On The Run: Fugitive Life in an American City

by Alice Goffman

  Finally, the police tell a woman that if her present and past behavior is insufficient grounds for arrest, they will use every technology at their disposal to monitor her future activities. Any new crimes she commits will be quickly identified and prosecuted, along with any future crimes committed by her nearest and dearest. If she drives after she has been drinking, if she smokes marijuana, if her son steals candy from the store—they will know, and she or he will go to jail.

  The threat of arrest and imprisonment is a powerful technique of persuasion, and perhaps more so when deployed on women. Fewer women than men go to prison or jail, making it a scarier prospect. Women don’t receive the same degree of familial support available to men, as visiting people in prison is considered women’s work, done for men by their female partners and kin, and men are less able to visit.9 In the 6th Street neighborhood, people tend to regard imprisonment as more of an indictment of a woman’s character and lifestyle than a man’s, partly on the grounds that police routinely stop and search men, while women must do something more extreme to get the police’s attention.

  Threats of Eviction

  In addition to threats of arrest and imprisonment, the police threaten to evict women who do not cooperate.10 They told my next-door neighbor that if she didn’t give up her nephew, they would call Licensing and Inspection and get her dilapidated house condemned. And when the police came to Steve’s grandmother’s house looking for him, they noted that the electricity and gas weren’t on, the water wasn’t running, and the bathtub was being used as an outhouse. These violations of the municipal health and building codes would easily constitute grounds for the city to repossess her property. The officers also informed her that the infestation of roaches, mice, and fleas in the house were sufficient grounds for the landlord to revoke her lease. Further, since she had placed the bail for Steve in her name, his running meant that the city could go after her for the entire bail amount—not just the 10 percent she put up, which meant the city could also take her car and her future earnings. When the police came to Aisha’s neighbor’s house looking for the neighbor’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, they informed her that if she didn’t give him up, they would come back late at night in a full raid. Since her apartment was subsidized, she could be immediately evicted for harboring a fugitive and putting her neighbors at risk. She would lose her present accommodations and all rights to obtain subsidized housing in the future.

  Child Custody Threats

  Another tactic that the police use to persuade women to talk is to threaten to take away their children. When the police raided Mike’s neighbor’s house, they told his wife that if she didn’t explain where to find him, they’d call Child Protective Services and report that the windows were taped up with trash bags, that the heat had been cut off and the open stove was being used as a furnace, and that her children were sleeping on the sofa. Officers also found marijuana and a crack pipe in the house. If she continued to be uncooperative, this evidence would build a powerful case for child neglect and unfit living conditions. That evening, the woman packed up her three children and drove them to Delaware to stay with an aunt until the police activity died down.

  Most of the threats police make to women over the course of a raid, a stop, or an interrogation are never realized. Consequently, when a woman attempting to protect a man from the authorities does get arrested or evicted, or loses custody of her children, the news spreads quickly. Anthony had a cousin who lived in Virginia; she was sentenced to five years in prison for conspiracy to sell drugs and possession of an illegal firearm after she refused to serve as a witness for the case against the father of her child. With both her parents in prison, the four-year-old daughter was sent to Philadelphia, where she was passed from relative to relative. Two of Miss Linda’s neighbors got evicted from their government-subsidized housing for harboring a fugitive and interfering with an arrest when the police entered their home searching for a man who had robbed a bank. Families around 6th Street often recalled such stories when they anticipated a raid, or after some interaction with the police.

  Presenting Disparaging Evidence

  In order to get her to provide information, the police may injure a woman or destroy her property. If she persists in protecting the man, they threaten to arrest her, to publicly denounce her, to confiscate and appropriate her possessions, to evict her, or to take her children away. We might call violence and threats external forces of attack, as they operate from the outside to weaken the bonds between the woman and the man the police are after.

  The authorities also work within the relationship, by presenting the woman with information about the man that shatters her high opinion of him and destroys the positive image she has of their relationship. We might call this an internal attack, as it works to break the bonds between men and women from the inside.

  The police’s presentation of disparaging evidence operates as a complex, two-way maneuver. First, they demonstrate to the woman that the man she is trying to protect has cheated on her. They show her his cell phone records, text messages, and statements from women in the neighborhood. The improvement of tracking technologies means that no large effort need be made to furnish these pieces of evidence: they can be quickly gathered at a computer. If the police have no concrete evidence, they suggest and insinuate that the man has been unfaithful, or at least that he doesn’t truly care about her but is simply using her. At this point the officers explain that at the first opportunity, this man who does not love her will give her up to save his own skin, will allow her to be blamed for his crimes. Perhaps he has already done so.

  Just as the officers are explaining to the woman how her partner has been unfaithful and duplicitous, and would easily let her hang for his crimes, so they present the man with evidence of her betrayals. They show him statements she signed down at the precinct detailing his activities, or the call sheet filled out at the Warrant Unit, where, after repeated raids on her house, she phoned to tell authorities where he was hiding. They may also show him evidence that she has cheated on him, which they collect by tracking her cell phone, bills, and purchases, or from statements given by other men and women who are part of the couple’s circle.

  In short, the police denigrate the man and the relationship to the point that a woman cannot protect him and continue to think of herself as a person of worth. In anger and hurt, and saddled with the new fear that this man who doesn’t love her may try to blame her for his misdeeds, leaving her to rot in prison, a woman becomes increasingly eager to help the police.

  Moral Appeals

  The previous techniques of persuasion work by weakening the bonds between the woman and the man the police are pursuing. Moral appeals to the value of imprisonment operate on the opposite principle: they rely on the strength of the woman’s attachment, and play on her resolve to help and protect him. Specifically, moral appeals involve adjusting what the woman believes to be the right thing to do concerning the man she loves.

  Before the police come knocking, a woman may believe that it is best for the man in her life to stay out of prison. He will go crazy in his cell, he will get stabbed, or get AIDS, or have an unhealthy diet. The prison won’t see to his medical needs, like his diabetes or the worrisome bullets lodged in his body.11 He will lose his job if he has one, or find it more difficult to find work once he comes home. Being in a cell day after day, cut off from society, with guards barking orders at him, he will become dehumanized, and normal life will become unfamiliar to him. To keep him from this fate, sacrifices must be made.

  The police explain to the woman that this logic is flawed. In fact, the man would benefit from a stay in prison. He needs to make a clean break from his bad associates. It is not safe for him on the streets; he might be killed if he continues to sell drugs, or may overdose, if his proclivities run that way. He is spiraling deeper and deeper into dangerous behavior; jail will be a safe haven for him. Going to prison will teach him a lesson; he will emerge a better man, one more capable of c
aring for her and the children. The drama must end, they tell her, his drama and the drama that comes because of all the police activity. He has too many legal entanglements, too many court cases, warrants, probation sentences. He will be better able to find work without the warrants. It would be better if the man simply got it over with and began his life afresh. She can help him; she can save him before it is too late. He will thank her one day for this tough love.

  A variant on this line of persuasion is that while it may not be best for the man to go to prison, it will be best for the family as a whole. Protecting the man means that she risks losing her children and her home; the bail in her name means that she could go into debt to the city and be jailed if she cannot pay it. His actions also expose her children to bad people and bad things. As a responsible mother, sister, or daughter, she should save her family and turn him in.

  Promises of Confidentiality and Other Protections

  The police’s techniques of persuasion are often bolstered by promises that no information she provides will be shared with the man or with anyone else among her acquaintance. In twenty-one of the twenty-four raids that I witnessed, officers told family members that the man would never be made aware that they had given him up. During the two questionings I was involved in, the police assured me of my confidentiality, and when women recounted their own interrogations, they mentioned that the same promise was made to them the majority of the time.

  The Multipronged Approach

  Violence, threats, disparaging evidence, moral appeals, and promises of protection are analytically separable, but the police often deploy these techniques in tandem, each serving to strengthen and reinforce the other.

  It was difficult for me to observe women’s interrogations, because they were conducted behind closed doors at the police department, and women were reluctant to recount their experience once they got back home. For these reasons, I have used my own interrogation as an example.

  This interrogation is notable because the police made use of many of the techniques described above, despite having very little to work with: they did not know what my relationship was to the men they were interested in; I was not living in public housing; I had no children; and neither I nor anyone in my immediate family had an arrest history or pending legal problems.

  I had dropped Mike and Chuck off on 6th Street and was heading toward the airport to pick up a friend. Two unmarked cars come up behind me, a portable siren on top of the first one, and I pull over. A cop walks over to my window and shines a flashlight in my face; he orders me to step out of the car and show him my license. Then one of the cops tells me I am coming with them.

  I leave the car on 2nd Street and get into the backseat of their car, a green Lincoln. The white cop in the back with me would have been skinny if not for the bulletproof vest, holster, gun, nightstick, and whatever else he had in his belt. He cracks bubble-gum hard and smells like the stuff Mike and Chuck use to clean their guns. On the way to the precinct, the white cop who is driving tells me that if I am looking for some Black dick, I don’t have to go to 6th Street; I could come right to the precinct at 8th and Vine. The Black cop in the passenger side grins and shakes his head, says something about how he doesn’t want any of me; he would probably catch some shit.

  At the precinct, another white guy pats me down. He is smirking at me as he touches my hips and thighs. There is a certain look of disdain, or perhaps disgust, that white men sometimes give to white women whom they believe to be having sex with Black men—Black men who get arrested, especially.

  They take me up the stairs to the second floor, the Detective Unit. I sit in a little room for a while, and then the two white cops come in, dark-green cargo pants and big black combat boots, and big guns strapped onto their legs. They remove the guns and put them on the table facing me. One cop leafs through a folder and puts pictures in front of me of Mike, then Chuck, then Reggie. Most of the pictures are of 6th Street, some taken right in front of my apartment. Some mug shots. Of the forty or so pictures he shows me, I knew about ten men by name and recognize another ten. They question me for about an hour and a half. From what I remember many hours later:

  Is Mike the supplier? Do you think he’ll protect you when we bring him in? He won’t protect you! Who has the best stuff, between Mike and Steve, in your expert opinion? We know you were around here last week when all that shit went down. (What shit?) We saw you on 2nd Street, and we know you’re up on 4th Street. What business do you have up 4th Street? I hate to see a pretty young girl get passed around so much. Do your parents know that you’re fucking a different nigger every night? The good cop counters with: All we want to do is protect you. We are trying to help you. We’re not going to tell him you gave us any information. This is between us. No paper trail. Did you sign anything when you came in? No. Nobody knows you are even here. The bad cop: If you can’t work with us, then who will you call when he’s sticking a gun to your head? You can’t call us! He’ll kill you over a couple of grams. You know that, right? You better hope whoever you’re fucking isn’t in one of the pictures you’re looking at here, because all of these boys, see them? Each and every one of them will be in jail by Monday morning. And he’ll be the first one to drop your name when he’s sitting in this chair. And then it’s conspiracy, obstruction of justice, harboring a fugitive, concealing narcotics, firearms. How do you think we picked you up in the first place? Who do you think is the snitch? What is your Daddy going to say when you call him from the station and ask him to post your bail? Bet he’d love to hear what you are doing. Do you kiss him with that mouth?

  . . .

  To fully grasp the effect of these techniques of persuasion on women, we must understand the broader context of police violence in which they occur.

  Between November 2002 and April of 2003, I spent a large part of every day with Aisha and her friends and relatives, who lived about fifteen blocks away from 6th Street. From the steps of her building or walking around the adjacent blocks, on fourteen occasions, a little more than twice a month, we watched the police beat up people as they were arresting them. Here is one account from the fall of 2007:

  It is late afternoon, and Aisha and I are sitting on the stoop, chatting with her aunt and her older cousin. Aisha’s mother sits next to us, waiting for her boyfriend to come with five dollars so that she can finish her laundry.

  A white police officer jogs by, his torso weaving awkwardly, his breath coming loud enough for us to hear. Then I notice a young man running a little ahead of him, also out of breath, as if he had been running for a long time. The man slows to a walk, and leans down with his hands on his knees. The cop approaches him, running in this stilted way, and grabs the back of his neck with one hand, pushing him down to the ground. Drawing his nightstick, he straddles the man in a half crouch, and begins hitting him in the back and neck with it.

  Two of Aisha’s neighbors get up off the steps and quietly approach the scene, keeping some yards away. Aisha makes no move to get up; nor does her aunt or cousin. But we lean over to see.

  Police cars pull up to the corner with sirens and lights on, first one then another, then another, blocking the street off. They handcuff the young man, whose face is now covered in blood, especially the side that had been scraped across the cement.

  The police move the man to the cop car, and one cop places his hand on top of the man’s head to guide him into the backseat. Then they look around on the ground, apparently searching the area for something. Two of the cops speak into walkie-talkies.

  “He must have had a gun or drugs on him,” Aisha’s aunt says.

  “I didn’t see nothing,” a neighbor replies.

  When the police cars begin to pull off, a neighbor says that she saw one cop punch the man in the face after he was already cuffed.

  Aisha’s cousin, a stout young man of nineteen, gets up off the steps.

  “Yo, I’m out, Aisha. It’s too hot on your block.”

  “Okay,” she laughs. “Tell
your mom I said hi.”

  An elderly woman comes out after a few minutes with a bucket of bleach and water and pours it over the sidewalk, to clean the blood. Aisha and I go back to talking about her boyfriend, who has just received a sentence of fifteen years in federal prison. As the day goes on, I notice that Aisha and her family make no mention of what we have seen. Perhaps because they don’t know the man personally, this event is not important enough to recount to those not present when it occurred.

  That summer was punctuated by more severe police action. On a hot afternoon in July, Aisha and I stood on a crowded corner of a major commercial street and watched four officers chase down her older sister’s boyfriend and strangle him. He was unarmed and did not fight back. The newspapers reported his death as heart failure. In August, we visited an old boyfriend of Aisha’s shortly after he got to county jail. Deep lacerations covered his cheeks, and his eyes had swollen to tiny slits. The beating he took while being arrested, and the subsequent infection left untreated while he sat in quarantine, took most of the vision from his right eye.

  In interviews, Warrant Unit officers explained to me that this violence represents official (if unpublicized) policy, rather than a few cops taking things too far. The Philadelphia police I interviewed have a liberal understanding of what constitutes reasonable force, and a number of officers told me that they have orders from their captains that any person who so much as touches a cop “better be going to the hospital.”

  In sum, the police apply a certain amount of violence to women to get them to talk, but substantially more to men as they chase them down and arrest them. The violence that women witness and hear about fixes what the police are capable of doing firmly in their minds. This knowledge likely spurs their cooperation, should the police desire it.