This is a shocking statistic. Nearly a third of young people arrested by age 23? Either something is wrong with our laws or with law enforcement.

Via New York Times:

By age 23, almost a third of Americans have been arrested for a crime, according to a new study that researchers say is a measure of growing exposure to the criminal justice system in everyday life.

The study, the first since the 1960s to look at the arrest histories of a national sample of adolescents and young adults over time, found that 30.2 percent of the 23-year-olds who participated reported having been arrested for an offense other than a minor traffic violation.

That figure is significantly higher than the 22 percent found in a 1965 study that examined the same issue using different methods. The increase may be a reflection of the justice system becoming more punitive and more aggressive in its reach during the last half-century, the researchers said. Arrests for drug-related offenses, for example, have become far more common, as have zero-tolerance policies in schools.

Thirty percent. Nearly one in three. Something is not right, and while this study did not look at racial breakdowns, it's likely the percentage is far higher among minority and poverty-stricken populations. Nick Peart, a young African American student at a New York community college, wrote a heartbreaking column for the New York Times Saturday asking why the NYPD was after him. He says police target black and Latino youth.

Here are a few other facts: last year, the N.Y.P.D. recorded more than 600,000 stops; 84 percent of those stopped were blacks or Latinos. Police are far more likely to use force when stopping blacks or Latinos than whites. In half the stops police cite the vague “furtive movements” as the reason for the stop. Maybe black and brown people just look more furtive, whatever that means. These stops are part of a larger, more widespread problem — a racially discriminatory system of stop-and-frisk in the N.Y.P.D. The police use the excuse that they’re fighting crime to continue the practice, but no one has ever actually proved that it reduces crime or makes the city safer. Those of us who live in the neighborhoods where stop-and-frisks are a basic fact of daily life don’t feel safer as a result.

We need change. When I was young I thought cops were cool. They had a respectable and honorable job to keep people safe and fight crime. Now, I think their tactics are unfair and they abuse their authority. The police should consider the consequences of a generation of young people who want nothing to do with them — distrust, alienation and more crime.

What is happening here?

UPDATE: Boston PD beat and arrested the Vets for Peace who tried to protect the protesters. Mass arrests made, tents and sleeping bags thrown into waiting garbage trucks.

After a massive march through downtown Boston today, the Occupy Boston site predicted trouble tonight and it looks like they were right:

Police are gathering in mass to remove Occupy Boston campers from the North Camp expansion and possibly from the Main Camp tonight at midnight, by force if necessary. We are calling for all able-bodied volunteers to come lock arms with us in solidarity and defend this Occupation from any police presence that may arrive.

IF YOU LIVE IN BOSTON: The mayor's line needs to hear from you - be ready with the street name of "your" Boston address: 617.635.4500 ... When you get the recording hold or press "0".

Via Twitter, @OccupyBoston reports that protestors have locked arms to protect the camp. Close to midnight, they tweeted:

We overheard the police are telling reporters to leave the inside of the camp - that it's not safe. We have reports that the riot police are continuing to assemble and have batons. Swat team putting on riot gear on High St. Join us now!

Later:

Cops in riot gear with lots of plastic cuffs ready to use staging on High St.

@ProtestChaplain has an ominous report:

city EMTs have set up a tent for dealing with the aftermath.

Veterans for Peace are saying they will place themselves between the police and the protesters.

The Boston Police department delivered a statement to be read in the main camp, saying they intend to clear the camp on unlawful assembly grounds.

Meanwhile, in Georgia, #OccupyAtlanta protesters at Woodruff Park refusing to leave after being told to go by Atlanta police. Earlier today, Occupy Atlanta released this statement:

Participants in Occupy Atlanta met with Chief Turner and his staff today and were warned that the police intended to enforce the city ordinances against camping and against being in the park after 11 pm.
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Here in the "city too busy to hate," the city where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born, attended college, and preached, we come to speak our own dreams.

We believe that the American political process is so corrupted by the influx of lobbyists, "free speech" corporate cash, and politicians beholden to both that it has failed us completely.

Our only option left is to occupy public spaces in order to assert our right to freely assemble and to redress our grievances, rights guaranteed to us by the First Amendment. Exerting that right has ironically become an act of civil disobedience, a fact which points out exactly what the problem really is. We owe no obedience to laws which abridge our Constitutional rights.

We need as many people to come down to Woodruff Park ASAP!

To hell with that Constitution thingie. Everyone knows it's only for gun-toting right wingers.

UPDATE: From their posts on Facebook, it appears the protesters in St. Louis may be asked to take their tents down at Kiener Plaza tonight.

From the descriptions of the people who were there, it sounds as though Mayor Bloomberg's strategy is to thin the ranks of protesters with set-ups like this. The Powers That Be don't understand how many more people are waiting in line to support the Occupy Wall Street actions:

Police reopened the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday evening after more than 500 anti-Wall Street protesters were arrested for blocking traffic lanes and attempting an unauthorized march across the span.

The arrests took place when a large group of marchers, participating in a second week of protests by the Occupy Wall Street movement, broke off from others on the bridge's pedestrian walkway and headed across the Brooklyn-bound lanes.

"More than 500 were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge late this afternoon after multiple warnings by police were given to protesters to stay on the pedestrian walkway," a police spokesman said.

"Some complied and took the walkway without being arrested. Others locked arms and proceeded on the Brooklyn-bound vehicular roadway and were arrested," he added.

The bridge was reopened at 8:05 p.m. EDT after being closed for hours.

Witnesses described a chaotic scene on the famous suspension bridge as a sea of police officers surrounded the protesters using orange mesh netting.

Some protesters tried to get away as officers started handcuffing members of the group. Dozens of protesters were seen handcuffed and sitting on the span as three buses were called in to take them away, witnesses and organizers said.

The NY Times interviewed protesters who said, despite NYPD claims, the police never warned them they couldn't walk in the roadway:

Continue reading »

I don't think these NYPD cops are used to having someone record every move they make, like this video of a cop spraying a group of girls in the face with pepper spray for no good reason. That's probably why they reportedly targeted the Occupy Wall Street media team at yesterday's attempted march to Union Square:

The police made scores of arrests on Saturday as hundreds of people, many of whom had been encamped in the financial district as part of a lengthy protest, marched north to Union Square. As darkness fell, large numbers of officers were deployed on streets near the encampment in Zuccotti Park, at Broadway and Liberty Street, where hundreds more people had gathered.

Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said in a statement, “There were approximately 80 arrests, mainly for disorderly conduct by individuals who blocked vehicular and pedestrian traffic, but also for resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration and, in one instance, for assault on a police officer.”

Protest organizers estimated that about 85 people had been arrested and that about five were struck with pepper spray. Among those was Chelsea Elliott, 25, who said that she was sprayed after shouting “Why are you doing that?” as an officer arrested a protester at East 12th Street.

“I was on the ground sobbing and couldn’t breathe,” she said. The ongoing protests, against a financial system that participants say favors the rich and powerful over ordinary citizens, started last Saturday, and were coordinated by a New York group called the General Assembly.

Many of those taking part have slept in Zuccotti Park, a private park, using it as a base. In the early afternoon hundreds of people left the park and moved north toward Union Square. Witnesses said that for much of the route, protesters spilled from sidewalks onto streets and added that the police used long orange nets at Fifth Avenue and 14th Street in an apparent attempt to block the march from proceeding.

Many marchers, however, detoured and entered Union Square before eventually turning south again. Videos showed a confusing scene as protesters went south on University Place, where motor vehicles run north.

At 12th Street the orange nets again were used, this time to box in protesters between University Place and Fifth Avenue. About 3 p.m., more than two dozen people sat, handcuffed, on the sidewalk.

Nearby, two other protesters standing handcuffed on Fifth Avenue told a reporter that they had both been arrested on sidewalks and were not aware of having broken any law.

“They put up orange nets and tried to kettle us and we started running and they started tackling random people and handcuffing them,” said Kelly Brannon, 27, of Ridgewood Queens. “They were herding us like cattle.”

Next to her, David Smith, from Maine, said that he had been chanting “Let them go” as people were handcuffed, and was then arrested by a senior officer who told him that he was being charged with obstructing governmental administration.

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