumph of right and reason over evil and chaos).
The hoax, however, relies on a more malignant mixing of truth and untruth. The crime
addressed by the hoax letter is (presumably) quite real. The letter may impact the investigation of
the crime by distracting and misguiding the authorities in their search for the individual
responsible for the crime. This in turn could lead to needless fear, confusion, and panic among
the letter's wider readership. While we may enjoy being tricked and fooled by the artificial crime
presented to us in the Christie novel and the artful manipulation of our expectations that
accompany it, we quite rightly would feel violated by a text that misled us in a similar manner
about an actual murder, particularly if the murder occurred in our own community. The
distinction between the work of literary fiction and the hoax appears to be that the novel has
effects on the reader that are benign, if not positive, and does no overt harm to the social world
of the reader. The hoax, on the other hand, is a negative force that tends to erode the trust,
sympathy, and mutual understanding that are at the heart of productive social interactions.
Even at this level, however, the boundary between those texts we read as literature and
those we condemn as hoaxes is not easily drawn. What I suggest in this essay is that the
phenomenon of the hoax, while often destructive, can be at the same time a means for a
community to negotiate difficult and dangerous situations. In some cases, a hoax performs a
communal function, offering deeper self awareness, comfort, and understanding than any Agatha
Christie novel could hope to do. Sometimes, a hoax is the story we tell ourselves to better
understand the inexplicable, and in providing that understanding, however flawed it may be, the
hoax can be a valuable tool with which to strengthen a sense of community.
This essay supports this contention by examining a case study in which "inauthentic"
texts helped create a drama that allowed for social self-examination and alleviation of collective
guilt and fear: the letters sent to newspapers and police in the autumn of 1888 claiming to be
from Jack the Ripper. Beginning with a brief overview of the cultural context of the Jack the
Ripper murders, I suggest that the specifics of the crimes lent themselves to sensational
dramatization in the context of Victorian London. Turning to the letters themselves, I provide a
short chronology of their appearance, followed by a content analysis. I suggest that while the
letters were clearly written by a wide array of authors (none of them likely to have been the
Ripper), they share certain key similarities that amount to a sort of unplanned collaboration in
the creation of the character of "Jack the Ripper." Using concepts of literary and rhetorical
theorist Kenneth Burke, I offer an explanation of the social function these letters played in
negotiating fears and anxieties about social order brought to the surface by the murders. Finally,
I suggest what this specific case study says to us about the social value of (at least some) hoaxes
and the importance of studying them.
I will begin with an axiom that is central to the thesis developed in the rest of this essay:
Jack the Ripper is a fictional character. By this, I do not mean that the five women traditionally
considered Jack the Ripper's victims were not real or did not actually die. They were real people
who in death left behind real family and friends and who at this moment lie in very real graves in
and around London. What I am suggesting, however, is that virtually everything we know, or
think we know, about Jack the Ripper is based on one sort of fiction or another. To put it another
way, Jack the Ripper is a hoax.
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The Ripper in Fake and Fiction
Almost from the time the murders began, people told stories about who the murderer
was, why he did what he did, and the conclusions to be drawn from his actions. He became a
dramatic character. To begin with, the name itself is fiction. The epithet "Jack the Ripper" bears
as much responsibility for the continual interest in this series of crimes as any other single factor,
yet it was almost certainly an invention of a newspaper writer (Evans and Skinner, 2001;
Rumbelow, 1988).
Even before the series of murders had concluded, a dramatic monograph circulated in
London in which the author suggested that the scene of one of the Ripper murders had been
under a curse owing to a grisly killing that had taken place there 300 years earlier (Coville and
Lucanio, 1999; Rumbelow, 1988). And while inquests were still being held in the deaths of the
third and fourth Ripper victims, one could visit waxwork displays in London's East End, and for
a small fee, take in life-like tableaus of the Ripper and his victims.
After the string of murders seemed to come to a halt, the number and scope of Ripper
fictions grew. Within a year, the crimes became the subject of a drama on the London stage
(Rumbelow, 1988). This was the first in what would become a long list of dramatizations of the
murders in books, on the stage, and eventually in film, radio, and television versions.1
Additional texts that could be considered part of the Jack the Ripper collection of fictions
include the innumerable articles and books written over the last century purporting to prove who
the killer actually was. Any number of these theories have been shown to be little more than
elaborate imaginations based on few or no facts, fantastic hypotheses created to attract the
public's attention (and money) to the author.
False confessions have been a hallmark of Ripper literature, including not only the
original letters sent to police and newspapers claiming to be from the killer, but also several
scaffold confessions of condemned prisoners stating that they were the killer, and most recently
a diary (since declared a forgery) of a Liverpool businessman in which he confessed to being
responsible for the killing of London prostitutes in the autumn of 1888. Together with overtly
fictional dramas about the murders, these texts continued to build a public awareness and
understanding of the crimes based on almost nothing other than false statements.
This continuing preoccupation with creating and consuming stories about Jack the Ripper
raises a simple but provocative question: why would the murders of five common prostitutes
become such a celebrated event in the popular culture of the time, to say nothing of the century
that followed? After all, we know that the sections of London's East End where the murders
occurred were places where life was held cheap. Robberies, rapes, physical assaults, and even
murder were not uncommon occurrences. The fact that the authorities at the time debated the
number of murders committed by Jack the Ripper substantiates this. Although what is now
considered to be the first murder in the series took place at the end of August 1888, this murder
was initially linked by both the police and press to two assaults on prostitutes that took place
earlier that summer. And although the last murder is thought to have happened in early
November of that same year, East End prostitutes continued to be the victims of physical assaults
and murder afterwards, some of which were attributed to Jack the Ripper.
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Just as there was nothing exceptional in and of itself about violence in the East End, the
victims themselves seem to be women of little significance. They were not only prostitutes, but
streetwalkers of the lowest variety--poverty-stricken, alcoholic, over-the-hill women who hoped
to make enough money in an evening's work to rent themselves a pitiful bed for the night. They
were individuals who lived out their existences in the shadowy, murky corners of London life.
They were not young, beautiful, innocent, wealthy, or socially significant individuals. They were
women whose deaths would be of little note to any beyond their immediate circle of friends and
family, and even in these cases, the numbers of people directly involved were small. Why would
the fictitious nom-de-crime of an individual who committed violence on these most common of
women become a media sensation not only at the time of the crimes, but moreover still be
synonymous with everything vicious, sadistic, and frightening more than a century afterward?
I will suggest that part of the explanation for this lies in the number and importance of
several deeply rooted social issues and relationships fore grounded by the crimes. For now,
however, I want to point out a few of the more immediate causes for the celebrity of Jack the
Ripper.
Firstly, while the murder of prostitutes was not novel in London's East End, it was
unusual to have this number of murders committed over a relatively short time span. Over the
course of barely more than ten weeks, five grisly murders were committed. Even when set
against the nearly daily violence in a place such as Whitechapel (one of the most infamous of
East End locales), this constituted a crime spree that would grab the attention of even the most
jaded resident of Victorian London.
Add to this the ferocity of the crimes. This, after all, was the hallmark of the Jack the
Ripper slayings. The murders were not simply killings, but elaborate rituals of violence
committed against the female body. The violence went far beyond a momentary burst of brutality
and viciousness, but involved a monstrous fury that was hardly common in the day-to-day street
thuggary of the poorest sections of London.
And while the fact that the victims were prostitutes would suggest that their deaths would
not receive a great deal of attention from the public, their profession inextricably linked the
crimes to social issues that were both important and titillating, fueling interest in the crimes. The
murder of prostitutes brought together two primal interests of human nature: violence and sex.
The identity of the victims as prostitutes brought up issues of sexual ethics in a more direct way
than Victorian decorum usually allowed.
The scene of the crimes also contributed to the public interest in the crimes. Occurring in
the dark, mysterious East End, the reportage of the murders allowed those outside the
community in which the crimes occurred to gaze voyeuristically at the often hellish existence of
their fellow Londoners from the safety of their armchairs. By 1888, the East End of London had
become a source of public debate, concern, and fear about the future of the empire. In particular,
the influx of immigrants and the occasional political unrest emerging from the East End signaled
to many the possible dangers to Great Britain specifically and civilization generally, if the
civilized were not on their guard.
Of course, the aspect of the crimes that most lent them to continuing public fascination
was the inability of the authorities to solve them. Had a culprit been apprehended quickly, the
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drama would have been allowed to follow its course and come to a satisfying conclusion. The
questions and anxieties raised by the crimes would have faded from public consciousness. The
ongoing nature of the mystery, however, asked for (perhaps even demanded) that the public
imagination be engaged to find a way of explaining what was happening in Whitechapel and
why. With no specific solution to these questions forthcoming, the crimes became a free floating
invitation to speculation of all sorts. The lack of almost any factual information about who the
criminal was and why he committed these acts provided a venue in which people could offer
their own theories and explanations for the murders and, in so doing, make a variety of
arguments about issues of social importance. In the reportage and commentary on the murders, a
laundry list of social concerns emerges, including the need for assistance to the poor, the plight
of women, the importance of maintaining law and order, worries about the influx of immigrants
to Great Britain, and the perils of loose morality, prostitution in particular. The murders
occasioned a cultural introspection and search for meaning and safety. As Judith R. Walkowitz
says in her study of the dark side of Victorian London, City of Dreadful Delight, "At the height
of the crisis, cultural fantasies ran rampant in speculations about the murderer's identity and the
social and political significance of his crimes. These speculations also resembled the literature of
the fantastic in their symptomatic expression and management of anxieties over social and
political disorder" (Walkowitz, 1992, p. 196).
The means by which these concerns found a voice was the modern press corps, including
a wide variety of daily and weekly newspapers in London, each with its own editorial slant and
readership, and all in desperate need of stories that would engage their readers to the point of
persuading them to pay the price of a copy. Along with the memorable name, the brutality of the
crimes, and the inability of the authorities to catch the killer, the existence of the modern
newspaper industry is one of the central contributors to the fame of "Jack the Ripper."
In this series of murders, newspaper writers had an open-ended narrative that touched on
their readers' deepest fears and concerns − in short, the stuff of an enterprising journalist's
dreams. It is understandable that such a story would receive greater play in the media than it
might deserve based strictly on the importance of the facts. Its dramatic nature would be too
appealing to pass up. It is also easy to imagine newspaper writers helping the story along a bit by
creatively sketching out some specifics of the central character of the drama. This is the source
of the widespread supposition, both at the time of the murders and since: the name "Jack the
Ripper" was in fact the ingenious invention of a newspaper reporter who wanted to collapse the
various mysteries surrounding the crimes into a specific character. If this is true, the reporter
involved did much more than simply capture the interest of this audience. He helped create a
symbol that stands for many of our continuing fears concerning the relationship between modern
life and our basest human drives.
The Letters
Even if we grant the hypothesis that the original letter that bore the signature "Jack the
Ripper" was the product of a journalist, the fact remains that the mediation of the Jack the Ripper
murders was not a one-way street. During the fall of 1888, hundreds of letters flooded the offices
of London newspapers and law enforcement. The majority of these letters offered suggestions as
to who the killer was, how to catch him, or what the underlying causes of the crimes were. These
letters offer an interesting insight into the preoccupations of Victorian Londoners.
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The subject of this paper is a particular subset of these letters. I am focusing on those
letters in which the letter writer claims to be the killer. Like all Jack the Ripper correspondence,
these letters allow the writer to become part of the drama. Also like the other letters, those
purporting to be from the killer attempt to create understanding for crimes for which there seems
no explanation.
But these letters go several steps further. In a sense, they create the murderer in his
absence, a figure who serves as a focal point for the free-floating anxiety generated by the
crimes. Despite the fact that the briefest perusal of even a small number of the letters would
suggest that they could not all be authentic (and, in fact, that the majority could not be from the
real killer), the Ripper letters had an enormous impact on Londoners at the time, an impact that
is in large measure the reason the crimes are still so well known today. The origin of the letters
(whether authentic or hoaxes) is, as Walkowitz notes, of secondary importance. "Whether
authentic or not, the letters helped to establish the murders as a media event by focusing social
anxieties and fantasies on a single, elusive, alienated figure, a figure who craved 'sensation' and
who communicated to a 'mass' public through the newspaper" (Walkowitz, 1992, p. 200).2
For a community that felt itself under attack, these letters provide an image of the enemy
they face. But what makes the letters so provocative is the extent to which this created version of
the mysterious killer, this "elusive, alienated figure" seems so at home within the community to
which he is laying siege.
The known facts about the letters are these: There are in existence well over 200 letters
currently in public records of Scotland Yard and the London police files that purport to be from
the individual responsible for the Whitechapel slayings. There are some letters currently missing
from the records, but for which we have documentation in the form of reproductions made at the
time of their receipt. The vast majority of the letters, when their origin can be fixed, were
postmarked in or near London. Several, however, came from more distant points in Great
Britain, continental Europe, and the United States.
The letters were generally sent to individual newspapers, the Central News Agency in
London, or to law enforcement (e.g., the Metropolitan Police, Scotland Yard, etc.). In some
cases, however, letters were simply found in locations where the writer had apparently left them,
assuming they would be found. Individually, the letters vary widely in their levels of detail and
literacy. Some, given their tone and elegant handwriting, appear to be the work of educated
"Jacks." Others, however, are nearly incoherent, filled with misspellings so wild that they nearly
defy interpretation. To the extent we can determine who the authors were (only a handful of
writers were ultimately identified by authorities), we know the letters were written by men and
women, old and young, rich and poor, Londoners and villagers. Yet, when read together, what
emerges from the letters are threads of similarity running through them, connecting them in ways
that suggest an informal, unplanned, and improvised collaboration, something made possible by
the publication of facsimiles of a number of the early letters, as well as two or three sentence
summaries of many of the other missives sent by "Jack the Ripper."3
The phenomenon of the Ripper letters began with a single letter sent on September 24
(just over two weeks after the second murder) and received the following day at the offices of the
Metropolitan Police. The letter, addressed simply to "dear Sir" confesses to "all these murders in
the last six months." The writer claims he wanted to find and kill a woman named Chapman (the
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name of the second Ripper victim). Now that he has done what he sent out to do, the writer
claims he wishes to give himself up, but will not do so voluntarily—the police must find him
first. He goes on to suggest, despite his supposed willingness to surrender, that he may commit
more murders in the near future. The letter is punctuated by a silhouette drawing of a coffin and
a dagger.
This first letter did not receive a great deal of attention. It was not published by the press
and does not seem to have been taken seriously by the police. Its relevance, as well as the import
of the Jack the Ripper letters in general, changed forever on September 29, 1888. Two (or,
perhaps more properly, three) events took place on that date that would make the creation and
consumption of Ripper correspondence a media phenomenon both at the time and for more than
a century afterward.
On September 29, a letter was forwarded to the police from the Central News Agency in
London. The letter was said to have arrived two days earlier, although the exact date is in
question. The letter itself is dated September 25 and is postmarked September 27. What we know
for certain is that the Central News Agency forwarded the letter to the police only after its
contents were known to the London press corps.
This letter is the infamous "Dear Boss" letter. While not the first Ripper letter, it would
prove the single most influential text in the creation of the Jack the Ripper mythos. Addressed to
"The Boss, Central News Office," the letter reads as follows:4
“Dear Boss,
I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they won't fix me just yet.
I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That
joke about Leather apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and shant quit ripping them till
I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was, I gave the lady no time to squeal How can they
catch me now, I love my work and want to start again. you will soon hear of me with my funny
little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write
with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope ha. ha. The next
job I do I shall clip the lady s ears off and send to the [page break] police officers just for jolly
wouldnt you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work then give it out straight. My knife's
so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance, good luck .
yours truly
Jack the Ripper
Dont mind me giving the trade name
wasn't good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse it.
No luck yet. They say I'm a doctor now ha ha”
It is with this letter that "Jack the Ripper," both the name and persona associated with it,
is born. As we shall see, a number of themes emerging from the Jack the Ripper correspondence
have their genesis in this letter. Not least of these is the name itself, which became nearly
ubiquitous in future Ripper letters.
The importance of the letter was multiplied many times over, however, by the fact that
within hours of its receipt at the office of the Metropolitan Police, the murderer struck not once,
but twice. It was in the early morning hours of September 30 that the so-called "double event"
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occurred. Two separate murders, each bearing obvious similarities to the earlier killings,
happened within a couple of hours of each other in time, and within a few minutes walk in
distance, of each other. The revelation of two new killings on the same day carried out
(apparently) by the same culprit sent public interest and anxiety about the murders to a whole
new level. Press coverage of the murders spiked dramatically in the weeks following the double
event, as did the number of letters pouring into the Central News Agency, individual London
papers, and the authorities. The fact that the "Dear Boss" letter was received just prior to the two
murders lent it an air of credibility it might not otherwise have had. Additionally, one of the
victims in the double event had part of one ear removed, a fact that echoed the reference in the
"Dear Boss" letter in which the writer claims he will "clip the ladys ears off."
The frenzy of attention sparked by the "Dear Boss" letter was followed by a flurry of
similar letters in the following weeks. Within a day or two of the double event, letters were
arriving at newspaper and police offices from people claiming to be "Jack the Ripper" in which
references were made to many of the previously published details of the killings. Although the
newspapers themselves often noted the strong likelihood that such letters were the product of
practical jokesters, it did not stop them from reprinting the text of a number of these letters and
summarizing many others.
As more and more facts were made available to the public, along with the details of the
correspondences coming in from self-styled "Jack the Rippers," the letter writers began to create
an identifiable persona for the killer. It would be impossible in anything less than a book-length
exploration of the subject to go into detailed textual analysis of each letter. What can be done,
however, is to sketch out the template that emerges when examining these letters collectively. In
short, if one wanted to create a hoax Jack the Ripper letter that would fit in with the existing
body of correspondence from Ripper claimants, what form would such a letter take?
How to Write a Jack the Ripper Letter
Within a couple of weeks of the double event, the form and format of the Jack the Ripper
letters had assumed a fairly predictable pattern. As new facts and theories emerged, these were
incorporated into the letters, but the basic form remained constant. As they accumulated, the
letters collectively formed a sort of primer for future letter writers, offering a template to be
used, along with themes upon which to elaborate. If you were a Londoner in the autumn of 1888
who was inclined to contribute to the growing collection of Jack the Ripper correspondence, how
would you go about writing such a letter?
Following the lead of the second letter (and the first one to be published), as well as the
overwhelming majority of Jack the Ripper letters that followed, you would begin with the
salutation "Dear Boss," a locution that was at the time seen as an Americanism (or at least unEnglish). You would go on to boast about the most recent killing, and perhaps suggest that there
were yet more victims who hadn't been found. You would also likely brag about your ability to
elude capture. Like the majority of the letters, you would do this in a mocking, humorous tone,
perhaps describing how you were right under the nose of the authorities but continued to be
passed by.
In fact, humor is one of the most consistent aspects of the Jack the Ripper
correspondence, and has become one of the hallmarks of the persona created for him. Often,
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letter writers made reference to the murders as "funny little games" or as "good jokes." Another
common source of amusement for the character of Jack was the wide variety of theories
suggested about the murders, all of which, according to Jack, were laughably wrongheaded,
occasionally warranting a "ha ha" to be written in as a comment on their silliness. At the time,
some commentators argued that this humorous tone was evidence of the degree to which the
letter writers were warped and demented. There may be merit to this observation, but it is also
important to notice the formality of the inclusion of humor in the letters. Its centrality and
consistent tone throughout the collection of Ripper correspondence suggest that its inclusion
probably owes more to the loosely collaborative nature of the letter writing than to the dementia
of individual letter writers.
Oddly enough, one of the most consistent aspects of the Jack the Ripper correspondence
was the inclusion of detailed descriptions of where the writer lived and/or where the next murder
would happen. Nearly all the letters suggest not only that future murders would occur, but give
police some clue as to when and where they will happen, further developing the gamesmanship
aspect of Jack's character.
Another specific theme any careful writer of Jack the Ripper correspondence would want
to touch on is the promise to send some physical evidence of the murders to the authorities,
usually in the form of a body part. This aspect of the letters took on particular significance after
one letter followed through on this promise. In the middle of October, perhaps the second most
infamous Jack the Ripper letter (after the original "Dear Boss" missive) arrived at the home of
George Lusk, the head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. This letter was notable for a
number of reasons, the first being that it did not follow a number of the patterns seen in earlier
letters (such as the "Dear Boss" salutation, which was not used), and more obviously by the fact
that it was accompanied by what appeared to be a portion of a human kidney. The letter claimed
it had been taken from one of the victims of the double event two weeks previously. There was a
great deal of speculation about the validity of this letter at the time, as well as the source of the
kidney. Opinions ranged from the belief that it was not even necessarily human to the assertion
of some physicians who examined it that the kidney was not only definitely human, but could be
linked quite specifically with one of the victims (who had, in fact, had a portion of a kidney
removed).
The reference to the harvesting of body parts was an exaggeration of a theme that began
with the original "Dear Boss" letter: the use of human blood in the actual writing of the letters. A
number of letters were written in red ink and claimed that this was blood taken from one of the
victims. Others promised that although they were not written with blood, there would soon be a
new supply with which to charge the writer's pen.
As a Ripper letter writer, you also would keep abreast of the latest developments in the
investigation and incorporate them into your correspondence, usually doing so with the
previously-described mocking tone. For example, when it was widely reported that the police
planned to use bloodhounds to track the Whitechapel killer, letters began to arrive in which Jack
described his amusement at the use of "puppies" to catch him. When various theories were
forwarded about whom the killer might be (e.g., a doctor, a lunatic, a butcher, etc.), letter writers
would take the opportunity to explain how far off these suppositions were from reality.
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Figure 1: The "From Hell" letter sent to George Lusk, accompanied by a portion of a (possibly human)
kidney.
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Any potential Ripper letter writer also would take care to avoid certain topics in his or
her correspondence. Perhaps the most surprising omission in the Ripper letters is the lack of
motive. Occasionally, a letter writer would suggest an antipathy toward prostitutes, resulting
from either a personal injury caused to him by a specific prostitute in the past or simply from
general moral outrage. However, these references are sporadic at best and hardly constitute a
continuing theme.
Similarly, the character of Jack as constructed in the letters did not fall into any defined
demographic group. For example, despite the theories that Jack might be an immigrant recently
settled in the East End, and the worries among the authorities that this belief might spark
persecution of the large Jewish immigrant population in Whitechapel, the letter writers
themselves did not tend to ascribe Jewishness, or any other particular ethnicity, to Jack. Jack was
an individual defined by his acts and personality, not by his social identity. Jack was, at the same
time, both everyone and no one.
Underscoring this lack of social identity is the fact that the letters give Jack virtually no
personal history. Other than the occasional mention of dalliances with prostitutes in the past,
there is no explanation of where Jack came from or how he came to be who he is. He is born at
the moment the crimes are committed.
Finally, despite the fact that the crimes were taken up by a wide array of social reformers
to support their particular theories about the degeneracy of the East End, the horrors caused by
poverty and class division, or the need for social and economic reform, the Jack of the letters
rarely makes any statement that could be interpreted as commentary on the social aspects of his
crimes. Jack is not someone who is a member of a class any more than he is a member of any
ethnic group. He is in a sense the quintessential individual, one whose actions are not
predestined by the past, are not determined by membership in any community, and are not
carried out on behalf of anyone else or for any purpose beyond his own desire to commit them.
Why Did the Letters Take This Form?
Scholars of the discourse of murder have noted a tendency of the media to portray those
accused and convicted of violent crime as inscrutable "others", whose motivations are buried in
darkly twisted souls. They are, in short, monsters (Curtis, 2001). But another hallmark of media
coverage of murders is the revelation that those arrested for the crimes often do not appear
monstrous from the outside. It is often noted how normal and unassuming they look, how quiet
and peaceful they seem to those who know them, and how unexceptional they seem to be by
most standards.
This tension between the murderer as an “other” on one hand, and as a next-door
neighbor on the other, exists even when we have a specific individual before us onto whom we
can project our questions and hypotheses. How much more prominent would this tension be in a
case such as that of Jack the Ripper, where there is no flesh and blood individual into whom we
can search for reconciliation of these apparent contradictions, no one to serve as a physical point
of tangency between the known and unknown?
In the case of the Whitechapel murders, this basic tension in the understanding of horrific
crimes, the conflicting desires to believe that the criminal is completely different from us, yet to
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understand him from the inside, did not lead to a complicated understanding of a specific
individual. Without a viable suspect, there was no single figure on whom to project these
competing understandings. In the absence of a murderer, one who embodied these tensions had
to be created. In such a figure, we would expect to see the creation of a killer who embodies
contradictions at several levels. He would be at the same time an alien and an Everyman, he
would be a highly specific person who lacked any true identity; he would be profoundly
antisocial while still being irresistibly fascinating; he would be someone completely bizarre, yet
strangely familiar. If the understanding of social relations always involves an ability to bridge
the gulf between the self and others, then understanding the phenomenon of murder requires us
to do so in a situation where building that bridge between otherness and self is a frightening,
daunting task. Yet, the very aspect of it that makes the task so anxiety-producing, the need to
allow ourselves to participate in a dialectic with the darkest aspects of ourselves and others, is
perhaps what compels us to cross that bridge (or at least to attempt to do so).
I suggest that the letters from which the persona of Jack the Ripper was created did just
this. They gave (and continue to give) society a figure at whom to point an accusatory finger of
blame, but also a persona through whose eyes we can look. The letter writers created a Jack who
was misanthropic, alien, and monstrous while at the same time oddly social, compelling, and
recognizable as one of us. He is a figure that can, at one and the same time, be the epitome of
monstrous violence and an odd sort of folk hero, one who can commit animalistic brutality on his
fellow human beings yet do so with élan and panache, flouting social strictures and confounding
authority in a way that cannot help but hold a certain appeal. In short, the letter writers created in
Jack a nearly perfect monster/hero who embodied and took on the contradictions entailed both in
the crimes themselves and in the desire to understand them. The creation of Jack did not solve
these contradictions. Rather, he served as a symbolic construct that allowed Londoners of the
time (and perhaps us as well) to deal with a certain level of anxiety and apprehension they could
not help but feel when social boundaries were so explicitly and dramatically transgressed as they
were in the small hours of the London night during the autumn of 1888.
It is worth remembering to what extent transgressions of social boundaries were at the
forefront of the collective Victorian mind in the autumn of 1888. Concern about such violations
was particularly keen in relation to the boundaries of class as they existed in both fact and in the
imaginative geography of London's East and West Ends. A relatively new literary genre, the
urban exploration, had become widespread in Britain. Beginning in the middle of the 1800s and
continuing over the next several decades, literary studies of London life appeared with increasing
frequency. These texts featured the observations of (usually) male, educated, and well-to-do
writers on the astonishing discrepancies between rich and poor London, as well as a fair amount
of theorizing over the causes of the physical and moral state of their most degraded neighbors. A
short list of the more notable authors of urban exploration would include George Sims, Charles
Booth, James Greenwood, Henry Mayhew, Frederick Engels, Charles Dickens, and Henry
James. These men were, as Judith Walkowitz notes, flaneurs, urban tourists to the most
mysterious and dangerous regions of the metropolis, attempting to both understand their
mysteries through scientific logic and satisfy their own fantasies about East End life through
personal, tactile, experience of it. Moreover, they created texts that allowed their readers to act as
flaneurs by proxy through subjecting the residents of the East End to the fascinated gaze of the
West End.
The two primary reactions to this voyeurism were guilt and fear. Urban explorations gave
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their readers the uneasy feeling that things were going horribly wrong in at least some parts of
the city that represented for them the epitome of civilization. Walkowitz says,
In this charged atmosphere fears of class conflict and social disintegration predominated
over class guilt, despite the increase in charitable schemes. For many members of the
propertied classes, the menacing presence of "King Mob" in their part of town threatened
the imaginative boundaries erected to mark off and contain the poor. (Walkowitz, 1992,
p. 29)
For Londoners in 1888, the fears of "King Mob" were quite fresh. Over an eighteenmonth period from the middle of 1886 through November of 1887, a number of demonstrations
took place in which East End laborers physically brought themselves and their grievances to the
West End. This invasion from the East, accompanied by sporadic looting and rioting among the
roughest elements of the demonstrators, caused panic among many West Enders. This
culminated with the police crackdown on demonstrating laborers in Trafalgar Square on "Bloody
Sunday," November 18, 1887.
By the time of the Ripper murders, Londoners were all too aware not only of the social
boundaries that divided their city, but the unsettling permeability of these boundaries. Urban
explorers penetrated the East End to satisfy the fascination of their West End readers. East
Enders had penetrated the West End in overt demonstrations of social unrest, increasing the
anxiety that the violence with which the East End was associated might be visited on London
more generally in the form of a tearing apart of existing social structures. The Whitechapel
murders seemed to embody the communal fears and fantasies about the East End, exacerbating
anxieties that had already been stretched taut in the London psyche. The creation of "Jack the
Ripper" was one means of shaping and controlling the fears not only of the murders themselves,
but of the underlying guilts, fears, and desires they came to represent.
How Can a Hoax Be Transcendent?
So far, our examination of the Jack the Ripper letters has examined particular
characteristics of the letters and suggested reasons why these shared features are significant. But,
we as yet have only touched on the purpose these letters might have served in a larger social
setting. In other words, we've looked at why the letters take the form they do, but not why they
exist to begin with.
I suggest that one helpful approach to this question is via the work of Kenneth Burke, the
philosopher of symbolic interaction perhaps best known for his theory of dramatism as a means
of understanding human relations. In terms of our current project, the aspect of Burke's work that
best illuminates the issues at hand is his book A Rhetoric of Motives, a work that, in the words of
historian of rhetoric Thomas Conley, is preoccupied with "problems of communication within
the inevitable hierarchies of social, economic, and political organization" (Conley, 1994).
The central theme of this work is how human beings use language to reinforce, challenge,
reconstitute, and repair social relationships within hierarchical systems. In the course of our
discussion, three key terms emerge from Burke's work that will be helpful in framing the social
motives of the Jack the Ripper correspondence. These are the Order, the Kill, and the Secret.
In Burke's usage, Order refers to any system of social hierarchy (e.g., an economic
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system, a system of religious beliefs, a political organization, etc.). The Secret is the founding
principle of a particular hierarchy (e.g., private property ownership in the case of capitalism, the
Trinity in the case of Christianity). It is the mechanism that creates hierarchical relationships.
The Kill is the means of creating a sense of self identity and identification with others through
transformation. For Burke, identity is forged through the making of a sacrifice in which we
become consubstantial with each other (e.g., in Christianity, the shared identity through the
sacrifice of Christ). In the best of all possible worlds, this sacrifice is simply symbolic. However,
it can take on the more malignant associations the word "kill" implies, devolving ultimately into
the utter breakdown of communication and identification in the case of war. In other words, the
Kill is that transformative aspect of social relationships that is necessary for identification, but
must be managed in such a way that it is constructive rather than destructive.
If Burke's theories about how and why we communicate with each other and use symbols
to negotiate our social surroundings have any merit whatsoever, they should be of use in
examining the discourse emerging in the wake of the Whitechapel murders in 1888. Burke’s
approach to symbolic action is firmly rooted in physical experience, and as abstract as his
theorizing can become, it is never far from the physical metaphors of the body from which his
ideas spring. In fact, Burke's use of physical imagery is not simply a way of illustrating his ideas
in a visceral way, but is based in his conviction that the way we interact symbolically parallels
our lived, embodied experiences of the world. If anything, symbolic action is a metaphor for the
human experiences of the sexual, violent, excremental, and mortal aspects of our lives, not the
other way around. To this corporeality of Burke's theories of symbolic interaction we add a
virtual laundry list of hierarchies challenged and broken by the murders in Whitechapel, and we
have a clear invitation to examine the Jack the Ripper correspondence through a Burkean lens.5
What, then, are the hierarchies directly implicated by the murders themselves? Most
obviously, the murders violated a sense of law and order, a phrase Burke would point out
involves not simply a sense of status quo, but one of hierarchy as well. Add to this the issues of
class that were remarked on even at the time of the crimes. The geography of the city of London
underscored the divisions of class involved, inviting the murders to be understood in relation to
the poor East End in which they took place, and the affluent West End in which the social power
and authority to stop and prevent crime was centered. Political hierarchy was also at issue,
particularly given the fact that the crimes emerged from the East End only a year after
demonstrations led by members of the East End working class had been staged in the heart of
Westminster.
The murders transgressed the very notion of civilization itself, and the hierarchical
relationships entailed in the concept of what is "civilized." Again, this was an aspect of the
crimes touched on by social commentators of the time. Specifically, the murders placed acts of
barbaric, chaotic violence within the setting of Great Britain, a nation that styled itself as the
most civilized society the world had ever known. Thus, the murders challenged the very national
identity of Victorian England.
Closely linked to this were notions of racial hierarchy. An oft repeated theory on the
murders at the time was that they certainly could not have been committed by an Englishman.
Such sadistic brutality simply was not consistent with the national character. It was suggested
that the much more likely culprit would be an immigrant (e.g., an Eastern European Jew, of
whom there were many in the East End) or perhaps a seaman from Malaysia or some other
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exotic (and hence, less civilized) locale. "Foreign looking" is a phrase peppered throughout the
eyewitness testimony and police reports describing individuals suspected of involvement in the
murders.
Of course, the murders also involve issues of sexuality, particularly in regard to the
victims' identities as prostitutes. The victims were individuals who disobeyed or challenged the
existing notions of sexual hierarchy and propriety. They did not conform to existing models of
womanhood. Any discussion of the murders could not help but touch on this common
characteristic of the victims. Despite all the euphemisms and circumlocutions used in the media
to elide or soften the issue, the facts remained.
In short, no discussion of the crimes could avoid touching on multiple issues of
hierarchies and their attendant mysteries. Moreover, in many ways, the crimes themselves were
subversions or transgressions of hierarchy. The incredible interest in the murders is explained, at
least in part, by the conflicting attitudes toward these various forms of hierarchy. On one hand,
the murders represented attacks on existing notions of order, and therefore suggested the
disturbing possibility that the social fabric was being rent. On the other hand, discussion of the
crimes also revealed the negative aspects of these hierarchies, particularly the way in which
lower classes were subjected by higher ones. Simultaneously, readers of media coverage of the
Whitechapel murders would be repulsed and horrified by these overt transgressions of order, yet
drawn sympathetically to the challenges posed to existing senses of order by the murders to the
extent that they themselves felt victimized by these hierarchies.
It is this tension that helps explain the resonance these crimes had with Victorian
London. To take just one example, we can look more closely at the identities of the victims. We
began this study by posing the question of why the murders of a few common streetwalkers
would occasion the rise of the most potent symbol for criminal horror in the English-speaking
world. When we look at the crimes through Burke's terminology, however, we see that the
identity of the victims as prostitutes is something that added to rather than diminished the social
impact of the Jack the Ripper persona. After all, the prostitutes embodied the hierarchical
tensions at issue in the murders. They were women in Victorian England, yet as individuals, they
played roles that were at odds with existing models of proper womanhood. As Walkowitz notes
in her study, "as the permeable and transgressed border between classes and sexes, as the carrier
of physical and moral pollution, the prostitute was the object of considerable inquiry as well as
the object of individual preoccupations for respectable Victorians" (Walkowitz, 1992, p. 22). By
itself, this would make them provocative, but in their deaths, these particular prostitutes attained
an even more potent symbolic force. As victims, they could be seen as innocent, undeserving of
their fate despite their profession. They could be (and were) portrayed as victims of the
hierarchies against which they transgressed. They could at the same time represent challenges to
the moral order as well as victims of the breakdown of that order.6
This gave the murders a problematic potency that would not have existed had the victims
been members of other social groups. Had the killer vented his rage against aristocratic ladies,
shopkeepers' wives, or even children, it is doubtful he would have achieved the same notoriety as
he did. The crimes would have been easier to classify as transgressions against a specific order.
The reception and interpretation of the crimes would not be nearly so complex. The fact that the
victims themselves existed at this nexus of economic, social, and sexual hierarchies guaranteed
that any discussion of the crimes would entail a wide variety of collective anxieties about secrets
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and desires for order that otherwise might not have been present.
The fact that the crimes seem to have had no motive beyond the destruction of these
women as individuals also allowed the question of what hierarchy was being most clearly
transgressed to be left open to public imagination and fantasy: were the victims guilty
transgressors of order, or innocent victims of its violation? Even the physical realities of the way
the murders occurred played into this dynamic; one of the aspects of the crimes that drew such
unprecedented public attention was the ferocious yet systematic violence perpetrated on the
bodies of the victims. The idea of the victims as innocent sacrifices to the forces of hierarchy is
underscored by the fact that their brutalization took an overtly ritualistic form, so much so that
contemporary speculation about the killer's identity included the possibilities that the murderer
was a Jewish ritual animal butcher, a vengeful Mason committing ritualistic murders, or a
vivisectionist bent on doing bizarre gynecological research. All these possibilities shared the
common characteristic of ritualistic sacrifice perpetrated on a body in compliance with the
demands of a higher order, be that order of a religious, fraternal, or scientific nature.
The murders, involving in specific ways embodiments of Burke's triad of Order, Secret,
and Kill, created a drama which acted out for its Victorian audience their own preoccupations,
values, tensions, and conflicts. Burke's triad describes the constantly turning dynamic among
social hierarchy, the forces that create that hierarchy, and the transformative power in which
such hierarchies are challenged and defended. Its contemplation offers a means by which society
can perform periodic self-examinations. In the case of Jack the Ripper, the crimes illustrated the
stark contrasts in social order between East End and West End: poor and wealthy, women and
men, minorities and "true Englishmen", immigrant and native, and laborer and gentleman. They
illuminated the darkest back alleys of Victorian society, revealing more vividly than the musings
of any flaneur the secret world of the poverty-stricken and the "fallen women" who existed at the
social order’s lowest depths. And they did so by transforming through murder five prostitutes
into communal sacrifices, casualties of the very social institutions that had created the most
civilized and cosmopolitan city in the world.
Not only did the murders bring issues of hierarchy to the fore, but the fact that they went
unsolved meant that these ruptures in hierarchy remained open, as did the threat of even greater
danger to social order. Again, if Burke’s work is valid in even its most basic assumptions, it
suggests that the murders and the discussion of them would be disconcerting on a number of
levels and that we would expect to see a symbolic attempt to come to terms with them in a way
that allowed for both the revulsion and the desire stirred up by them to coexist. Coming to terms,
in this sense, would not mean creating a state of social stability; Burke reminds us that Order and
Disorder always exist together, with threats of destabilization in every attempt to codify
hierarchy, and potentialities for new hierarchies in every dissolution of Order. Rather, it means
the creation of a drama to explain and symbolically manage the anxieties produced by living in a
world of flux, a world in which Order and Disorder are continually tumbling into one another.
I suggest that we see exactly this symbolic move in the creation of the persona of Jack
the Ripper through hoax letters written to London newspapers and police. The mystery of Jack
the Ripper is a way of consolidating the various anxieties posed by the acts of murder into a
single mystery to explore, one that allowed the contemplation and discussion of the various
social hierarchies involved.7 By creating a murderer who is distinctly “other” and seems
incapable of being confined by the same strictures of hierarchy that contain the rest of us, the
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letter writers allow individuals to distance themselves from not simply the crimes, but the
transgression of hierarchy involved in them. Yet, by creating this character in a way that allows
him to be seen as familiar and understandable, if not actually sympathetic, the letter writers
allow their readers to vicariously participate in these transgressions. Jack the Ripper is an
embodiment of conflicting attitudes not simply about law and order, but about guilt over several
of the most basic social hierarchies in which his Victorian creators lived, including those of
class, ethnicity, and gender. The fact that the crimes went unsolved allowed the drama of the
Ripper to remain unresolved, just as Burke suggests the dynamic of Order, Secret, and Kill never
resolves itself into any one of those terms. Jack the Ripper carried (and continues to carry) such
social potency because of his elusiveness, both literal and figurative.
More specifically, the creation of a persona for the killer mythologized the crimes in a
way that allowed them to become a source of communal identity, the victims becoming a sort of
sacrifice in which the rest of the community became consubstantial. They filled the symbolic
function of the scapegoat, suffering directly for the sins of the community from which they came
or the community beyond the East End that had negligently allowed the poor and desperate to
fall into increasingly depraved conditions, depending on one's point of view.8 Londoners could
see themselves as sharing aspects of both the murderer and the murdered, existing inside and
outside social hierarchies, as defenders of order while imaginatively transgressing that order at
the same time. The dialectic of Ripper correspondence between the letter writers and the greater
public via the London press allowed for fuller participation in the Burkean notion of the Kill,
allowing the community of readers who took them in to participate in the acts of murder not
simply as potential victims, but as the collective accomplice of the murderer, a character created
in a way as that allowed accusatory fingers to be pointed, but also suggested the uncomfortable
parallels between the actual killer and his public (or at least their unstated wishes and
frustrations).
In short, what the Ripper letter writers did was create a character at the center of a drama
that represented and managed the fears and desires aroused by the murders, fears and desires that
were keyed into some of the most basic underlying structures of social order. As such, Jack the
Ripper became, to use Burke's phrase, an example of the symbol as enigma, a symbol of "both
clarification and obfuscation, speech and silence, of publicity and secrecy [that] simultaneously
expresses and conceals the thing symbolized" (Burke, 1969, p. 120). In fact, it would be difficult
to come up with a better example of the social symbol than Jack the Ripper, a cultural figure who
so clearly combines the known and unknown, the specific and the general, the comfortably
familiar and the monstrous other.
What Does Jack the Ripper Have to Say to Us About Hoax in General?
This discussion of the social purpose of the Jack the Ripper persona and the letters that
created him should not be taken to mean that those individuals who wrote the letters were aware
of the role they were playing. Their motives are largely lost to us, as are their individual
identities. To the extent we know anything about them, we know that they were motivated to
write for apparently simplistic, narrow-minded reasons such as the desire for publicity, the thrill
of causing panic, the desire to get back at individuals they disliked by putting a good scare into
them, and so on.
However, as we have seen by looking at the letters as a body of work, they show a
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definite tendency toward collaboration, a willingness to play the same game with each other.
What this suggests about the phenomenon of hoaxes is that while the individual motivations may
be concrete and individual, the reasons they take the form they do, and the effect they have, can
be based on rather important social realities. What I have suggested in this paper is that the Jack
the Ripper letters, nearly all of which clearly fall under the heading of hoax, serve a collective
purpose by creating a character, a symbol, that allowed a certain amount of sense to be made out
of a horrifying situation. They did this by allowing a fuller drama to be performed, by conjuring
from the haze of fear and uncertainty an identifiable antagonist. By creating a character that
Londoners could at the same time abhor yet find oddly familiar and even human, the collective
hoax of the Jack the Ripper letters served the purpose of containing and framing a chaotic
situation. While an Agatha Christie novel creates a fictional mystery and goes on to give us the
satisfaction of solving it, the Jack the Ripper correspondence provided a satisfaction for its
readership by framing and controlling an all-too-real murder mystery that defied any simple
narrative closure.
Moreover, the fiction of Jack the Ripper allowed for certain social realities to be
contemplated and discussed indirectly. It allowed the various anxieties produced by the murders
to be managed by the creation of a symbol to stand in the place of a vast collection of fears and
desires emerging from the transgression of hierarchies.
In sum, a hoax is not necessarily a public service, by any stretch of the imagination, and
it would be wrong to suggest that it was even in the specific case of Jack the Ripper. Yet, what it
can do is provide a way of dealing symbolically with those aspects of society that are kept secret
and silent. And for those of us who study them, hoaxes can be signs of the fears and desires of
those who create and consume them. After all, hoaxes appear only when there is a willingness,
desire, or perhaps even need to believe them. To study hoax is to study our desire to believe. By
asking how and why these desires manifest themselves, we come to a better understanding not
only hoaxes and those who perpetrate them, but our own collective role in creating the need that
such hoaxes attempt to meet.
Jack the Ripper
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ENDNOTES
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Ted Remington received his doctorate in rhetorical studies from the University of Iowa in 2002.
He authored several entries in the forthcoming "Encyclopedia of American Conspiracy Theory"
and has presented papers on the topics of conspiracy theory and Kenneth Burke at meetings of
the Pop Culture Association/American Culture Association and the Midwest Communication
Association. He currently is an instructor in the Rhetoric Department at the University of Iowa
and teaches composition at Kirkwood Community College.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
The author would like to thank the editors and reviewers of JCJPC, Dr. Bruce Gronbeck
(University of Iowa) for his helpful review of the text, and Dr. Peter Knight (University of
Manchester) and Dr. Jonathan Long (University of Durham) for their organization and hosting of
the “Fakes and Forgeries, Conmen and Counterfeits” conference held at Durham Castle,
Durham, UK in 2002, where this paper was first presented. Correspondence should be directed to
Ted Remington, Rhetoric Department, University of Iowa, English/Philosophy Building 171,
Iowa City, IA 52242, or to [email protected].
1
It is worth noting that those interested in using the Ripper murders as the basis for drama
needed to alter many of the known facts of the case in order to find an audience. In Jack the
Ripper: His Life and Crimes in Popular Entertainment (1999), Gary Coville and Patrick Lucanio
note that, until the middle of the twentieth century, dramatic adaptations of the Ripper story had
to change or avoid such details as the names of the people involved (including the victims and
Jack himself), the setting, and the manner of death of the victims, lest the distasteful realities of
the crimes be called to mind too vividly. Most significantly, the stories needed to remedy the fact
that the real Jack was never apprehended. In particular, radio and television dramatizations
based, however loosely, on the Ripper crimes were required by broadcast standards to include a
denouement in which the murderer was either apprehended by the authorities or met with his
own demise. In order to tell the story of the Ripper, what few facts existed needed to be faked.
2
On the issue of authenticity, the general consensus among current scholars of the case is that
virtually all of the letters are inauthentic (in the sense that they were not written by the individual
responsible for the crime). Even a brief glance at the text of the letters leaves little room for
doubt that most of them cannot be by the murderer. The wide variety of handwriting styles, the
variations in dialect, the distinctions in literacy levels that turn up in the letters strongly suggest
that very few could have been written by the same individual, let alone by the actual murderer.
Moreover, one odd commonality of the letters is the recurring insistence that previous letters
were not from the real killer. The letter that is most often noted as having the best chance of
being authentic is the "From Hell" letter sent to George Lusk, accompanied by a portion of a
kidney. This letter is discussed further in the following section: "How to Write a Jack the Ripper
Letter."
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3
The variety of authors behind these letters and their informal collaboration is expressed well in
a scene shot for the Hughes brothers’ film From Hell (although cut from the final edit of the
theatrical release), a telling of the Jack the Ripper tale based on allegations of a Masonic
conspiracy and royal complicity in the murders. In the scene, a well-to-do gentleman is sitting at
his desk late at night and tells his wife he will come to bed shortly after finishing a last bit of
business. After she disappears, he begins writing on a piece of paper. A voiceover begins to read
the text of the “Dear Boss” letter. A montage of images shows us a wide variety of other
Londoners of differing ages, genders, and economic classes penning similar letters. As the
images change, so do the voices reading the text of the letter, mirroring the different authors.
This sequence, available on the DVD release of the film, captures the varied yet collaborative
voices that created the character of Jack the Ripper in the autumn of 1888.
4
This transcript is based on that given in Stewart P. Evans and Keith Skinner's Jack the Ripper:
Letters from Hell (2001), a study of the Ripper correspondence featuring transcripts of most of
the known letters as well as facsimiles of many of the originals.
5
It is worth noting parenthetically that the East End itself was portrayed by writers at the time in
language that fits nearly perfectly with Burkean notions of the symbolic. In Jack the Ripper and
the London Press, (2001) L. Perry Curtis, Jr. notes that a dominant metaphor for those writing
about the East End even before the murders was that of a jungle. Use of this particular trope
conjures up not only hierarchical distinctions between civilized and uncivilized, but also carries
specifically sexual overtones (particularly given the prevailing understanding of Londoners of
the time about the behavior of the inhabitants of the actual jungles to which the East End was
being compared). Even more explicitly Burkean is the writing of would-be reformer Rev. Lord
Sidney Godolphin Osbourne. Writing in the Times in September of 1888, Osbourne deployed a
number of excremental metaphors in describing the East End, suggesting that just as raw sewage
leads to pestilence, so did the "human sewage" of the East End lead to the depravity of which the
latest series of murders was the most recent symptom.
6
In a sense, Jack the Ripper can be seen as a dark, twisted version of Robin Hood, the "prince of
the Forest" Burke cites as an representative example of the mythic hero who challenges existing
social hierarchy. Jack, like Robin, possesses an uncanny ability to avoid capture while
committing affronts to the social order. Rather than serving the underclass at the direct expense
of those in power, however, Jack defies the authorities by victimizing those who are already
most oppressed by existing hierarchies. The reversal becomes even deeper if one accepts the
suggestion made from the time of the murders onwards, that Jack the Ripper might be a
"gentleman" of social standing or even an aristocrat. This problematic parallelism/opposition
suggests one reason why Jack the Ripper at the same time can be seen as the epitome of
misogynistic violence or the depravity of modern, urban life, yet also inspire the sorts of playful,
irreverent symbolic practices (e.g., musicals, games, the ubiquitous souvenir t-shirt) which are
undeniably popular, but often derided as being a glorification of horrific acts.
7
The Jack the Ripper correspondence can be understood as a special case of the drive to solve
arbitrary puzzles in the face of social frustration. Burke suggests that by taking up and solving
mysteries that seem to have little direct effect one's own position in life, individuals can
experience the satisfaction of "solving" puzzles that stand in for the true mystery (social
hierarchy and the Scramble always involved in it) that is the true source of their frustration but
Jack the Ripper
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219
which is ultimately beyond their influence. This could be said of the preoccupation with the
Ripper in general, but the authors of the Ripper correspondence are a particularly illustrative
example of this phenomena in that their discourse much more clearly is "the saying of
something, not for an extra-verbal advantage to be got by the saying, but because of a
satisfaction intrinsic to the saying" (Burke 1969, 269). While those suggesting possible culprits
or social morals to be gleaned from the killings could be said to be motivated by an honest desire
to give concrete assistance to their community, the Ripper letter writers create a solution (of
sorts) to the mystery through the creation of a character on whom to place the blame. This is
done anonymously and with no motivation of tangible assistance to their fellow Londoners. They
approach, much more closely than the letter-writing would-be detectives or social reformers,
Burke's notion of pure persuasion.
8
This is a distinction that would depend largely on who happened to be telling the story; in
conservative circles (such as the Ripper reportage in the Times), the tendency would be to focus
on the depravity of the individuals inhabiting the East End as the source of the problem. In
liberal or radical circles (e.g., the Star newspaper), the blame would more likely be placed at the
feet of the wealthy West End and of the political and social elites it represented. In either case,
the victims were portrayed has having suffered their fates, at least in part, because of collective
sins of their fellow Londoners.
Works Cited
Burke, Kenneth. 1969. A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Conley, Thomas. 1994. Rhetoric in the European Tradition. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Coville, Gary and Patrick Lucanio. 1999. Jack the Ripper: His Life and Times in Popular
Culture. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc.
Curtis, Jr., L. Perry. 2001. Jack the Ripper and the London Press. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Evans, Stewart P. and Keith Skinner. 2001. Jack the Ripper: Letters from Hell. Stroud, U.K.:
Sutton Publishing.
Rumbelow, Donald. 1988. The Complete Jack the Ripper. London: Penguin Books.
Walkowitz, Judith R. 1992. City of Dreadful Delight. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Jack the Ripper
/
221
Figure 2: Facsimile of the "Dear Boss" letter sent to the Central News Agency in which the name "Jack the
Ripper" first appeared.
Searching for a demon: The media construction of the militia movement
By
Cecil E. Greek∗
Florida State University
Book: Searching for a demon: The media construction of the militia movement
Author: Steven M. Chermak
Publisher: Northeastern University Press
Year: 2002
Many Hollywood film previews have included phrases such as “If you are going to see
just one film this year, this is it!” Such a phrase could be paraphrased for this book: “If you a
looking for just one additional book that will synthesize the basic ideas developed in the
criminological study of crime and media-related issues, select Searching for a Demon.”
Steven Chermak has been a leading figure in the study of crime and media issues for a
number of years. In this book--which was researched prior to 9/11 but includes updated material
on post 9/11 developments related to terrorism—the author investigates media coverage of
militia groups and other alleged homegrown terrorists after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.
In the process, Chermak covers much of the literature in this subfield of the discipline. The
author combines this with a thorough review of pre-event, contemporaneous, and post-event
newspaper and television journalism; his own interviews with those often cited within these
stories; and comparisons to fictional and docudrama accounts that appeared after the incident. In
this regard, Chermak’s is the most extensive, documented empirical analysis to date of what
Peter Manning referred to as media looping, the post-modern reuse of materials (journalistic
snippets, movie plots, etc.) to tell stories which the public can identify as “plausible,” and thus
accept as “true.”
The book is presented in eight chapters. The first sets up the major theoretical frames that
will guide the analysis. Chermak’s model rests firmly in the social construction of social
problems tradition, particularly as it has been extended to investigate the ways in which media
accounts confirm and then reify images of crime problems. As there are a plethora of crime
problems, the media usually only focuses on those whose current status is defined as “crisis.”
Many criminologists give lip service to the constructionist model; Chermak shows how the
following factors played out in creating the “truth” that militia groups were dangerous internal
saboteurs needing immediate government response, including: journalists’ working definitions of
newsworthiness, over reliance on law enforcement personnel as experts, industry pressures to
make stories exciting and get them on the air or in print first, and their deep conviction to the
American way of life.
In the subsequent chapter, Chermak discusses the importance of FBI disasters at Ruby
Ridge and Waco in creating martyrs that the militia movement could point to in their own
 2004 School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany
Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 10 (3) 222-223.
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opposition to government intrusion into private lives, particularly gun ownership. Pre-Oklahoma
City bombing coverage of militias is discussed in the next chapter. Once Timothy McVeigh was
arrested as a suspect in the crime, and his (loose) affiliations to the militia movement were
uncovered, media frenzy resulted in hundreds of stories on the movement generated over the
subsequent half year. To implicate the entire militia movement because of one event is similar to
branding the entire anti-abortion movement as potential murderers because a few extremists have
shot and killed abortion clinic staff.
In chapter 4, Chermak goes in depth into how journalists construct their stories through
the use of “experts,” using as their guide the journalistic mantra that most stories require that
both sides be heard (or at least offered an opportunity to respond). In the militia stories, one side
was typically taken by law enforcement personnel, the other by spokespersons for militia
organizations. Real experts (criminologists were rarely consulted), if interviewed, are often
sound-bited, seeming to take one side or the other. Militia spokespersons often ended up
sounding like extremists, coming off as dissenters to what other experts had put forward as fact.
In chapters five and six the author demonstrates how militia members were labeled as
“outsiders” as a result of media accounts, a threat that must be confronted, if it is to be
controlled. However, after 18 months to two years the stories about militias subsided, as new
enemies emerged to take their place and new crime stories came to dominate the news. One can
trace the history of media criminals from the 1908s until the present and discover heightened
periods in which accounts of serial killers, crack dealers, urban street gangs, satanic cults,
militias and foreign terrorists dominated the press. Each, but the last, seems to drop off the radar
screen over time. In the media’s 24/7 need for new stories the interstices between these major
trends are filled by stories of missing congressional assistants (Chandra Levy), kidnappings by
Mormons hoping to practice plural marriage (Elizabeth Smart), or audaciously planned killings
(Laci Peterson). One only has to check what is on Larry King Live to find the latest case.
Many criminological observers fail to consider the connections between news stories and
Hollywood portrayals of crime. Chermak, in chapter seven, demonstrates that the relationship is
reciprocal as topical shows and quickly produced movies attempt to incorporate the latest crime
waves into their scripts. One only has to look at the run of police corruption films in the wake of
the LAPD Rampart scandal (Training Day, Dark Blue, Fox FX TV’s The Shield, etc.) to see this
trend. Similarly, journalists frequently cite movie characters and plots in the effort to provide a
way for the public to grasp an unusual story or criminal. Thus, subway gunman Bernard Goetz
became a Charles Bronson Death Wish vigilante, Timothy McVeigh a Rambo-like guy
fascinated with guns, and any number of serial killers as real life Hannibal Lechters.
Overall, Chermak’s book is a welcome addition to the literature on crime and media.
Unfortunately, too few criminologists recognize the importance of this field of study. As
distorted media images of crime predominate, inevitably bad social policy follows.
∗
Direct correspondence to Cecil E. Greek, Florida State University, School of Criminology and
Criminal Justice, Tallahassee, Florida.
The Art of Crime: A Review of The BFI Companion to Crime
By
Sean E. Anderson∗
Monmouth University
Title: The BFI Companion to Crime
Author: Edited by Phil Hardy; Foreword by Richard Attenborough
Publisher: University of California Press
Year: 1997
It was with eager anticipation that I sat down to read the esteemed British Film Institute’s
(BFI) The BFI Companion to Crime. This eagerness was prompted by the marriage of two
phenomena, crime and film, that are the core of my research interests. Often such a strong sense
of anticipation is bound to disappoint, but I am happy to report that this book despite some minor
difficulties does not disappoint. It even exceeded expectations by prompting me to reflect on the
relations between crime stories and criminology.
The foundation of the book, laid out in the foreword by Richard Attenborough and the
introduction by Phil Hardy, is based on a number of reasonable premises: that crime is a
universal and trans-historical fact of recorded human history; that stories of crime have always
accompanied empirical crime; and that crime stories, in particular filmed stories about crime, can
provide the consumer of these crime stories with an interesting and unique understanding of
themselves and others. Hardy and the various contributors to this work set out to survey and
classify the main types of crime narratives in film to provide a resource for those interested in
crime films.
A few thoughts about the methodology utilized in the choice of films to be included are
pertinent before reviewing the results of the survey. Survey is a key term here, because an
exhaustive examination of crime narratives would be a monumental, if not impossible, task.
Some readers may have a more difficult time with the fact that Hardy deliberately does not
define the crime film genre and instead aims to loosely define the genre by the results of the
work. Defining key terms is difficult, especially the term genre, but always necessary. Without
a common frame of understanding, even if flawed, scholarly investigations drown in a sea of
rhetorical battles.
Hardy justifies this decision by claiming that an act (or acts) of crime is an indispensable
theme in many Horror films and Westerns, but that they are in fact different genres (p. 11). Yet,
if horror films and Westerns are definable as genres, then why are crime films not definable?
More problematic than the question of what is a crime film is the inability to at least loosely
answer: What is not a crime film? How are crime films different than, or are they even different
than, other genres of film? How is such a comparison even possible without operationalizing the
terms, distinguishing each genre? If narratives containing themes of crime are wider than the
films selected and labeled “crime films” by these investigators then surely the significance and
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Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 10 (3) 224-232.
Review of The Art of Crime / 225
fascination with stories of crime is deeper and broader than the films included in this survey.
The larger issue is that one only has to give a cursory examination of all sorts of fiction to see
that crime plays a prominent role in every genre of fiction; in fact, it seems to transcend genre.
For instance, one can see in the Greek tragedies (i.e., Sophocles’ Oedipus trilogy) that crime is
an indispensable element of the tragic genre. As Aristotle theorizes on the nature of tragedy in
Poetics, there is no tragedy without a crime or a crime being averted by a character’s recognition
of the mistake they are about to make (Murnaghan 1995).
While Hardy does not formally define the crime film genre he does informally tie it
sociologically to the development of professionalized police forces. He then asserts that our
growing cultural fascination with crime stories originates in this phenomenon. It is the
organized, social reaction to crime that provides both the entrance into the crime film genre and
the reason for its growing popularity with the public. This assertion may carry some weight
because the construction of a professional police force coincides with the creation of the
immensely popular investigative fictions of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Edgar
Allan Poe whose character, C. Auguste Dupin predates Holmes, while briefly acknowledged in
the body of the text, gets short shrift in the creation of the crime investigation genre). Yet,
operationalizing the crime story genre in this manner, while reasonable, does not seem
satisfactory. This framework, in my mind, leads to the survey being over-weighted with films
about the social reaction to crime. Indubitably, this is a crucial element (sub-genre?) of the crime
film but only one angle of view. A reliable survey should provide a well-rounded snapshot of
the crime film genre with films representing the many facets of crime (e.g., the point of view of
the victims of crime, the criminal, and the society). I suspect that the picture drawn from this
survey may be out of balance. Incidentally both the changing social reaction to crime and the
popularity of crime fiction coincides with the advent of the motion picture. Certainly the change
in representational technology must also play a role in the rise of the crime story because motion
pictures present stories in action and crime for the most part is action.
With these difficulties in mind, the reader may notice films omitted that he or she would
have included in the book and others that he or she may have excluded. I, for example, was
surprised that a film such as Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing was not included and a film such as
The Great Muppet Caper (!) was included. I suspect, however, that despite the difficulties noted
above that the breadth of the films included in the book will in fact impress the reader.
The survey
The introduction to the survey presents some observations on the modern history of the
crime story and a rough chronological sketch of the shifting themes in these stories. It contains
many astute observations, along with many trivial details, to aid our understanding of the crime
films. I will only comment on a few that I found particularly intriguing. The depiction of crime
at the advent of the modern crime story was of crime as a piecemeal and artistic act, particularly
through the characters Sherlock Holmes and Mabuse as they battled wits with criminals (p. 14).
Hardy claims that the depiction of crime and the criminal undergoes a change in structure
because of social influences, primarily prohibition and the increasing role of crime films, with
reporters as screenwriters, being lifted from newspaper headlines. Criminals were now presented
as organized and industrial especially with the rise of the gangster films in the 1920’s. His
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analysis of the structure of gangster films, their rise and fall and rise again in popularity is
interesting and informative. Scattered observations on the influence of institutional forces that
shaped the production and therefore reception of crime stories, including the role of censorship,
is equally helpful to the reader and hint at the intimate relation between the cinema and culture.
This is also seen in the changing position of women in the crime film, which he sees as tied to
the cultural forces shifting the social roles of women in the wake of World War II (p. 16). Since
crime films were primarily a male oriented domain, and for the most part still are, women were
depicted as trivial to the story of crime, as mere girlfriends or molls in the gangster films of the
1920-30’s. Hardy sees the shift in depicting women most notably in the rise of the Film Noir
genre where women take on a more active role than being the simple accoutrements of criminals.
Both as femmes fatales preying upon naïve and weak willed men and as the active force in
rescuing or saving the suffering man, the portrayal of female characters changed. Other analyses
include the influence of Sigmund Freud on the crime film (p. 17), the theme of police corruption
(p. 22), and the move to character based stories (p. 23).
The main body of the text is structured in the style of an encyclopedia, from A bout de
Souffle (Breathless) to Zapis zbrodni (Chronology of Crime), with the entries presenting brief
synopses and commentary on films, filmmakers, writers, crime types, and film styles. The
reader is presented with not only clear and concise information on the subject matter, but
interspersed throughout the text are evocative, wonderful, still photos from the films. One of the
best qualities of this book is that there is a true international flavor with many of the films from
countries such as Japan, France, and Italy. Yet there are films omitted such as Bicycle Thief
(1947) and Los Olvidados (1950) that are not only mandatory, in my view, in any survey of
crime films, but also represent groundbreaking, critically acclaimed films.
The films included array from the major films, immensely popular and critically
trumpeted (The Godfather) to the minor and obscure films (Trancers/Future Cop). Ranging
from sophisticated to simple, the films included approach or frame their understanding of the
construction of the criminal and the causes of crime in ways that run the gamut from the
psychological (Rope) to the sociological (Mean Streets) to the social-psychological (A
Clockwork Orange). There are entries that comment on the depiction and history of major
fictional characters in the crime film genre such as Fu Manchu and Sherlock Holmes (impressive
is the inclusion of the actors that have played the character, which humorously included Leonard
Nimoy playing Sherlock Holmes). There are films represented that present the crime story in a
variety of stylistic forms such as realist (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer) and comedic
(Ruthless People) to name a few. Aside from the major characters and films there are also
entries on major writers of crime films (Joseph Wambaugh), criminals (Jack the Ripper), and
sub-genres such as juvenile delinquency and gambling. There is even an entry on crime stories
in pornography!
A companion to crime?
As noted earlier this book was not only enjoyable to read (and re-read!), but it prompted
me to reflect upon the relation between crime stories and criminology. In particular, I was struck
by the title of the book—The BFI Companion to Crime. The key word here is companion. How
Review of The Art of Crime / 227
is this book a companion to crime? Is this a mix up? Don’t they mean The BFI Companion to
Crime Films? Webster’s NewWorld Dictionary defines companion as “a person who associates
with or accompanies another or others; associate; comrade” (1980, p. 288). Isn’t the book
supposed to accompany our understanding of crime films? Or, do they literally mean that the
book by leading us to significant crime films can accompany our understanding of crime?
What sort of a companion can this book be for a person trying to understand crime? How
can it aid our understanding of crime? To what use could a criminologist put these crime
stories? While an in-depth answer to these questions is beyond the scope of this review essay, I
constructed at least four different functions of crime stories (all forms not just those exemplified
in film) that could aid a criminologist1. While two of the functions of crime stories are probably
more common and familiar to the reader, the other two are most likely not. By no means do I
think that these four exhaust all possibilities and I implore the reader of this essay to try and
formulate more2.
Crime stories as pedagogical tools
The first way to use crime stories, and familiar to readers of The Journal of Criminal
Justice and Popular Culture, is in the classroom. In this mode of use the crime story functions as
a companion to subject matter covered in other forms (data, research, theory, biography and so
on). Teachers use films in the classroom for a variety of reasons. Sometimes a crime story can
present difficult to understand material in a more digestible form. Or the crime story may
highlight the themes or complexities of criminological research and theorizing. In other cases,
the crime story could be used as a counter-point, a sounding board to the other material covered
in the hopes of producing a more critical interpretation of the causes and control of crime.
Whatever the rationale for their use, the function of crime stories in this form is as a cognitive
tool in developing a better understanding of crime.
Crime stories as cultural documents
Another common way to use crime stories is as a source of data. In this mode of use the
crime story functions as a companion to the practice of researching crime. There are two forms
in which work in this vein is typically done. In the first form the crime story functions in a strict
empirical sense. The assumption is that the crime story can provide the researcher with a basic
understanding of how the person (or persons) who produce the crime story and those that
consume the crime story view the phenomenon of crime. Investigators can try to answer
questions such as how have the stories of crime changed over time, or how do the stories differ
cross-culturally. One can, for example, trace out issues of gender and race/ethnicity and crime
stories. Others may focus on how do these stories depict the causes of crime and the control of
crime.
The second form views the production and consumption of crime stories as an ideological
and political process that conforms to, is a companion to, the dominant ideology of the empirical
world. More infrequently, this form of investigation fleshes out how certain crime stories may
subvert the dominant ideology. In this case the crime story functions as cultural data that tells us
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something about the outside of the story. For some who use this approach the crime story can
inform us about the creator (or creators) and their relation to the social world. Others look at the
crime story and it’s reception by consumers as indicatative of how these consumers view and
operate in the world and how this is or isn’t aligned with the master patterns of social control.
Exploratory and explanatory fictions
The last two functions of crime stories as aids to understanding crime are somewhat off
the beaten path for those of us engrained in the social scientific discipline. However, their
ability to aid our understanding of crime may be significant and should not be ignored. In what
follows, I will briefly sketch out the positions of two eminent literary scholars and how crime
stories may be a companion to a scholarly understanding of crime. Their work is complex and
this truncated version of their main ideas should not be substituted for a careful reading of their
work3. However, both scholars share the conviction that fictional stories are a unique mode of
knowledge emerging from narrative action that can aid our understanding of humans.
Wolfgang Iser: Staging the inaccessible
Why do we need fiction? Or, put in our context, why do we need crime stories? This
question of the function of literary fictions is one in which the literary scholar Wolfgang Iser has
relentlessly investigated during his distinguished career. Iser (see 1993; 1989) claims that since
literary fictions have more or less accompanied humans from the beginning of recorded time, its
presence must serve some anthropological need. This function, for Iser, is that literature allows
us to actively shape the world and ourselves by bringing us in contact with something that we
cannot know or experience consciously. They are modes of knowledge that allow us to come
closer to what some situation might be like or how it may be approached.
Iser constructs a unique argument about the role that fiction plays in human life.
Building off the work of the philosopher Nelson Goodman (e.g., Ways of Worldmaking), Iser
claims that there can be no ontological definition of fiction. The standard hard line division
between reality and fiction does not hold up to careful scrutiny. The assumption that there is a
clear cut difference between the two, reality and fiction, implies there is a position beyond,
external to either where we could judge; instead, Iser asserts that we can only look at the uses of
fiction. In an interesting analysis, Iser demonstrates that fictions are part and parcel of reality
and not just something that artists construct for our pleasure. Iser shows that fictions are present
in the form of presuppositions, hypotheses, anticipations, and worldviews. In other words,
fictions seem to play a vital role in the activities of human cognition and behavior. For Iser,
fictions step in where knowledge leaves off. However, literary fictions differ from these other
modes of fiction. A literary text reveals its fictionality; whereas non-literary fictions do not. In
Iser’s view this is a crucial difference. A literary fiction does not function as an explanation;
rather, it operates as an exploration of the world. It is a tool to overcome the determinacy of the
world. This act of revelation is what allows literary fictions to have a unique power by
combining the actual and possible to stage what is unknowable by other means.
Review of The Art of Crime / 229
Building off the anthropology of Helmuth Plessner, Iser assumes that humans have an
internal gap that arises from the inability of a person to be able to fully know what motivates and
drives their actions. That is, humans are unavailable to themselves, so they seek fictions in order
to explore themselves and others. Therefore, literature allows humans to experience what is
otherwise inaccessible. For example, death is inaccessible, but literature can stage death, can
make present what is not accessible. Even more important for Iser, is that this staging of death is
boundless; there are an infinite number of alternative ways that death can be staged. This is what
he calls a productive negativity and it is the most anthropologically significant feature of
literature. By the potential to re-enact life in an endless variety of ways, literature can
supplement, interfere with, or even reveal alternatives to the concrete historical, cultural, or
psychological forces that determine us. In short, it allows us a temporary, virtual position
outside of ourselves to better understand what we cannot see about ourselves.
The claim that literature stages a re-enactment of life that allows the reader to gain
knowledge about things that are inaccessible to us by other modes of knowledge is a very strong
epistemological claim. If literature opens up otherwise unavailable manifestations of being
through the staging of fictional worlds and selves, then this literary knowledge is distinct from
any other form, whether personal, or scientific. Iser believes that literature does this and does
this best when the limit of our other means to gaining knowledge is met. Anthropologically, this
means that literary knowledge would be equivalent to that of any other knowledge because it
reveals what the other modes cannot pierce. Fictions become testing grounds for both the author
and the reader in the attempt to understand something closed off by other means of knowledge.
Therefore, literary fictions are attempts to give reality a new reading.
The idea that literary fiction can bring us into a relationship with that which we cannot
know or experience consciously presents an interesting hypothesis. In both the foreword,
explicitly, and the introduction, implicitly, of The BFI Companion of Crime is the belief that
crime stories can provide valuable insight about ourselves and others. Perhaps, Iser’s work sheds
some light on our anthropological fascination with crime and stories about crime. Crime stories
may allow us to see what is not directly accessible to us—the causes and consequences and
experience of committing crime or the battle to combat crime. It may also allow us to see
ourselves—how we are similar to or different from criminals. While Iser’s work provides an
abstract theoretical grounding of fiction, a crucial step would be to empirically examine the
tangible impact that crime stories have on us. Rather than assuming that literary texts are
transparent in meaning, one needs to examine the concrete reader’s construction of the story. If
in reading literary fiction a person learns about him-or-herself and others, we need to find out
what it is that the person learns.
Rene Girard and mimetic desire
Whereas Iser focuses on the potential for literary stories to allow us to explore important
phenomena inaccessible by other modes of inquiry, Girard claims that literature, especially great
literature, can function in an explanatory mode. In this sense, literature can be a companion to
the sciences and aid the scientific study of extra-textual phenomena4. Girard argues that only by
taking both science and art as serious investigations into human relations can either field
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advance. Art and science need each other. It is the interplay of the two modes of investigation
that can best shed light on issues of concern.
Girard claims that literary texts are the most profound human creation. Therefore, they
reveal to us something unique about ourselves. He also feels that one of the prevailing trends of
literary scholarship, the movement in the field to a relativistic approach to texts where the truths
of the texts are on par with each other, is not satisfactory. In his estimation, great literature (the
classics) manifests an understanding of human nature and relations that is truer than in lesser
works. Moreover he is dissatisfied with the idea that these great writers were not engaged in
serious research. He felt that too often it is the social sciences (i.e., via Freud or Marx) that
interpret art, rather than art interpreting the social sciences. This denigration of the great writers
emasculates their intellectual ability and is problematic because the direction of interpretation is
given a priori. As Girard demonstrates in his book on Shakespeare (1991), perhaps Shakespeare
can teach us more about ourselves than we can teach Shakespeare.
Girard’s groundbreaking study (Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 1965) of Cervantes,
Stendhal, Flaubert, Proust, and Dostoevsky led him to claim that these great authors do evince a
greater understanding than lesser works. These authors, he argues, in their work demonstrate a
superior understanding of human desire because they see human desire as mimetic, as imitative
in nature. Girard labels fiction of this type as Revelatory. Lesser fiction, what he calls Romantic,
understands human desire in a linear fashion, as simply a matter of a desiring person and his or
her desire for the object. By seeing desire as mimetic, triangular, Girard is claiming that to
understand desire and human motivation one must add the additional element of the other person
who models the desire. The images that excite our desire are of objects that are given to us as
desirable by the desire of another. Desire does not reside in the object of desire or in the
individual beings desiring; rather it is a state of relations between desiring creatures. Like
gravity or temperature, desire does not reside in any one object: it resides in the relationships
between desiring humans
Girard assumes that humans have a predilection to imitate. He also assumes that humans
have no innate way of knowing what to desire. The answer to what a person should desire is
found in another person. Thus, a person will take another person, consciously or nonconsciously, as a model because that person seems to possess some qualities that the imitating
person does not. But in seeking to emulate the model the subject will eventually come to desire
the object that the model desires. This may lead to rivalry because two, or even more, persons
are converging on one and the same object with the goal of appropriating it. The end result is
rivalry unless there is a process of deferral in place. Girard points out many processes of deferral
and escalation of rivalry, but for our purposes they can be generically broken down into two
views of the relation between subject and model. On the one hand, if one person perceives the
other person as being superior to him or her then he or she will give up the object. On the other
hand, if one person perceives the other person as being less than or equal to him or her conflict
ensues. Viewing desire in this manner has many radical ramifications for the social sciences. The
most profound implication (for the purpose of this essay, because there are many) is that if desire
is mimetic then we have a unique explanation for human conflict and violence. Since each of us
imitate the desires of others, we are bound to desire the same objects and this may bring us into
Review of The Art of Crime / 231
conflict over those objects. Girard is fond of using the phrase: “Two hands reaching for the same
object are bound to clash.”
The results of his study led him to take a wider, anthropological perspective and to test
this mimetic hypothesis out in an examination of human rituals and myths (Violence and the
Sacred, 1972), to the Bible (Job: The Victim of His People, 1985), and to other theories of
human motivation (Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World, 1987). The results of his
investigations are unique and provocative. Most importantly is the tracing out the primary role
that violence arising from mimetic desire plays in generating the social structures and institutions
humans have developed over time. In each study, he builds a plausible case for the reality of the
mimetic hypothesis. I leave it to the reader to tackle his work and deem how plausible Girard’s
theory is and the weight one may attach to it. However, the fact that his hypothesis is
constructed by a close reading of classical works of fiction is salient. Perhaps, there are other
insights, unavailable in any other mode of knowledge, into human relations and their world that
are awaiting unraveling. So whether one picks up Girard’s hypothesis and extends into other
fields to test it’s merits5, or whether one reads/views closely the crime stories, great or small, to
see if they offer a theoretical understanding that can aid the sciences the opportunity is there to
examine the explanatory potential of crime stories. Equally pivotal is the issue of Girard’s
methodology where he brings into a common dialogue both art and science. What is the level of
fitness between artistic and social scientific explanations of crime? Is there a resonance? Is
there a disjunction? These are interesting and important questions that have to date been
relatively ignored.
It has been almost a decade since the Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture
was founded. The general aim of the journal was to provide the academic community a
scholarly record of investigations into the intersection of criminal justice and popular culture. As
one of the co-founders, with Gregory Howard and Graeme Newman, it was my belief that a
serious, interdisciplinary approach to understanding crime and culture could forge a stronger,
mutually beneficial, bond between the humanities and the social sciences. Each of the four
functions of crime stories outlined above offer a space where the humanities and the sciences can
fruitfully meet and potentially extend our understanding of crime. The BFI Companion to Crime
is a rewarding book for those that want to seriously think about crime and crimes stories, science
and art.
References
Girard, Rene. (1965 [1961]). Deceit, Desire, and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary
Structure. (Yvonne Freccero, Trans.). Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Girard, Rene. (1977 [1972]). Violence and the Sacred. (Patrick Gregory, Trans.). Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Girard, Rene. (1987 [1985]). Job: The Victim of His People. (Yvonne Freccero, Trans.).
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
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Girard, Rene. (1991). A Theater of Envy: William Shakespeare. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Girard, Rene with Jean Michel Oughourlian and Guy Lefort. (1987 [1978]). Things Hidden
since the Foundation of the World. (Stephen Bann and Michael Metteer, Trans.).
Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Guralnik, David. (Editor in Chief). (1980). Webster’s NewWorld Dictionary of the American
Language. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Iser, Wolfgang. (1989). Prospecting: From Reader Response to Literary Anthropology.
Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Iser, Wolfgang. (1993). The Fictive and the Imaginary: Charting Literary Anthropology.
Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Murnaghan, Sheila. (1995). “Sucking the Juice without Biting the Rind: Aristotle and Tragic
Mimesis,’ New Literary History. 26:4 Pp. 755-773
∗
Sean E. Anderson, assistant professor of criminal justice can be contacted at: Monmouth
University, Department of Criminal Justice, McAllan Hall, West Long Branch, NJ 07764 or at
[email protected].
1
The four functions of fiction as a tool to understanding presented here is unidirectional. I am
primarily focusing in this paper on the role that extant crime stories can aid an understanding of
empirical crime. That is, the role art could play in science. The converse, where the social
sciences shape art is a relatively undeveloped area of interest and could be a fifth function. To
that end I am working on an article, “Visual Criminology” that explores how the social sciences
could use narrative fiction to model their theories or research as a means for exploring the
assumptions, concepts, and causal processes identified as relevant.
2
A mea culpa: In no way do I discuss or address any flaws or weaknesses in the way that these
crime stories could be utilized by scholars attempting to gain an understanding of crime. Nor do
I assert any hierarchy of value to these approaches. While these issues are important they are
beyond the scope of this essay.
3
See the special issue devoted to Wolfgang Iser (New Literary History, 2000, 31:1) for an
introduction to his work. Rene Girard’s Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World
(1987) is the best starting point for understanding his approach.
4
For an interesting example of this approach see Scott Sprenger, “Balzac as Anthropologist,”
Anthropoetics 6, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2000)
[www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0601/Balzac.html].
5
I am currently working on this angle in “Mimetic Desire and Violence: A Theoretical
Elaboration of Social Learning Theory,” presented at the Annual meeting of the Academy of
Criminal Justice Sciences, Boston, MA, April 2003.
REVIEW OF ILLINOIS JUSTICE: THE SCANDAL OF 1969 AND THE RISE OF JOHN
PAUL STEVENS∗
BY
Joseph N. Patten, Ph.D.
Monmouth University
Book: Illinois justice: The scandal of 1969 and the rise of John Paul Stevens
Author: Kenneth A. Manaster
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Year: 2001
Justice John Paul Stevens became the 101st Justice of the Supreme Court after being
nominated by President Gerald Ford and unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate in
1975. Ford’s selection of Stevens to succeed Justice William O. Douglas surprised most political
pundits because he was not very well known beyond the Illinois borders. He was selected
because President Ford wanted to nominate a justice of “unquestioned integrity and talent” in the
aftermath of Watergate and because Stevens had admirers in high places, including then U.S.
Attorney General Edward Levi and Republican Senator Charles Percy from Illinois. In Illinois
Justice: The Scandal of 1969 and the Rise of John Paul Stevens, we come to learn this
admiration was earned during Stevens’ investigation of two Illinois Supreme Court Justices
accused of judicial malfeasance in 1969. Kenneth A Manaster, who worked under Stevens
during this investigation, chronicles in exhaustive detail the facts associated with this
extraordinary case and how it catapulted Stevens from relative obscurity to the nation’s highest
bench.
In 1958, Sherman H Skolnick sued a brokerage firm for mishandling $14,000 worth of
stocks, representing his life savings. Skolnick’s case was dismissed at the lower court. On
appeal, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s dismissal of the suit. This
experience so enraged Skolnick that he decided to devote his life to rooting out corruption in the
Illinois judicial system. Skolnick, paralyzed from polio since the age of six, formed the Citizen’s
Committee To Clean Up The Courts. This 1960’s Illinois organization combined the modern
litigious talents of Larry Klayman’s Justice Watch, with Matt Drudge’s proclivity to hurl
sensational and sometimes far reaching accusations against public officials. Skolnick, an
irascible sort, “wore thick glasses, had buck teeth, dressed forgettably, and showed absolutely no
respect for authority.”
After receiving a tip from a friend, Skolnick examined the stockholder records of
Chicago’s newly opened Civic Center Bank (CCB). His investigation uncovered that two
Illinois Supreme Court Justices owned a substantial number of shares in the bank. Skolnick
grew suspicious because the Illinois Supreme Court had just upheld the dismissal of criminal
charges against Theodore J. Isaacs, who served as the General Counsel for the very same Civic
Center Bank. The investigation also revealed that Chief Justice Roy Solifsburg and Associate
Justice Ray Klingbiel acquired the CCB stock immediately prior to rendering the Isaacs decision.
 2004 School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany
Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 10 (3) 233-237.
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JCJPC 10 (3), 2003-2004
Ironically, Justices Solifsburg and Klingbiel both served on the Supreme Court when Skolnick’s
case was dismissed years earlier.
After incessant prodding by Skolnick, the Alton Evening Telegraph, a local newspaper,
broke the story that Justice Ray Klingbiel upheld the dismissal of criminal charges against an
officer of the Chicago bank, while holding $2,000 of that bank’s stock. It was later revealed that
Chief Justice Solifsburg also earned approximately $3,500 after selling his shares in the bank a
year later. The political timing of these accusations could not have been any worse for Justices
Klingbiel and Solifsburg. In the spring of 1969, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas had just
resigned over an inappropriate fee arrangement with financier Louis Wolfson. The story quickly
became front-page fodder for all of the state’s newspapers. The Illinois legislature even weighed
in, voting unanimously to appoint a special committee to investigate the matter. State legislator
Henry Hyde, who would later become well-known for his role as Chairman of the House
Judiciary Committee during the Clinton Impeachment hearings, was charged with finding an
impartial counsel for the Illinois House Committee.
Skolnick also filed a legal motion requesting that the Illinois Supreme Court appoint a
special commission to investigate the matter. Justice Klingbiel, ironically, chaired the
Committee responsible for investigating judicial malfeasance. Amidst the political firestorm
brewing across the State, the Illinois Supreme Court granted Skolnick’s motion and appointed
the president of the Chicago Bar Association and the president of the Illinois Bar Associations as
co-chairs of the Committee. The Commission then named private practitioner John Paul Stevens
independent counsel, thus setting the stage for Stevens’ meteoric rise to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Stevens delved into the investigation in a thorough, plodding, and meticulous manner.
He scheduled hearings for mid-July and was instructed to furnish the Commission with a report
by July 31st. Stevens went right to the source. Justice Klingbiel initially stated that he purchased
the stocks long after the Isaac decision had been rendered. However, Stevens later uncovered
that CCB stocks were given to Justice Klingbiel prior to the Isaacs decision by Robert M.
Perbohner, an Isaacs associate. Klingbiel then claimed the stocks were given as a campaign
contribution, even though his campaign had already run its course, with a surplus of funds
remaining in his campaign coffers. The investigation also revealed that Chief Justice Solfisburg
also owned $14,000 worth of CCB stock, raising further questions on the integrity of the Isaacs
decision. Complicating matters was the fact that Chief Justice Solfisburg was one of the most
well respected jurists in the country at the time. Senator Dirksen (R-IL) and Senator Percy (RIL) had even sponsored his nomination as a replacement for Justice Fortas, who resigned from
the U.S. Supreme Court a few months prior.
Stevens’s investigation soon revealed odd instances in which owners of CCB stock were
not identified on certificates, which demonstrated that many were going to great lengths to
conceal their ownership of CCB stocks. Stevens also learned that Justice Klingbiel was assigned
the Isaacs case even though it was not his turn in the court’s rotation. The plot thickened
immensely when Stevens learned that it was actually Chief Justice Solfisburg who ultimately
recommended that CCB officials “do something nice for Judge Klingbiel”. This testimony
enabled Stevens to paint a conspiratorial link between the two justices and CCB officials.
Review of Illinois Justice / 235
Stevens proved to be as feisty in the hearings as he was meticulous in his research. He
was able to weave the truth through testimony that was at times combative, evasive and even
perjurious. His fair-minded but relentless search for the truth even won him praise from
opposing counsel. In summation, he cogently and persuasively argued that Chief Justice
Solfisburg established a trust fund for the sole purpose of concealing from the public record that
he was the owner of CCB stock. He also thoroughly and passionately explained the unlikelihood
of Justice Klingbiel receiving the stock as a campaign contribution. The sheer volume of
corroborating facts presented by Stevens left little doubt that there was at the very least an
appearance of impropriety.
As an independent investigator, Stevens thought it was inappropriate for him to
recommend a particular sanction for the justices. This is interesting because some of Stevens’s
modern critics believe his attention to legal detail, and emphasis on a balanced approach prevent
his opinions from establishing sweeping legal precedents. He is also criticized for deferring to
other institutions. In any event, he simply closed the hearing by stating he “respectfully submits
that Theodore J. Isaacs, Robert M. Perbohner, Ray I. Klingbiel, and Roy Solfisburg are each
guilty of gross impropriety.” The special Commission appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court
ultimately recommended that Justice Klingbiel and Chief Justice Solfisburg resign from the
bench. They reluctantly did a short time later.
Sherman Skolnick, the Chicago gadfly who exposed the scandal, refused to participate in
the hearings because he expected the Commission to do a “whitewash job” with the
investigation, even though he was the one who requested the formation of the Commission in the
first place. He was even placed in jail for contempt, and bailed out by social activist Dick
Gregory. Even Skolnick, however, came to publicly recognize the thoroughness of Stevens.
The Court never revisited the criminal case against Isaacs because the Justices concluded
their decision would not likely stray from the original opinion authored by Justice Klingbiel.
However, Isaacs was later indicted with former Illinois Governor Kerner for tax evasion, bribery,
and other inappropriate actions involving a racetrack. Justices Klingbiel and Solifsburg both
continued careers in Law, with Solifsburg even returning to argue before the Illinois Supreme
Court.
Stevens’s ability to weave through the complexity of the investigation and to effectively
stare down Chicago’s best legal minds during a week of hearings elevated Stevens in the eyes of
the legal community. He became a local hero and was featured on front-page stories across the
state as a tenacious fighter for truth and integrity in the Illinois judicial system. A year later, he
was nominated by President Richard Nixon to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for
the Seventh Circuit, where he served until he was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1975.
Kenneth A. Manaster does a masterful job of taking the reader through the beaded curtain
of Chicago Politics in the 1960s. The book also reminds us that the remnants of a local Illinois
scandal in the 1960s are still with us today in the judicial opinions of John Paul Stevens. While
the attention to legal details might grow a little tiring for non-attorney types, Manaster does
ultimately move from legal itemizations to political conceptualizations at the end. The book is
also an enjoyable read. While Manaster’s case study approach makes it somewhat difficult for
advancing generalizations in the field of judicial politics, the book does forward the discussion
on important themes. The author, for example, implicitly questions the wisdom of judicial
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JCJPC 10 (3), 2003-2004
elections. As the nation continues to grapple with various judicial selections process at the state
level, including partisan elections, non-partisan elections, gubernatorial appointments, legislative
appointments, and the merit system, the author points out some of the trappings associated with
judicial elections. Not coincidentally, Justice Stevens and Justice Kennedy are the only Supreme
Court Justices to publicly rail against judicial elections. In an interview with the San Francisco
Examiner, for instance, Justice Kennedy argued that judicial elections have “frightening conflicts
of interest” and a year later Justice Stevens public stated that he believes judicial elections are
“profoundly unwise.”
What truly makes this book worth reading though is the insight it provides into the
worldview of Justice Stevens. In the foreword to the book, Justice Stevens writes that the
investigation has influenced his work as an appellate judge in substantial ways. He has always
been viewed as an independent thinker and a legal maverick on the bench. Avoiding the
conservative or liberal label, Stevens employs a “logical reasoning” approach to judicial decision
making, preferring to examine the facts of each case separately and deciding it on the specifics of
the case. This approach can be found in his opinion in the Federal Communications Commission
vs. Pacifica Foundation (1978) case and in the landmark Bush vs. Gore (2000) decision. In
Pacifica, where a father complained against a radio station for airing George Carlin’s “Filthy
Words” routine during the afternoon, Stevens grappled with the specific facts of the case rather
than on freedom of speech as a legal abstraction, as some of the other Justices viewed the case.
He ultimately voted with the majority in concluding that the FCC had a compelling interest in
regulating radio content during times children are most likely to be listening.
In Bush vs. Gore Stevens deferred to the sanctity of state institutions by voting against
Bush’s challenge to the Florida Supreme Court. In his dissenting opinion, Stevens criticized the
Petitioner’s “unstated lack of confidence in the impartiality and capacity of the state judges who
would make the critical decisions if the vote count were to proceed.” The predisposition toward
logical reasoning and deferring to other institutions can clearly be found in Stevens’s orientation
to his responsibilities as independent counselor. Stevens’s closing statement to the Commission
simply restated the facts of the investigation, allowing the Commission and the Supreme Court to
draw it’s own conclusions.
While Stevens does stress the need for judicial independence in the judicial selection
process, he does believe justices should be held accountable in the opinions they write.
Accordingly, he writes more dissenting and concurring opinions than any other justice on the
bench today, because he believes dissenting and concurring opinions reveal insight into the
judicial decision making process. This tendency stems from his days as an independent
counselor, where Justice Schaefer failed to make his dissent public in the Isaacs case.
Compared to the other Supreme Court Justices, Stevens is also much more sympathetic to
pro se petitions, or petitions filed without the assistance of counsel. While most pro se petitions
do not merit the review of the Court, Stevens harkens back to the petition filed by rebel rouser
Sherman Skolnick in 1969. While Skolnick “occasionally had difficulty separating reality from
fantasy” according to Chair Greenberg, he was chiefly responsible for sparking the investigation.
Stevens has therefore consistently fought against any attempt to restrict the ability of litigants to
Review of Illinois Justice / 237
file “repetitious claims or to proceed without the payment of costs”, thus helping to keep the
doors of justice open to all American citizens.
The New York Times once reported that it is difficult “to characterize Justice Stevens in
political terms because customary labels did not seem to suit him” and because he is a “man
whose modesty is sometimes taken for shyness.” ILLINOIS JUSTICE does more than simply
reveal interesting facts about a judicial scandal in Chicago in the 1960s. It provides insight into
the core values of a Justice who has shaped the direction of the Supreme Court for 28 years while
flying under the political radar, at least until now.
∗
Direct correspondence to Joseph N. Patten, Assistant Professor of Political Science and
Director of the Governor’s School of Public Issues and the Future of New Jersey, Monmouth
University, West Long Branch, New Jersey.