Inventing Law in Local Settings: Rethinking Popular Culture
Barbara Yngvesson
I found Yngvesson’s article on the role of law in small localities to be interesting and largely applicable to my own encounters. She claims that “law is a cultural exchange, conducted inside the king’s rules.” However, as in cases concerning a king and the distance between himself and his colonies, the initial rules are subject to change, for law is invented at the top but, it is reinvented in local practices.
Another important note that I found interesting was the idea that courts play a very complex and central within certain local communities as “arenas where community is created and notions of self and others are defined.” Being a college student living in Ithaca, I immediately thought of the arena that exists here in this small city, and the stir it has caused over the past few years.
Of course, the drama that was fought out in the courtroom that I’m now referring to was the establishment of the local noise ordinance, which allows police officers to hand out individual fines to residents and tenants who are creating an unnecessary amount of noise. I believe on the books, the ordinance is violated if noise can be heard 25 feet from and individual’s front porch.
While of course this may be just an excuse to rant about a local ordinance that I find unjust and ambiguous as no noise complaints are even required to administer tickets, I think this is an interesting example of how local law defines the values of a community. In this particular example of course, we’ve seen how local lawmakers have enacted policy that apparently a large enough proportion of the local community feels is important and necessary. Many locals are tired of the noise emitted by partying college students, and so the law has been altered in order to preserve that.
The actions of the court may be interpreted as offering a “moral sense,” one that includes “awareness of a community of interests extending beyond the pursuit of individual legal rights.” The noise is indeed an interesting issue, that may or may not violate individual rights in pursuit of the community’s interests. And honestly, if applied correctly, I understand that sacrifice. Why should a family have to call in a noise complaint on their neighbors who are partying at 4 a.m. on a weekday? It makes more sense for the police to be able to handle that situation on their own, should they come across it.
However, in the case of a group of girls living a few houses down from mine, the implementation of the noise ordinance seemed unfair and unjust. One early summer evening, four girls were issued tickets after, apparently, playing a game of scrabble that got too rowdy. I’m not entirely sure of the point I was making with this last bit, but it was something I wanted to share. My intention was to apply to reading to my own life.
Barbara Yngvesson
I found Yngvesson’s article on the role of law in small localities to be interesting and largely applicable to my own encounters. She claims that “law is a cultural exchange, conducted inside the king’s rules.” However, as in cases concerning a king and the distance between himself and his colonies, the initial rules are subject to change, for law is invented at the top but, it is reinvented in local practices.
Another important note that I found interesting was the idea that courts play a very complex and central within certain local communities as “arenas where community is created and notions of self and others are defined.” Being a college student living in Ithaca, I immediately thought of the arena that exists here in this small city, and the stir it has caused over the past few years.
Of course, the drama that was fought out in the courtroom that I’m now referring to was the establishment of the local noise ordinance, which allows police officers to hand out individual fines to residents and tenants who are creating an unnecessary amount of noise. I believe on the books, the ordinance is violated if noise can be heard 25 feet from and individual’s front porch.
While of course this may be just an excuse to rant about a local ordinance that I find unjust and ambiguous as no noise complaints are even required to administer tickets, I think this is an interesting example of how local law defines the values of a community. In this particular example of course, we’ve seen how local lawmakers have enacted policy that apparently a large enough proportion of the local community feels is important and necessary. Many locals are tired of the noise emitted by partying college students, and so the law has been altered in order to preserve that.
The actions of the court may be interpreted as offering a “moral sense,” one that includes “awareness of a community of interests extending beyond the pursuit of individual legal rights.” The noise is indeed an interesting issue, that may or may not violate individual rights in pursuit of the community’s interests. And honestly, if applied correctly, I understand that sacrifice. Why should a family have to call in a noise complaint on their neighbors who are partying at 4 a.m. on a weekday? It makes more sense for the police to be able to handle that situation on their own, should they come across it.
However, in the case of a group of girls living a few houses down from mine, the implementation of the noise ordinance seemed unfair and unjust. One early summer evening, four girls were issued tickets after, apparently, playing a game of scrabble that got too rowdy. I’m not entirely sure of the point I was making with this last bit, but it was something I wanted to share. My intention was to apply to reading to my own life.
Posts
I just wanted to comment on Cavemen's response and relate it to my own experiences as well. This may just be an "excuse to rant about a local ordinance that I find unjust and ambiguous" as well as Cavemen, but I have been directly affected by that local ordinance.
ReplyDeleteOne night my roommates and I were having a small jock jams themed party at our apartment on Hudson, when I saw a cop parked in front of my house who sat there for a half hour. At the point when there were the most people crowded outside our house or around the neighborhood, the cop got out of his car and approached our house. We were given a noise violation and summons for having a party and having too many people in an apartment. The cop counted all the people in front of our house and down the street stating we had over 150 people in our house and were extremey noisy.
The fine ended up being bargained down to 600$ in total, which isn't cheap for college students and this stupid ordinance prevailed. Our neighbors to the left and right for many houses are college students and our house is set back 30 yards from the street. Noone heard us. The cop saw people and then inferred for himself to fill his quota.
These rules that embody the town of Ithaca are very important. I have felt the ordinances and way the town police conduct themselves go directly after college students. Whether it's setting up speed traps all around the school or busting every party they can get their hands on, something is not right as first displayed by Cavemen.
Sam,
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry about the cop and the fine. I also can relate this article to my own experiences (even if I did not like reading it).
The way local laws are implemented effects everyone. My own personal example comes with a speeding ticket. I was pulled over on the way up here for speeding (an honest mistake with details I won't go into). The officer was a young guy who clearly took his job way too seriously and claimed to have clocked me several miles over what I was actually doing. Rather than argue I just took the ticket and was promptly issued another one for a rear break light being out.
Had this incident occurred closer to home, I doubt I would have gotten written up for the rear light, they just would have told me to get it fixed. I also know that had this occurred closer to home I would have had a much better chance of getting out of it simply because my family is considered "local", an idea that Yngvesson touches on a lot in one form or another. The way laws are applied to locals is very different than the way they are applied to outsiders. In this situation, I was clearly an outsider.
Interesting tie here, Caveman. And Sam, I'm so sorry that happened to you. Local law definitely plays a role here in Ithaca, but we can extrapolate that even further - isn't it about the social conceptions that we have about each other? What if there were elderly people playing Scrabble at Longview, and they got loud? Would the police target them? Probably not. College kids are perceived in a certain way, like we're just rowdy party people. And Yngvesson makes the point that local law serves to perpetrate the "official" law and the official class systems that exist throughout the nation as a whole. Scaring people with fines that just are issued to make a quota is a way of reinforcing the power of police, and lawmakers over others, especially young students. I'll give a quick personal example - I got my dad European License plates for Christmas. He was stopped by police and ordered to pay a fine because of this. This is just a local law that was helping an officer make quota. It probably wouldn't have happened to him in Los Angeles, where there are bigger problems, but the local identity of a small community brought this onto him.
ReplyDeleteI also think it is interesting how local government changes law to enhance community values and goals. As the DA's daughter I got out of a lot of tickets back in the day. Which was great, but a bit of a shock when cops no longer knew my last name.
ReplyDeleteOn a different note, I think it's interesting how many of the local law institutions and in in-turn the communities are being overrun and controlled by radical conservatives. In my small town, due to lack of overall community involvement, a small group of conservatives became extremely powerful and passed many new laws right under the community's nose. The community itself is at fault for not attending important meetings, but even while attending these meetings it was obvious they didn't want someone with "outsider" opinions to be involved. What I'm saying is that, even if what looks like local law might not actually be local opinion.
Thanks for all your comments here, and I'd just like to agree with Nej's ideas about social conceptions/perceptions and ewj's ideas about local laws not necessarily being the local opinion, but rather the opinion of small group of people who are organized and dedicated to their beliefs.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I too live in small town in New Hampshire, with a population of about 6,000 people. Needles to say, actual crime is not necessarily an issue. However, certain people are targeted as potential hooligans and criminal - young people, of course, and anyone between the ages of 14-early 20s is deemed as suspicious. Police officers routinely patrol parks, schools and community centers, looking for trouble. Yes, occasionally kids will likely commit acts deemed illegal by society in these locations, but they are also public places designed for people of all ages, largely young people, to spend their leisure time.
Yet in this particular society, where there is no actual crime, young people are routinely targeted. In many cases, police officers will often approach young people congregating in these areas in groups of one or greater (the point is everyone seems suspicious).
For example, I myself this past winter, was pulled over for trying to go ice-skating at a public outdoor rink. I pulled into a the public park area, where the rink is located, and had to turn around because evidently the rink was closed for the weekend. As I was turning, a cruiser pulled in to block my path. The officer got out, approached me, asked what I was doing there. Evidently, he was unaware of the existence of the skating rink, and found it incredibly suspicious that I had driven into this public park area at 7pm on a Friday night. The cop asked for my license and ran my plates before finally letting me leave.
The point of this long, and yes, ranting story, is that indeed our local laws are influenced by a localities perceptions and prejudices towards different types of people. As a young person, simply being a in public park seemed worth questioning, evidently. In the local mindset, at least in my town, it keeps the "dangerous classes" under control.
In another issue related to local state law in New Hampshire are certain liquor laws that much of the population actually disagrees with and hardly understands. Internal possession for example. And I'm not entirely sure if this law is on the books, but in most convenience stores in New Hampshire, a legal parent/relative cannot purchase alcohol if they have a child with them in their teens.
It is illegal in pretty much all states to sell to minors, but how many actually bar legal adults/relatives from purchasing alcohol in front of minors who may or may not be old enough to be tempted to drink? Confusing and fairly moronic, this is an example of a widespread law has been re-shaped locally (NH is small enough everything could be local) as well as an example of how majority of the NH residents, who are confused by and probably not even aware of this practice, are regulated by laws put in place by a small governing body. My attempt to make connections with yours. Again, thanks for the comments.
Caveman,
ReplyDeleteI really appreciated your interpretation of the reading and the connection you made with your own life. To be honest, after reading the article myself I had trouble applying the concepts to my own experiences. After reading other peoples comments I find myself questioning what exactly defines a community. Students make up a large percentage of the population in Ithaca for most of the year. It seems as though through interacting with the courts that some of our values would shape how law is enacted in town. Does community mean tax-payers? We are a pretty transient population but we do make up a large proportion of this community, a community that would not exist with out our presence. So why is it that students values are not represented in local government?
This is really more a response to Mike's comment, coming from someone who's from here. I think that the fact that students are so transient is a big part of the reason that they don't have much influence over local policies. Students are only here for a little over half of the year, and while it is true that the colleges keep Ithaca afloat, the people that live here year round, raise families and send their kids to schools here, own homes and businesses, and yes pay taxes, are the ones with a real investment in Ithaca and are the basis for the community. It is also important to remember that the vast majority of students are only in Ithaca for four short years before moving on, and since the student body of both schools is constantly changing pinpointing a consistent set of student "values" (aside from partying loudly) is difficult if not impossible. The same is not true for neighborhoods with families who have lived here over 20 years.
ReplyDeleteI had an interesting thought while reading all of these comments, and that was the idea that many college students are not registered to vote here in Ithaca where they spend 8-9 months of their year, and perhaps even more. No, I think most of us are registered to vote at home.
ReplyDeleteThis means that we may not even have access to a formal means of fighting against this ordinance. This is essentially an instance where the college students are unable to really get any say in the laws that govern them, something I believe demonstrates a small failure in democracy.