Quinn Lefevre

Ms. Drogosz

English III

In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, he conveys how inequitable justice systems force

people within the minority to choose between implicating others or falling victim to accusation

themselves. A nonfiction example of the phenomenon of false confessions is the Central Park

Jogger case. On the night of April 19, 1989, a twenty-eight year old investment banker was

found raped and beaten in Central Park. On that same night, a group of teenagers were out

participating in a new type of crime media all over the world would come to label as “wilding.”

Five of these teenagers were arrested in connection to the assault, as the New York Police

Department claimed the crime was the culmination of their night of “wilding,” (which consisted

of running around unsupervised causing low level destruction and chaos). The five young men

arrested would come to be known as “The Central Park Five.” Their case would act as an

example of the modern media’s ability to manipulate our perception of situations within society,

as well as the strategies used by the majority to enforce systemic inequities.

In both The Crucible and the Central Park Jogger case, the accused parties are of what

would be considered a marginalized group within society. The five young men being hispanic

and black, and the accused witches being women, this puts both groups in a position vulnerable

to the expression of subliminal biases within supposedly unbiased systems. In both situations, the

accused are forced to choose between accepting their role as the victim of a backwards system,

or, implicating their fellow accused. This implication; always under the pretense of freedom from

prosecution or death, is offered as a means of making the accused feel as if they have a choice in
the matter of their punishment or the option of freedom at all, which they do not. In The

Crucible, we see Abigail originally suspected in Act One as Paris questions what she and the rest

of the girls were doing in the woods. Upon realizing the happenings would be exposed as

ill-intentioned, Abigail accused Tituba, placing the suspicion on someone other than herself. This

is very similar to the Central Park Jogger case as the five young men accused were untruthfully

implicated to one another by interrogating officers. This was an eventually successful attempt to

coerce the accused into implicating one another, despite previously stating they had no

knowledge of the other suspects mentioned to them. This separation of the Central Park Five, as

well as Abigail and Tituba, despite how they’re connected through the minority status that

victimizes them speaks to the aforementioned tactics used to manipulate what justice looks like

for those in the minority. Both accused parties are given the choice of confession and implication

as an equivalent to innocence or freedom from retribution, as opposed to any chance of true

innocence at all. This created the behavior within the accused groups that negates the

consideration of one’s own, or anyone else’, innocence, thus leading to a false confession.

The coercion utilized in both these situations; not offering suspects food or water for

hours, physical/verbal intimidation, and the overall subliminal manipulation constituted by a

biased justice system; are all in service of those who enforce, inform, control, and persuade.

Though these entities bear different names and faces in each society, their intention and affect on

both is undoubtedly similar. In The Crucible, religion plays all of these roles, as there is no

separation between church and state. Religion acted as an informant for the situation's respective

society, as the people of Salem did not have any mode of finding out the happenings of their

town other than the reverend’s word of mouth. This system created an opportunity for those held

in esteem by religion to paint a certain picture to their subordinates of what may or may not
actually be true, therefore manipulating the cumulative reaction of the people and the outcome of

the situation. Miller conveys this as his characters held in religious esteem purport the weight of

the accused crimes’ “Here is all the invisible world, caught, defined, and calculated. In these

books the Devil stands stripped of all his brute disguises. Here are all your familiar spirits- your

incubi and succubi; your witches that go by land, by air, and by sea; your wizards of the night

and of the day. Have no fear now- we shall find him out if he has come among us, and I mean to

crush him utterly if he has shown his face.” (1.37) Reverend Hale says this as he addresses some

of the townspeople, inciting an internal suspicion proven dangerous by accusation. Though the

details are different, the idea of entities taking advantage of their power of persuasion to

manipulate the perception, and reaction of the people is something we see in both the Central

Park Jogger case and The Crucible. Headlines that informed readers about the Central Park

Five’s situation read “Wolf Pack’s Prey: Female Jogger Near Death After Savage Attack From

Roving Gang,” one referencing Meili read,”Rampage Victim,” another quoted the mayor of New

York at the time, Edward Koch, ”Koch Calls Them ‘Monsters.’” These heavy-handed,

evidentially baseless headlines were released as a reflection of the situation to the public, making

way for authority figures to abuse their position of power in response to headlines meant to cause

a reaction demanding justice at any cost.

The connotations of the language used by media can be accredited to the outward bigotry

of pre-civil rights era culture, though here it is expressed through the lense of the “color-blind”

standard of objectivity, or the race-neutrality that U.S. law and government lay claim to,

something that actually exacerbates systemic inequities. This standard would be taken advantage

of by police and media as a new term was popularized within the context of the case; “wilding;”

This word would find new meaning within its utilization by mediums of information to express
the connotations of the case to society. In The Roots of “Wilding”: Black Literary Naturalism,

the Language of Wilderness, and Hip Hop in the Central Park Jogger Rape by Stephen J Mexal,

the history of this term and the current usage are analyzed. Mexal writes,”I argue that wilding is

best understood as a strategic performance of wilderness. To perform wilderness is to employ the

language of wilderness—based on purportedly natural binary oppositions such as savage and

civilized, evolved and primitive, and settled and wild—for rhetorical, political, or aesthetic

effect.” (Mexal, 2013) He references how the media’s use of the term weaponized it within racist

discourse that claimed people of color to be less civilized or “savage.” Despite the case placing

the term in such a broad cultural context, it was first popularized within the African American

community and vernacular through hip hop. This term had been officially used in the NYPD

police report, the New York Chief of Detectives at the time, Robert Colangelo stating the crime

was,”The product of a pastime called ‘wilding.’” This is referential to The Crucible, as the

specific language religious leaders use is important to analyze when thinking of statements like

the aforementioned as a medium of informing; certain connotated words/phrases relating to faith

such as “Devil,” and “God’s judgement.” These weighted statements and language take root in

theocratic societies such as The Crucible, inevitably influencing the way information about

happenings is perceived, demonizing the accused on a spiritual level.

The enforcers of both The Crucible and the Central Park Jogger case had a similar

influence on their respective situations for many reasons. The young men suspected by the New

York Police Department were victims of an abused power imbalance in the face of no real

evidential justification. Officers were said to have gotten each of the young men alone, verbally

and physically abused them, offered no food, water, parental/legal presence, eventually

convincing the boys the only way they would be able to leave is by confessing. In The Crucible,
the accused are imprisoned by leaders on grounds of religious treason, held, mistreated, and

threatened with the death penalty unless they confess. In the last act, Danforth asks Nurse and

Proctor if they’ve “seen the Devil,” (139.4) multiple times, expecting both to confess so they

wouldn’t hang. After Proctor refuses to sign a confession, Danforth says “You will give me your

honest confession in my hand, or I cannot keep you from the rope.” (144.4) Suggesting that if

Proctor continues to claim his innocence, his death will be inevitable.

The Central Park Jogger case and The Crucible each represent the way biased justice

systems use their mediums of control and persuasion to create an accused or be accused, high

stakes situation for two groups of people at a systemic disadvantage. The police and media of the

Central Park Five, and the religious leaders of The Crucible both expressed a phenomenon that

can be related to both discrepancies within our modern justice system and justice systems past.

These discrepancies come from a misguided perception of objectivity as absolute, or possible

within societies that refuse to acknowledge regularly instilled and performed cultural/systemic

inequities.

Citations -
Perillo, Jennifer. "Central Park Jogger Case." Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society,
ABC-CLIO, 2022, issues.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/2256171. Accessed 17 Mar. 2022.

"Five cleared in 1989 rape of Central Park Jogger.” (National Report)." Jet, vol. 103, no. 3, 13
Jan. 2003, pp. 8+. Gale OneFile: Diversity Studies,
link.gale.com/apps/doc/A96417031/PPDS?u=s1693&sid=bookmark-PPDS&xid=dc29ae5d.
Accessed 17 Mar. 2022.

Byfield, Natalie. “Savage Portrayals: Race, Media, and the Central Park Jogger Story”
(American Journal of Sociology) Sep2015, Vol. 121 Issue 2, p611-613 Smith Library: America,
History and Life with Full Text,
https://web-s-ebscohost-com.libproxy.smith.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=4&sid=6138092b-f485-4
758-bac6-ea320a53e447%40redis&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHNzbyZzaXRlPWVob3N0L
WxpdmU%3d#AN=110364237&db=31h. Accessed 17 Mar. 2022.

Mexal, Stephen. “The Roots of “Wilding”: Black Literary Naturalism, the Language of
Wilderness, and Hip Hop in the Central Park Jogger Rape.” (Johns Hopkins University Press)
Spring2013, Volume 46, Number 1, African American Review.
https://doi.org/10.1353/afa.2013.0010. Accessed April. 2022.