A Million Stories

All the news we care to print.

by Jeffrey C. Billman, Josh Middleton and Holly Otterbein

Evan M. Lopez

In Pennsylvania, it's a crime to say "shit," "piss," "fuck," "cunt," "cocksucker," "motherfucker" or "tits." (Moment of silence for the late, great George Carlin. Continue.) Or at least, it might as well be.

From February 2008 to February 2009, the Pennsylvania State Police issued 750 disorderly conduct citations for the use of profane language or gestures. (At least one of these involved a woman cussing at her toilet. Who hasn't done that?) In Philly, the state police handed out 17 such citations throughout the year — but that number counts only state cops, not Philadelphia police officers. (We've got a request out for that information.)

Funny thing is, thanks to the First Amendment, profanity isn't illegal. Obscenity, can be, however — and therein lies the rub.

"A lot of state cops don't know the legal difference between obscenity and profanity," says Marieke Tuthill, a legal fellow with the ACLU of Pennsylvania. "They think they can cite people for the colloquial meaning of obscenity, but the courts have been very clear that profanity isn't obscenity, and profanity is constitutionally protected."

Separating profanity and obscenity is a tricky business, considering the slippery definition the U.S. Supreme Court has given "obscenity" over the years. Per the court's 1973 Miller v. California decision, "obscenity" is prurient, patently and offensively sexual, and devoid of literary, scientific or political merit. Saying words that make your mother blush does not qualify.

And really, the cops should know that.

Last week, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Pennsylvania State Police after the agency claimed that there wasn't a problem and refused to amend its training programs. "Hopefully," says Tuthill, "this will make enough of a point to get them to stop."

Fuckin' A.

TALES FROM THE POKEY

Good news, Philadelphia: After a decade of our prison population going up, up, up, it finally, magically, went down. From January 2009 to now, the average daily count dropped from 9,787 to 8,306 — which is still way overcrowded (the city spends 7 cents of every tax dollar on jails, in fact), but hey, a little less so!

There was only one problem: The city hadn't a clue what happened, until the Pew Charitable Trusts conducted a yearlong study of the prisons. Turns out, the answer has little to do with the city itself, but rather, a 2008 Pennsylvania law requiring that inmates serving between two- and five-year sentences be sent to state prisons instead of local lockups.

You can stop patting yourself on the back now, Mayor Nutter.

More importantly, the report examined how the city could further reduce the prison population, which, in 2008, was the fourth highest in the nation. A few highlights: The rise in inmates during the aughts was mostly due to an increase in the number of folks awaiting trial, not convicted criminals. Currently, 57 percent of beds in Philly jails go to pretrial inmates, up from 44 percent in 1999; this increase is linked to inmates charged with misdemeanors, not felonies. Also, throughout the decade the number of prisoners in jail for violating their probation or parole shot up 90 percent. These prisoners were staying in jail for longer periods of time — from an average of 49 days in 2000 to 73 days in 2007 — because tradition stipulates that the sentencing judge should be the same judge who presides over the probation or parole-violation hearing — a logistical hurdle that can swallow time whole.

So, is there any hope at all, dear Pew? Why, yes: District Attorney Seth Williams' decision to treat low-level pot possession cases as summary offenses instead of misdemeanors will help. ( Shut up, Lynne Abraham.) The city's recent expansion of "crash courts" — which speed up the plea-bargaining process — should ameliorate some of the overcrowding, too. Looking forward, Pew suggests that the city focus on non-jail diversion programs, especially for nonviolent, repeat offenders and the mentally ill.

The list goes on, but we trust that you'll read it in your spare time, like a good little citizen would. Check the Clog to read the report and find out how Nutter and co. respond to it.

VOTE EARLY, VOTE OFTEN

CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION

If you spend time in South Philly — and you do, because that's where all the cool kids hang out — you know what a bitch the six-way intersection of Passyunk Avenue at 12th and Morris streets can be. No matter how you're getting around, it's hard to know who's coming and going, or when it's safe to make a turn without plowing into someone's Italian granny as she hustles across the street.

Urban planning group Planning Collective LLC has its eye on this concrete mess, and they want to use $50,000 of Pepsi's money to improve it. The only hitch is that they must persuade you, denizens of Philadelphia, to go to a website ( refresheverything.com/reclaimconcrete ) and vote in a contest that pits this project against 1,300 other shovel-ready projects nationwide. If they land a top-10 position, Pepsi will pony up the money to transform the diagonal death trap into a 4,000-square-foot plaza that, the group says, will better delineate traffic and provide folks a place to rest their bum along the newly invigorated avenue.

You have until May 31 to vote. Get to it.

MILESTONES

Finally, we'd like to take a moment to shed some crocodile tears for LaGreta Brown, the embattled South Philadelphia High School principal who resigned last week after the Inquirer discovered that her state principal certification was inactive — related, and awesome: Fifteen other Philly principals lack their certifications, too — and shortly before the school's faculty was set to hold a no-confidence vote on her leadership. Brown helmed the school through those turbulent December days when groups of African-American students assaulted some 30 Asian students — and seemed willing to sit by while higher-ups tried to affix blame on one of those victims [Cover Story, "The Fall Guy," Isaiah Thompson, March 17, 2010]. Brown, according to a federal civil-rights complaint filed by Asian activists in January, dismissed Asian parents' complaints about, you know, their kids getting their asses kicked as " the Asian agenda ." And in March, she had the gall to go before the School Reform Commission (SRC) to complain about a cartoon in the Inquirer that showed her asleep at her desk while chaos reigned behind her. This was racism, you see — she was never actually asleep at her desk!

It seems Brown was on her way out at year's end, anyway; the certification issue just expedited matters. Superintendent Arlene Ackerman has pledged to "go into that school and get to the bottom" of the lingering racial tensions. Ackerman, of course, is the person who, in the days following the Dec. 2 and 3 violence, cast the whole thing as " gang-related" and used the pretext of a thoroughly lackluster (though expensive) report the SRC commissioned to argue that we should all " move forward, because we'll never be able to really get a handle on what happened in the past."

Consider our confidence uninspired.

This week's report by Jeffrey C. Billman, Josh Middleton and Holly Otterbein. E-mail us at amillionstories@citypaper.net.