Central Park Five Case Study Example

Over the years, we have heard many stories of the injustices of our legal system, especially the injustices committed against BIPOC. From George Floyd to Saraya Rees, we have seen just how corrupt our police system is. But, before these cases one of the most harrowing cases of discrimination in the US criminal “justice” system was the Central Park Five. Never before has so many people come together to spread mass hysteria in an effort to get teenage boys arrested for a crime they did not commit. Unfortunately, for the Central Park Five, the cards were stacked against them from the beginning. The treatment of the Central Park Five is just another example of how the system believes everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but only if the suspect is white.

The Central Park Five case started on April 19th, 1989 when a group of teenagers entered Central Park and started committing a series of crimes. Later that day a woman, Trisha Meili, was found in the woods brutally beaten, and had been raped. Because of the severity of her injuries, police turned their investigation into a probable homicide. Five teenage boys, all of whom were minors, were taken into custody and aggressively interrogated. Their names were Kevin Richardson, 14, Antron McCray, 15, Raymond Santana, 14, Yusef Salaam, 15, and Korey Wise, 16, (BBC). Four of them served 5+ years in juvenile prisons, and Wise was tried and convicted as an adult, Wise ended up serving the most jail time. The worst part of this story, none of their DNA matched the DNA found on the crime scene. They would later be exonerated in 2002 after the actual perpetrator Matias Reyes confessed to the crime. Several years later in 2014, the now grown men would receive 41 million from the State of New York. Although this money would prove to be very helpful Salaam says “no amount of money could have given us our time back,” (CBS News). 

Part of the problem was the prosecutors in charge of the case. Linda Fairstein was one of the main prosecutors on the Central Park Five case. She was the New York City District Attorney from 1976 to 2000. She contributed to the coercion of the boy's testimonies. When she was working on the Central Park 5 case she was very attached to proving that the boys were guilty. During May 2002 Matias Reyes admitted to attacking Trisha Meili, the victim, and his DNA was matched to that found at the scene of the crime. To this day she feels that all boys convicted and exonerated in the Central Park 5 case were all guilty. She would later retire from the DA’s office and become a fiction writer, which was a short-lived career after people began to boycott her work because of her part in the Central Park Five case. As shown in the Netflix mini series “When They See Us,” she went as far as letting the boys be interrogated and coerced into confessing. After the series was released Fairstein tried to sue for defamation. 

There were many factors that led to the Central Park Five being so harshly convicted. A few years prior to the Central Park Five case was Nancy Reagan's “Just Say No” campaign, a campaign that was used against BIPOC. Nancy Reagan’s campaign still has lasting effects that to this day affect POC communities. Everything in US legislation was working against the Central Park Five. Americans had begun to prefer punishment over rehabilitation, and the Bush vs. Dukakis' race had been a contentious one, with the main focus being if candidates were truly “tough on crime” (13th). A sentence that now haunts the justice system, and is what made it the way it is today. Politicians now needed to show they were tough on crime in order to be elected or reelected. Politicians were not the only people to cause mass hysteria over this case, people like former President Doland Trump also added fuel to the fire. Trump had bought four full page advertisements wanting to “bring back the death penalty and bring back police” (NYT), which sounds eerily like his presidential slogan “Make American Great Again.” Trump’s ad caused people to pay attention to this case, and what caused the first domino to fall sealing the boy's fate. Members of the Central Park Five feel that their conviction was extra harsh because of New Yorkers like Donald Trump. They were judged because of the color of their skin, not if they had actually committed the crime (BBC). Along with that, the system as we know it needs to be reformed. The police used to have the title “Slave Patrol” (TIME).  Southern states had created these patrols to find runaways and stop revolts. Over the years this system has become the police. The police system was created in order to keep control over BIPOC, and year after year legislatures create laws that keep that power over BIPOC’s lives. 

People’s lives should not be used for a person's political gain. Legislatures and civilians used this event to their advantages. Lawyers like Linda Faistein used this event to further her career. And people like Donald Trump used this to make a name for themselves. Before this event Trump was relatively unknown. He was trying to establish himself in New York. This event gave him notoriety and caused mass hysteria, which caused the boys to get a harsher arrest. The system has repeatedly allowed prosecutors like Linda Fairstein to get away with using people's biases to get the convictions that they want. The criminal justice system needs to be reformed. The systems put in place have always been designed against BIPOC. From the "Just Say No” campaign leading to more POC being arrested for petty crimes, to the very system meant to protect and serve, or police, originally meant to keep slaves in check. It's time to reform the system so innocent people like the Central Park Five are not wrongfully convicted.