Films, Politics, and Criminals

And a lot in Indian Film's portrayal of social realities has changed over the years, as has our society. From live-ins to single motherhood, from the acceptance of alternative sexuality to the radical, if emotional, pursuit of rock music as a mid-life dream – what our movies show as acceptable realities, and what we accept, has changed a lot in many ways. But think of the politician – and there's a time warp. Think two decades back, a decade back, think today, and what do we see as the remarkably unchanging, default description of any powerful politician? "Corrupt and exploitative", as director Prakash Jha (who, incidentally, is contesting elections this time) says. That's because a) it has been for far too long, an unpleasant reality, and b) for far too long, we have let it be the social reality. But letting it be is exactly what we shouldn't be doing, and in that context, you couldn't possibly have missed the Lead India '09 campaign that's been reaching out to you from the pages of The Times Of India in recent days and weeks. As in its previous avatar, this year's campaign, at its core, seeks to share with you the concerns that we all have about the future of our predominantly young nation, and the fact that the leadership we give ourselves will shape that future – our future – very substantially. It questions our passive acceptance of the situation, and reminds us of the basic, most fundamental step that we can – indeed, should – begin with: to cast that vote.

We – the urban, English speaking, upper/middle class – may not be a vote bank in terms of psychology, but we generally underestimate the need to vote, to take a greater, more active part in our democracy. We need to vote not just to get the right people in, but to keep the wrong ones out. We need to act as a collective pressure group, before, after, and on polling day, to tell parties that we want No Criminals to represent us. We are outraged at the criminals who storm into hotels with guns, but remarkably indifferent to the criminals who use money and muscle power, to use the cliché that so aptly fits them, and ostensibly serve as our 'representatives'. They seek power, they often obtain it. We watch, either unconcerned or passive. But we needn't keep on doing it.

Perhaps we need to revisit what the price of a criminal in power is, to realise that every vote that goes to keep criminals out is a vote that needs to be cast.

Perhaps the most important way that the democratic political system shapes criminal justice is through the lawmaking process: Politics influences the laws that legislatures enact. During the 1980s and 1990s, state legislators and the U.S. congressional representatives rushed to frame politically conservative get-tough sentencing laws. These laws mandate longer sentences and fewer opportunities for parole. One lawyer who was instrumental in rewriting federal drug laws in 1986 and 1988 says the severe sentencing laws came about through whim and attempts by politicians to one-up each other as drugs seized media headlines just before elections. "There was a level of hysteria that led to a total breakdown of the legislative process," says the lawyer, Eric Sterling, who as lead attorney on the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary wrote the laws that established long mandatory sentences for several types of drug convictions.

What has resulted from two decades of get-tough sentencing policy? The prison population has exploded. Costs of corrections have skyrocketed. The distribution of revenue within state governments has shifted in favor of allocating more money for prisons and less for education and other essential human services.

Even though politics doesn't have a direct impact on the routine, daily decisions of police officers on patrol, the political culture of a community determines the style of law enforcement and the nature of departmental policy. Form of government (commissioner, mayor/council, city manager) makes a difference in the extent to which politics shape policing. Politics permeates police departments in cities that employ a mayor/council type of government. By contrast, a professional city manager makes political intervention into policing less likely.

Political considerations influence prosecutors in a direct way. Prosecutors are elected in most states and are heavily involved in local politics. At the federal level, U.S. attorneys are political appointees and tend to mesh their career ambitions to the needs of their political party. Both state and federal prosecutors often use their office as a springboard for higher political office. Occasionally, an unscrupulous prosecutor will abuse power in the worst way: Acting on the basis of political motives, the prosecutor will engage in political prosecutions by pressing criminal charges against political enemies. A case can be made, for example, that independent counsel Kenneth Starr's conservative politics motivated his investigations of President Clinton's extramarital affairs during the late 1990s.

M.Pratap Kumar

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