Monday, July 20, 2009

LinguistFriend: COLLATERAL DAMAGE

The face looking out from the front page of the July 8th Toledo Blade was somehow familiar. I wondered whether the short beard and bicycle helmet were just archetypal, or somehow I had actually seen them and they had stuck in my memory. The main connection I have in Toledo is that I attend a UU church there once or twice a month, but I could not remember seeing him there. The Blade reported that a 66 year old man named Robert Brundage had been assaulted and beaten on June 22 while returning from a civic meeting under the label Jobs with Justice, one of many civic groups he participated in or organized in Toledo, the rustbelt Ohio home town to which he had returned in 1997 after a career as an research scientist and engineer in Massachusetts. Brundage was involved with over twenty civic organizations, probably far too many to maximize effectiveness, thus giving some support to the view of the personal friend who described him with respect and affection as a true eccentric. Ironically, while many of his civic efforts were aimed at bettering the lives of the poor people of Toledo, it was one of those people who assaulted him, breaking his jaw and causing bleeding into the brain, resulting in his death on July 7. And it was a good brain; he had earned a doctorate in biophysics at Brandeis University west of Boston in 1969. We might well have had mutual acquaintances, since I had friends at Brandeis in that period, although primarily in biochemistry. Brundage's topics, such as applied acoustics and biophysics, are close enough to areas in which I have published that I have an idea of how such a person thinks, which creates a sort of immediate intimacy when one meets a previously unknown colleague, for instance at the Acoustical Society. So to some extent I recognized him, although I did not know him.

Dr. John C. Jones, president of the Greater Toledo Urban League, posted on the League's website a memorial on the passing of Brundage, with an important observation. Considering the motivation of his attacker, he wrote, "Make no mistake, the answer is not as simple as "he was a bad kid". We as a community must dig deeper to address and confront the areas of dysfunction that surround our youth, from families to institutions to individuals." Toledo is a city with about 14% overall unemployment of adults of working age. For Afro-Americans such as the young man accused of attacking Bob Brundage, unemployment is appreciably higher. When I lived in Los Angeles, my memory is that at any one time about half of the young black males were in trouble with the legal system. Until recently, for some time one of that number was my adopted youngest son, who stayed and worked in LA after his parents left, and made some poor decisions. To gradually work his way through the legal system until he could become self-supporting again after that cost much of the money I had set aside for retirement. Without those resources, it would have been impossible to ever get him out of the legal maze which has an effect much more destructive than many of the petty crimes that it punishes, with the result that the United States has about one person in a hundred adults in prison, more than any other country in the world (see "Incarceration in the United States " in Wikipedia). 70% of those incarcerated are non-white. As my youngest son said wonderingly and appreciatively to me recently about the situation from which he has emerged over the past few years, "Most people don't come back from there." Instead, they often lash out at the world around them in aimless but partly understandable fury.

I attended First UU Church of Toledo on the Sunday after Brundage's death, and when I was leaving I stowed my name tag up on the board near the entrance. On the line above it, about an inch away, I saw the name tag of Robert Brundage; probably I had subconsciously noted that name on one of my visits earlier. His religious affiliation was not mentioned in the July 8 Toledo Blade article about him which I have drawn on above, although the names of a First Church UU couple active in interfaith and civic affairs, quoted in the article as friends of Brundage, would lead to that connection. Most probably I had seen him at church and stored that image. He was a friend of First Church, and he was also a friend of the rest of the world.

33 comments:

Chalicechick said...

You've written about an issue that is close to the hearts of lots of people who read here, and from a different perspective than my usual one.

My brothers have been, I think, really trying to behave themselves and have been frustrated by the local police's "Round up the usual suspects" approach. At the same time, they spent years of bad behavior becoming the usual suspects so it's hard not to on some level understand the police's apparent desire to keep a close eye on them and blame them for crimes that happen near them, despite my constitutional objections.

What leads me to think that it is a societal thing is that so often, my brothers and other kids in trouble have been pulled into it by their "friends." They were rescuing a friend in trouble (and got involved in a fight), they were driving a friend home (and he had weed on him and hid it under the seat), or they were just holding on to something their friend stole for a few days.

I've seen those friends, I believe them. The big sister who goes to law school always wants to say "If your friend jumped off a cliff, would you?"

But the greater point is that it's not one kid at a time, but whole groups of kids, whole networks of friendship, who slide into this behavior.

CC

Robin Edgar said...

"What leads me to think that it is a societal thing is that so often, my brothers and other kids in trouble have been pulled into it by their "friends." They were rescuing a friend in trouble (and got involved in a fight), they were driving a friend home (and he had weed on him and hid it under the seat), or they were just holding on to something their friend stole for a few days.

I've seen those friends, I believe them. The big sister who goes to law school always wants to say "If your friend jumped off a cliff, would you?"

But the greater point is that it's not one kid at a time, but whole groups of kids, whole networks of friendship, who slide into this behavior."

Heck whole U*U churches, the UUA, and even "whole networks of friendship" aka *fellowship* slide into *that* behavior CC. . .

If your friend jumped off a cliff, would U*Us?

Apparently so. . .

Believe it or not the WVC for this comment is - trail

kim said...

The word verification words have become more interesting lately. I think they are doing that on purpose. They like the attention.

WV -- reinget

Chalicechick said...

So, anybody want to actually discuss LF's post?

CC

Robin Edgar said...

I was discussing your follow-up comment which is presumably pertinent to LF's post CC. BTW The U*U "ammunition" that you passed to me here is a bit *too* good to pass up. . . Please allow me to *demonstrate* -

They were rescuing a friend in trouble* (and got involved in a fight), they were driving a friend home (and he had weed on him and hid it under the seat), or they were just holding on to something their friend stole for a few days.

So as U*U can see. . . I *really* meant it when I said -

Heck whole U*U churches, the UUA, and even "whole networks of friendship" aka *fellowship* slide into *that* behavior CC. . .



* I dare say that The Ghost in the Google "machine" was *very* much on my side there CC. . . What are the odds against *that* meaningful "coincidence? That online "coincidence" sure beats the pants off of *any* WVC "coincidence" I have ever mentioned.

Chalicechick said...

So, anybody want to actually discuss LF's post?

CC

Robin Edgar said...

So Dr. John C. Jones "important observation" applies as much to "less than excellent" aka deliquent U*U ministers as it does to any "juvenile deliquent".

Make no mistake, the answer is not as simple as "he and/or she was a bad minister". Unitarian*Universalists as a community must dig deeper to address and confront the areas of dysfunction that surround U*U ministers from churches to institutions to individuals.

Happy now CC?

WVC actersa

Joel Monka said...

We do have the highest percentage of citizens with a legal history than any other country, but the fact is, we also have the highest percentage of perpetrators of any country- unless one is making the claim that all those crimes were faked, all those convictions shams.

I think the answer IS societal, but not racism or unemployment or classism- other countries have all those things too. But there is one huge difference between our justice system and Europe's, one that's never written about, one you'd never realize unless you actually go there: they actually have cops on the street where you can see them. We have just a few police who are radio dispatched to the crime; they have many police who prevent the crime from being committed in the first place. In many major American cities, one can go for days without seeing a policeman except maybe as a passing blur in a car; in most major European cities you can't walk two blocks without seeing a cop- and he's not in a car, he's walking a beat and watching you right back. And even if he isn't, there's a TV camera on a pole.

We have fewer police per capita than we did a decade ago; fewer then than the decade before. I don't have scientific analysis to state this as a law- the data is difficult to come by- but near as I can tell from my cursory research, crime rates are inversely proportional to the number of police per capita. That one factor, with few exceptions, seems more important than demographics or any other commonly quoted contributor. I suspect- as I say, I haven't the numbers to prove it- that if that were corrected for factors such as what percentage of police are actually on the street, rather than behind a desk, it would be the overwhelming factor.

People aren't so afraid of the harshness of the punishment as they are of the likelihood of getting caught in the first place. If getting caught is a near certainty, no sane person will try it. I was mugged a few decades ago here in Indianapolis; no arrest was ever made. I had my pocket picked in Paris a couple years ago; the perp was caught before her hand was clear of my pocket- I thought the cop was part of some scam until he produced a badge and radio. Is it any wonder Paris has a lower rate of street crime?

But cops are expensive to hire, train, and equip. Mayors and City Councils have learned you can by more votes with social programs, while blaming the crime on the times we live in.

Robin Edgar said...

CC, I am reposting the (im)pertinent on-topic comment that you "memory holed" without the slightest mention of the thimg that amy not be mentioned so as to deprive you of *that* excuse for "memory holing" it. I guess you will have to think up some other excuse to suppress it now. . .

I was discussing your follow-up comment which is presumably pertinent to LF's post CC. BTW The U*U "ammunition" that you passed to me here is a bit *too* good to pass up. . . Please allow me to *demonstrate* -

They were rescuing a friend in trouble* (and got involved in a fight), they were driving a friend home (and he had weed on him and hid it under the seat), or they were just holding on to something their friend stole for a few days.

So as U*U can see. . . I *really* meant it when I said -

Heck whole U*U churches, the UUA, and even "whole networks of friendship" aka *fellowship* slide into *that* behavior CC. . .



* I dare say that The Ghost in the Google "machine" was *very* much on my side there CC. . . What are the odds against *that* meaningful "coincidence?

Chalicechick said...

I tend to think the police we have could use a lot more training. The post office, for example, gets help from the ASPCA when trains mail carriers extensively in how to deal with a dog who is giving them trouble. In contrast, a lot of police officers raiding a house just shoot dogs on sight, even those that pose no threat or are running away.

But I'm getting off on a rant there.

I'm not sure if other countries keep statistics as well as we do. Are we really certain that other countries aren't having a similar amount of crime and keeping worse records and/or having fewer of the crimes reported?

While I will agree there are dysfunctions in American culture, I'm not so certain that those same dysfunctions don't still exist other places.

CC

Chalicechick said...

Robin, that comment remains the fifth comment on this page. I haven't touched it and have no intention of doing so.

Please do not accuse me of things unless you are certain you are correct.

CC

PG said...

I wonder if European cops are better at "community policing" (that is, they are felt to be part of the community and people who live in the neighborhood that a particular cop patrols feel comfortable reporting information to her), since that is what the decreases in crime in some American cities has been attributed to.

Chalicechick said...

Ever the cynic about the police, I will point out that communities that have demanded "community policing" and gotten it have been aghast at the number of parking tickets they've started to get as a result of the cost of community policing and having lots of cops standing around bored.

I think there was a community in Maryland that changed its mind on community policing a bit ago.

CC

Chalicechick said...

Of course, the moment I post that, it occurs to me that Toldeo residents get crazy parking tickets anyway.

CC

Robin Edgar said...

:Robin, that comment remains the fifth comment on this page. I haven't touched it and have no intention of doing so.

Well when I had a look back here earlier it seemed to have disappeared CC. Perhaps I somehow managed to overlook it.

:Please do not accuse me of things unless you are certain you are correct.

You're a one to talk aren't you CC? You have falsely accused me of far worse things without taking steps to be quite certain that *your* accusations were correct. . . Perhaps most notably, and relatively recently, you made the following quite serious false accusation about me on May 10, 2009 12:28 PM -

Wait, so you think that my mentioning the kids pseudonyms, I am endangering them, so you decided to magnify the danger by making the post more famous?

Now if you had only bothered to go to my StumbleUpon blog to check when I actually made the post in question "more famous" by submitting it to the StumbleUpon social blogging system you would have seen that I actually did so on May 7, 2009 at 6:34pm. The better part of three days *before* you falsely accused me of knowingly and willfully deciding to "magnify the danger". . . When I called you on that clearly suspicious-minded and quite libelous false accusation about me you hid under the seat as it were.

And I do believe that the WVC for this particular comment bears mentioning in this context CC. Believe it or not it is setratio as in set ratio. . . Need I say more?

Joel Monka said...

A further though occurs... it might be police per square mile, rather than per capita. Paris is only 33.6 square miles- easy to pack a lot of cops per mile. Indianapolis is 372 square miles- a lot of territory to cover, and we only have a third of Paris' population to cover the cost. The same ratios are probably true for just about any Europe/American city comparison.

Lois said...

LinguistFriend,

Thank you for this. It made me so sad to think of what happened to that sweet, intelligent man. You and Mr. Brundage are both wonderful examples of living our UU values. I worry about you without money for retirement, but I can't think of a better way to have spent your retirement money.

What is your son doing now?

Chalicechick said...

Joel,

That makes sense. I would think that densely-populated areas would be easier to community-police, if not easier to police in general. And I certainly see quite a few police in downtown DC, though I frequent courthouses and so do police.

Lois,

When last I heard, LF's son was in retail and was an assistant manager or something. I've never met LF's son, actually any of LF's sons, but my understanding is that this son has the outgoing personality for retail and is very good at his job when his other problems aren't distracting him.

And I agree that LF is a great example of humanity in general (though the phrase "our UU values" makes me queasy, but that's another post). But yeah, LF tells telemarketers "I hope you get a better job" before he hangs up on them. That's how good he is.

CC

Robin Edgar said...

:But yeah, LF tells telemarketers "I hope you get a better job" before he hangs up on them. That's how good he is.

That actually sounds rather condescending and could come across as quite "snarky" depending on the proverbial *delivery*. Even when stated in the most polite and sincere way, "I hope you get a better job" still doesn't do all that much for the worth and dignity of the telemarketer does it? It is one of those things that might be better left unsaid.

WVC = ingnat as in gadfly :-)

LinguistFriend said...

I have been working and just got to take a look at what has been discussed here. Joel, there indeed are problems of the basis of statistical comparison. On some bases, the incarceration statistics from mainland China are almost as bad as the US ones. Robin, I wish that your comments, which I know can be helpful, had focussed more closely on the topic of my post. CC, thank you for your contributions. I had not thought
of the parallel to your brothers. One of my most useful discussions of the situation about my youngest son was with an LA social worker friend who had worked in the same environment as my son, and had gone through similar problems, and survived. That, as you and Dr. Jones point out, is a real and powerful effect of social environment.

Lois, the good part of the story, from my point of view, is that my youngest son really seems to have gotten over those problems and is back at work selling clothes to people in LA, usually somewhere around Hollywood. He has not yet reached his previous level, but the roadblocks are out of the way and he is making progress. That, of course, is priceless.

Since I study things that fascinate me, I never have been eager to retire, and I have studied and worked in more than one area. But it will take a while to reorient myself. I can manage until then, I expect, and rebuild. Some aspects of the situation make it a difficult and risky transition. That, of course, is a circumstance which I share with many people at this point in history.

Finally, I went back to First Church yesterday, and found that my name tag was still close to that of Brundage, which is alphabetic. By the time I left, his name tag had been removed from the rack. I hope that the significance of his death - and life - will be recognized more adequately.

Desmond Ravenstone said...

Joel Monka: "A further though occurs... it might be police per square mile, rather than per capita."

Having friends who are cops, they'd argue that it's how much work they have to do. That could be where the "police per square mile" factor comes in; the more territory they have to cover, the more work they have to do, esp when that territory is densely packed.

As to community policing, the main component of that is knowing the folks on your beat. If you know them and build bonds of trust, that lessens your workload and the stress involved, versus patrolling an unfamiliar area.

Either way you slice it (geography or workload) clearly there is a case for increasing police presence -- but that's only part of the problem. There is also screening people to make sure they are suited for the job, and making sure they have good training (CC: Your example of postal workers being trained to deal with problem animals reminds me of a program with the NYPD, where psychiatrists trained them on how to deal with mentally ill suspects in the field).

Just some observations from a social science geek...

Robin Edgar said...

LF, With all due respect, and you have yet to earn my disrespect, my comments are as closely focussed on the general topic aka theme of your post as CCs comments are. She drew the parallel to her brothers. I drew the parallel to "less than excellent" U*U ministers. In fact, as I pointed out to Joel Monka here there is a very close parallel with what happened to Robert Brundage and what *could* have happened to me if a certain belligerent U*U had carried through with the following "death threat" -

"Come back here next Sunday and I will punch your fucking lights out. . ."

Death threats you ask? Well so did I. . . When I reported this threat to punch me to the point of being unconscious to a 911 dispatcher she characterized it as a "death threat". When I told her that I did not consider it to be as serious as a "death threat" she kindly pointed out to me that if the threatener actually carried through with his threat to punch me until I was unconscious that I might not ever regain consciousness so to her, and the police, it constituted a "death threat."

ogre said...

@LF: Brundage's name rings some distant bell for me. I have no clue as to why (and probably won't, unless I wake at 2:30 having had that epiphany...).

What a damned shame.

And there's simply no basis for the notion that somehow America (where so many still try to come for the opportunity...) is just swamped by vastly more criminals. The conditions--macro/micro--have to lie at the heart of this. That and our incarceration of people at great cost who probably ought to be in (less expensive!) programs to help them get jobs and skills... rather than years behind bars that are supposed to magically rehabilitate them.

....

As someone who had a couple friends who very briefly tried to telemarket--and knew someone who did it for a living (such as it was) for well over a year (that I know of)... well, Robin, not one of them would have been offended at the good wish LF is reported to offer to them.

The notion that one's *job* somehow reflects on one's inherent worth and dignity is... well, inherently absurd (and classist); it's definitional.

That said, there's a clear understanding that certain kinds of job suck. I've worked a number of them. There are probably *some* which suck... but which get paid at least decently, because they're demanding in some way that makes them remunerated for their suckage. But most of them are what my old crap jobs compadres honestly did recognize as "crap jobs." Just because they lack the skills, experience, education, training and contacts to get better -- and better paying -- jobs doesn't mean that people in them aren't aware that they're caught in crap jobs. In fact, probably no one recognizes it more.

The well wish of "I hope you find a better job" would be an unusually aware, human and caring remark, unless spat at one. And given some of the spew that's spat at telemarketers... still probably doesn't even then reach the median vitriol for the evening.

Chalicechick said...

I do think that training police officers and finding the right people for the job in the first place is crucial for having a police force that is respected, and doesn't make the news for its deadly mistakes.

Needless to say, social science geekery is always welcome at the Chaliceblog. :)

But the police are just one aspect of the systemic issue that LF is pointing to.

There are so many factors and it is hard to know how they interplay with one another. If we legalized drugs, for example, we might have more addiction and less crime. Drugs would likely be more widespread, but if yu could use them without entering the web that LF's son got himself caught in, maybe that would be OK. We could debate all night, but ultimately
whether changing that variable would be a net societal benefit is something for, well, social science geekery.

(I tend to think that drug decriminalization on a system like the government-run ABC stores that Virginia has would be the optimal solution. But lots of smart people disagree with me on that from both directions.)

And then there's the possibility that even if we fixed the system that LF's son was caught up in, people like Brundage still might be killed sometimes. Street crime will probably always be with us, after all.

CC
still thinking about it all

LinguistFriend said...

Robin, I believe that you have lived through some very painful things, but you have to get past them in order to survive. Please help me pay my respects to a man who in earlier days might have deservedly been made a saint.
Ogre, I have mostly given up on expressing the wish that the caller should find a better job, mainly because I just don't answer the phone now without some identifying information. But I promise that I have always said it gently. You read me rightly.
CC, many things took me aback about the system as we worked through it. But the process would have been enormously more difficult, and perhaps our efforts would have been unsuccessful, without my son's devoted civil defender, a tough and sharp older black woman who knew the legal system, made it possible for me to know when to pay things, told me what rehabilitation systems were worth while working towards, went to court with my son, and brought civility, reality, and honesty into the proceedings. Mt 25:36 says "I was in prison and you visited me", but in more modern terms, one of the blessings forgotten in the Bible is, "God bless the civil defenders".

Robin Edgar said...

:Robin, I believe that you have lived through some very painful things, but you have to get past them in order to survive. Please help me pay my respects to a man who in earlier days might have deservedly been made a saint.

I thought you were doing just fine on your own LF. My initial comment really was a quite direct reply to CC's initial comment in which I pointed out that the parallel she drew with her brothers can just as readily be drawn with U*U ministers, U*U churches, and the UUA etc. I did not mean to be insensitive to the tragic death of Robert Brundage in making that comment any more than CC did with hers. Please accept my apologies if I came across as somewhat insensitive but, like CC, I was discussing the overall dysfunctional "social dynamic" that Dr. John C. Jones pointed out.

I am "surviving" just fine LF. The UUA and the Unitarian Church of Montreal, other U*U churches and the U*U religious community more generally need to responsibly redress my own and other people's "painful experiences" that they are either directly responsible for perpetrating or indirectly responsible for perpetuating. I dare say that doing so may well be a matter of survival for *The* Tiny Declining Fringe Religion. I am convinced that these kinds of "painful experiences" that U*Us inflict on innocent people, and the U*U community's obstinate refusal to responsibly redress such U*U injustices and abuses with some real restorative justice for those they have harmed, are a major contributing factor to why the U*U religion is a "tiny, declining, fringe religion."

hafidha sofia said...

Another wonderful LF post, but I'm sorry to hear a fellow UU met a violent end. That is just so sad. My youngest brother spent nearly six years incarcerated under a mandatory minimum sentence (he stole drugs from a pot dealer), and was released last July. He is doing really well; since he's been out, he's gone into training, gotten a job as a union roofer, has a car, apartment, and has released a well-reviewed album.

No doubt, the system is seriously, seriously messed up. Incarceration levels have quadrupled in the last few decades; that is not just "more criminals," it is by design.

LinguistFriend said...

Thank you, Hafidha Sofia. I am glad that your younger brother is doing well; the album idea is impressive. I hope that the laws requiring minimum mandatory sentencing will be revised, and I believe that the criminal status of drugs produces much more crime than it eliminates. You are making me wonder about the political basis of the rise in incarceration rates.

Chalicechick said...

In a response to the post above, Robin asked me to clarify the relevance/level of inappropriateness of bringing up my brothers here. If that interests you, you can find that on that thread. I don't want to get into a bunch of cross posting.

CC

Robin Edgar said...

hafidha sofia said... "but I'm sorry to hear a fellow UU met a violent end. That is just so sad."

Would it be less sad if Robert Brundage was not a fellow U*U Hafidha? I would hope not. . .

BTW You and other U*Us who believe the system is seriously, seriously messed up and are concerned about the criminalization of people "by design" might be well advised to pay attention to how Montreal Unitarian*Universalists have been misusing and abusing the Canadian Criminal Code to try to suppress my peaceful public protest against U*U injustices, abuses and hypocrisy in front of the Unitarian Church of Montreal for about a decade now. . . You might also want to share your concerns about the fact that I could have suffered a violent death very similar to that of Robert Brundage had Jim Wilson followed though with his threat to punch my fucking lights out. For the record I know a few Montreal Unitarian U*Us who would break out the champagne if I met such a demise or indeed *any* premature demise. Indeed one or two have said so to my face. . .

Chalicechick said...

I am so happy for your brother, Hafidha. I wish everyone in his situation got the same outcome.

To me the interesting thing about the rise in incarceration rates is that, again, violent crime is down. Of course, some will argue that with so many violent folks in jail due to the high incarceration rates, of course violent crime is down. But, of course, the drop in violent crime over the last 15 years has not at all mapped to the incarceration rates.

I suppose if the criminologists that the Washington Post interviewed don't know, there isn't much chance of me figuring it out.

LF,

Public defenders are wonderful people. Long-term public defenders who can do the job for a long time without getting burned out, doubly so. As much as people complain about lawyers, a lot of them are pretty good at helping reasonable and motivated people get out of bad situations.

But the lion's share of the cried should go to the ex-con himself or herself. Your son might have gotten a good public defender by chance, but it is a credit to him that he was willing to work with her. If he hadn't been, I'm sure she would have found someone else to spend the effort on.

A positive social netwok seems to help too. Part of my brothers' issue is that every time they leave jail, they are determined to follow the law, but their friends are the same bunch of lawbreakers they always were.

To put it another way, if I announced I was going to go score some drugs or drive home drunk from a party, my friends would be horrified and talk me out of it. As far as I've ever seen my brothers' friends encourage behavior like that. So it doesn't surprise me that my brothers always end up back in jail.

It is a credit to both Linguist Friend's son and Hafidha's brother that they really seem to have learned lessons and found more supportive people to be around.

CC

Robin Edgar said...

Your brothers' friends are supportive too CC. They are just *supportive* in a rather dysfunctional way. . . Much like how "less than excellent" U*U ministers are *supported* aka enabled by their professional colleagues and other U*Us when they behave badly. . .

To put it another way, if a U*U minister announced that she was going to anally impale a U.S. senator on the Statue of Liberty's torch, *my* friends would be horrified and try to talk her out of it. As far as I've ever seen Rev. Victoria Weinstein's friends encourage behavior like that. . . . So it doesn't surprise me that she always ends up back on The Emereson Avenger's U*U World famous "Eat Your Words Diet".

LinguistFriend said...

CC, thank you for quietly correcting my absent-minded terminology to "public defender"
rather than "civil defender". As you say, there is no doubt that at every stage of my son's progress, his active cooperation was crucial, both in working with the public defender, and in the rehab center. Overlapping the latter stage, the drug-rehabilitation aspect of AA is not well known, but includes a well-designed system of mentorship to provide
both supervision for those early in the program, and a responsible mentor role for those more advanced in the program.