NCJ Number
82008
Date Published
1979
Length
33 pages
Annotation
This collection of essays discusses law enforcement and prosecutorial discrimination against blacks and political and social dissidents.
Abstract
The first article charges that the Justice Department has focused large amounts of its resources to harass, discredit, and disrupt the activities of groups and persons dedicated to social change, without bringing criminal charges against the persons so harassed. The FBI's COINTELPRO domestic spy program is cited as an example of Federal efforts to discredit black leaders and others committed to racial reforms. A second paper argues that the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, State attorneys general, local police departments, and the communications media have focused selectively on the few black political leaders at all governmental levels in efforts to incriminate them and undermine their political influence, particularly among white constitutents. A third article, written by the chief counsel in the Karen Silkwood v. Kerr McGee Nuclear Corporation case, charges that the Justice Department has surreptitiously developed an intelligence network that involves the use of State and local intelligence personnel to develop intelligence data on citizens not filed in official records. The organization coordinating the network and maintaining the files is the Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit. Another paper cites the underemployment of blacks in the Federal justice system as a primary reason for selective and discriminatory prosecution of blacks. The unjustified killing of blacks by police is discussed in another essay, as cases are cited where police in effect murder black citizens and escape punishment under the aura of protecting citizens against dangerous criminals.