Decriminalize Life

Black lives matter.
Judging from social media, many people don’t seem to have much patience for analysis or nuance these days. They just want to signal where they stand and cancel anyone who doesn’t signal the same way. Some apparently feel that this moment is about achieving some sort of personal sanctity, and judging others’ lack thereof, rather than ending the concrete, violent abuses of state power that have resulted in the deaths or wrongful imprisonments of George Floyd, the Central Park 5, and so many others, disproportionately but not exclusively people of color. So before I say anything more, I feel I must state plainly, Black lives matter.

I do not accept all of the assumptions that underlie contemporary left-wing identity politics. I will write about those disagreements some other time. Today I want to write about policing.

“Defund the police” is another slogan that protesters are asserting. Its meaning varies. Some go so far as to advocate the complete abolition of certain law enforcement agencies, or all of them. Others advance the more realistic position that law enforcement should be limited to its proper sphere, and resources should be redirected.

During a press conference in 2016 following an attack that killed five officers, former Dallas Police Chief David Brown eloquently summed up the mission creep that has afflicted policing in the US:

What we're doing, what we're trying to accomplish here is above challenging. It is -- we're asking cops to do too much in this country. We are. We're just asking us to do too much . . .
Every societal failure, we put it off on the cops to solve. Not enough mental health funding. Let the cop handle it. Not enough drug addiction funding. Let's give it to the cops. Here in Dallas, we've got a loose dog problem. Let's have the cops chase loose dogs. You know, schools fail. Give it to the cops. 70% of the African-American community is being raised by single women. Let's give it to the cops to solve that, as well. That's too much to ask . . .
Policing was never meant to solve all of those problems. . . . I just ask for other parts of our democracy, along with the free press, to help us. To help us and not put that burden all on law enforcement to resolve. So, again, I'm just being pretty honest with you. You know, I have raw feelings about all of what we do. And don't ask me if you don't want the answer. (RealClearPolitics.com, 2016)

The sociologist Alex S. Vitale quotes Brown early in his 2017 book The End of Policing. Vitale describes how politicians have tried to use the criminal justice system to address a wide variety of problems:

School discipline

Mental illness

Homelessness

Sex work

Drug abuse

Gangs

Immigration

Political dissent

Vitale argues that in each of these areas, the expansion of policing and criminalization has not solved the problems and has resulted in disproportionate negative impacts on the most vulnerable members of society, especially the poor and people of color. Vitale advocates curtailing police involvement in all of these areas and shifting resources to other approaches or decriminalizing certain activities altogether. Fewer cops and more school counselors, social workers, and mental health emergency response teams; fewer jails and more affordable housing and drug treatment programs; etc.

Vitale's publisher is currently making his book available in eBook form for a steeply discounted price (see the link above). Vitale discusses his work in this NPR interview.

One issue that Vitale does not address is police recruiting and retention. Increasing the reach of police means that more police will have to be recruited. The supply of people who are suited to a career in law enforcement is finite and does not increase simply because politicians have increased the scope of police work. This means that departments may need to lower standards and accept people who might have been weeded out under different circumstances. It also places undue stress on those who really are suited to the demands of what is properly law enforcement, which may induce them to leave the profession.

I fear that calls for limiting police activity will be lost amid more hostile anti-police rhetoric from the left and responses from the right calling for law and order and support for police. Both miss the point. Policing is necessary, but again, it should be restricted to its proper sphere -- i.e., the protection of persons and property. Such restriction is not an attack on police officers or legitimate policing; on the contrary, as Chief Brown’s statement shows, it would greatly benefit the police themselves.

So, instead of “Defund the police”, which despite its apparent clarity has led to misunderstanding and divergent interpretations, I propose a slogan whose meaning is less obvious on its face but which thereby invites dialogue: Decriminalize life.

What might that mean?

End the school-to-prison pipeline. Stop mass incarceration. End the War on Drugs. Legalize voluntary sex work. Fully fund education, public health, mental health, and social services. Develop affordable housing. Pay living wages. Develop humane and rational immigration policies. Again, the main idea is not to abolish law enforcement, but rather to pull back the reach of the criminal justice system and use other other institutions and methods to solve our problems.

Decriminalize life.

* * *

Addendum (2 July 2020):

Source: Wikimedia

For more about systemic racism in the US criminal justice system, I highly recommend the documentary 13th and the docuseries Flint Town. Both were available on Netflix last time I checked.

These two works are complementary. The former gives the big picture of  mass incarceration and its connection to systemic racism, placing the phenomenon in its historical, political, and economic context. The latter gives the view from ground, showing the effects of systemic racism and neoliberal policies on a single city and on the law enforcement officers who are trying to work for the betterment of their community while caught up in this system.

I knew of racial disparities in incarceration rates in a general way before I saw 13th, but I did not realize just how much the overall incarceration rate had increased during my lifetime. It has skyrocketed (see graph above). For more facts and figures, see The Sentencing Project.

Addendum 2 (13 September 2020)

Relating the above to points I have raised earlier on this blog, I would like to point out that, even if police budgets remain unchanged, as a nation we still have sufficient wealth to increase funding to other agencies in order to enable them to take over some of the tasks that police currently do (although city budgets may not reflect this due to 40 years of oligarchic undermining of public services -- the public sector as a whole has been defunded). The important thing is to re-examine what we want the criminal justice system to do, and refocus policing accordingly. Cutting police budgets is secondary and instrumental, and in some cases may be counterproductive.

Citizens should also consider what their roles might be. Defunding or redirecting the police may require civilians to take on more responsibilities.  Perhaps they could participate in youth mentoring, restorative justice, literacy tutoring, violence interruption, or efforts to help the homeless, for example. Greater citizen involvement would be facilitated by shorter working hours and higher wages.

Law enforcement auxiliaries in Michigan

Here is another item that relates to the S2A project. This item from the Detroit Free Press reports that there are over 3000 civilians supplementing law enforcement officers in the state of Michigan, but that the state lacks standards for training and oversight.

Expanded civilian participation in law enforcement is an important part of the S2A project, but it must be regulated properly if it is to have the intended effects.

Service and the Second Amendment (1)

(1) The proposal

The United States of America continues to be plagued by the highest levels of gun violence in the developed world. At the same time, Americans are increasingly disconnected from the people who protect them, both at home and abroad. It is possible to address both of these problems with a single policy proposal: Ownership of firearms should be limited to citizens who have served in the security services. (N.B.: This would only apply to guns obtained after this proposal is implemented; there would be no confiscation of guns obtained legally before implementation.)

For the purposes of this proposal, let the security services be defined as all agencies at any level of government which serve to protect the general population from harm to their persons or property, whether those threats are human-caused or not, and whether those threats originate from within the community or outside it. In other words, the security services protect the population from all threats, man-made or natural, internal or external. Specifically, the security services comprise agencies in the following categories:

• armed forces
• law enforcement
• emergency response (firefighters, paramedics, etc.)
• corrections
• intelligence
• diplomacy 

The security services include reserve, auxiliary, and volunteer components where applicable.

The primary reason for this proposal is to reduce gun violence. Gun violence could be curbed if gun ownership were limited to those who have served in defense of the nation or their communities and proven their competence and trustworthiness.

The second reason has to do with fairness. Currently, the great majority of citizens do not directly contribute to their collective security in any way. Their participation is at best indirect, by way of paying taxes to support the efforts of the small percentage of citizens who do. The risks associated with the security services fall disproportionately on that small percentage. The burden should be more widely shared and better understood.

The third reason concerns citizenship. This reason is the most abstract, but in the long run may be the most important. Broader participation in the security services might help to reverse the growing polarization and fragmentation of American society and restore a shared understanding of citizenship. A renewed sense of citizenship might mitigate the alienation felt by some people, especially young men.

I will expand on these reasons and answer objections to the proposal in future posts, but first the key terms of this proposal need to be explained.

The proposal, restated, is that all citizens should be offered opportunities to serve in the security services; service should not be mandatory, but those who refuse to serve should not be allowed to own firearms.

• All citizens means every US citizen between the ages of 17 and 75 who has the mental and physical capacity to serve in some useful way. For example, someone in a wheelchair could serve as a radio dispatcher for an emergency response service.
• Offered opportunities means they should be adequately informed of the ways they can serve and encouraged to do so. They should be given this information as part of their secondary education. Reserve, auxiliary, and volunteer components of the security services should be expanded to accommodate greater numbers, if necessary. It should be possible for most Americans to complete some form of service by their 21st birthday, though many might choose to complete their service later. Employers and educational institutions should be required to reasonably accommodate those who serve while holding down jobs or pursuing degrees.
• Security services has been explained above.
• Service should not be mandatory is self-explanatory.
• Those who refuse to serve should not be allowed to own firearms. Implementation of this provision would include a grandfather clause for current gun owners, and gun owners could still allow family members to use their guns under the owners’ supervision, but those who have not completed their service would not be allowed to purchase or own firearms or keep them in their homes or vehicles (those currently serving would follow appropriate regulations for firearms issued to them). Completion of service would involve a mental health evaluation in all services and a basic firearms safety course for members of services that do not routinely use guns. Those who meet the requirements for gun ownership would receive a license to purchase them.

This is merely a statement of the proposal. I hope in coming months to explain in greater detail the how and why of it and answer objections to it. I hope that readers of this blog will assist me with this project and point out flaws in my reasoning or gaps in my knowledge.

I will, however, address one possible concern right away. This proposal is clearly consistent with the Second Amendment of the Constitution:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

I say it is clearly consistent, but of course it is not up to me or any other individual citizen to decide what the Constitution allows. That authority belongs to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has ruled that the right to bear arms is an individual right, not a collective right, but it has also ruled that reasonable regulation is allowed (District of Columbia v. Heller, 2008). Could "reasonable regulation" include positive requirements, i.e., requiring that certain conditions be met in order to purchase guns, as opposed to merely requiring the absence of evidence of criminality or mental instability? To my knowledge, the court has not ruled this out. Given the number of gun deaths in this country, positive requirements are reasonable.

This proposal would be a step toward restoring the original intent of the amendment, within the bounds set by the currently prevailing interpretation. The Framers did not include this amendment in order to protect the right to use guns for hunting or to collect guns as a hobby. The right is instrumental to the larger goal of defending a free state. We do not need every able-bodied adult to serve in the National Guard, but those who are unwilling to shoulder any responsibility in order to maintain our security should not be trusted with guns.

Copyright (c) 2018 by M.D. Robertson. The author grants permission to reproduce, republish, or distribute this content with attribution for non-commercial purposes.

Minuteman photo credit: Dave Pape [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons