A Millennial/Boomer Dialectic: Part 2 - Police & Prisons
What follows is an imagined conversation between two imaginary people. Alex is a Leftist Millennial and Blake is a Conservative Baby Boomer.
Blake: Fine, sure. But the current protests are a bunch of Marxists looking to "Abolish the Police" and "Abolish Prisons." Both of which are nonsense! How can we expect to have a functioning society without enforcement of laws? You do believe in the rule of law, don't you?
Alex: Oh yes, I do believe in the rule of law. And I also believe in law enforcement. The issue is with the specific institutions we have built to enforce our laws, and many of the specific laws themselves. To illustrate, what would you think if I passed a law that declared backyard BBQs illegal, and then patrolled your neighborhood only with cop cars, while you know for a fact that across town, your friends BBQ all the time with minimal police presence? And if you're caught, you are sent to prison for years, but if your friends are caught, they get a slap on the wrist and get to go home? What does that sound like to you?
Blake: That sounds totally unfair, but that's not a real example. I'm assuming you're making a metaphor for anti-drug laws, so I'll address it that way. Maybe my neighborhood has more police because my next door neighbor's backyard BBQs always seem to erupt into violence? Maybe it's because the charcoal briquette black market is run out of their house?
Alex: So let's put some faces on these neighbors of yours! Your neighbor the briquette dealer, let's call him Stan. Stan went to prison at the age of 17 because he was caught at a friend's BBQ. He was released at the age of 23, and now he has a criminal record. He didn't finish high school, and he can't get a normal job because of his record. But, he does have a cousin who sells black market briquettes. In order to support his disabled mother, he sells illegal goods. Because his community is full of poor, desperate people, theft is common between dealers. Since calling the police because his illegal stash was stolen is not a thing, the only way to protect his own property is to own a gun, which given his record, is also illegally obtained. When an attempted theft occurs, there's a good chance that firearms will be discharged, and the cops will attempt to arrest anyone involved in the altercation. This is how the police participate in the cycle of poverty. Over-policing leads to imprisonment over small infractions, which leads to a lack of economic options, which forces participation in illegal enterprises, which lead to community instability, lowering property values, destroying the value of legal labor, leading to mental health problems, leading to unstable homes, leading to children seeking support outside the home, leading to consuming illegal products, starting the whole cycle over again. Police and prisons form the State component of the poverty trap.
Blake: But we need police for other things, like preventing theft of property, dealing with violent/dangerous individuals, and ensuring road safety. And we need prisons to keep those violent & dangerous individuals away from the general population. You can't just stop doing those things!
Alex: The American institution of Police is a nationwide organization that was founded to capture runaway slaves, and evolved into an organization designed for enforcing racial hierarchies. The roles served by the police can be handled by new institutions that aren't designed to punish the poor. Did you know that the police used to drive ambulances?
Blake: I didn't know that.
Alex: When you called in an emergency, a couple of cops would drive to your house in an ambulance and take you to the hospital. We stopped doing that for a couple reasons. It turns out that cops aren't trained to save lives, and the science of medicine had progressed to the point where we knew that the first few minutes after a heart attack are super critical to saving lives. So that job was given to a new profession, the Emergency Medical Technician. We're simply asking that the jobs that the cops are bad at, like doing law enforcement in poverty stricken communities, be given to new agencies that are interested in helping rather than punishing. Does the guy who pulls you over on the highway need to have a gun on him?
Blake: But cops get killed during traffic stops all the time! I saw a video that showed murder after murder of cops on the highway! Having unarmed people doing law enforcement sounds like a recipe for disaster!
Alex: It doesn't happen all that often, actually. What you saw is a compilation of rare events, stacked together to create the illusion of danger. The same is true if you put together all the available stock footage of people being struck by lightning. If you saw that, you would never want to go outside again! First of all, policing is only the 16th most deadly profession, after loggers, fishermen, pilots, roofers, and garbage collection (which are the top 5). Second of all, having a deadly weapon is a component of violent escalation. If I'm a dangerous criminal with a firearm, and I've been pulled over for a traffic stop, and I know that the law enforcement officer has a gun, I have an incentive to shoot first if I want to escape. If that officer is unarmed, my life is not in danger, and I have less incentive to add an additional murder to my list of crimes.
Blake: I'm skeptical, but I will accept that sometimes the police aren't the best tool for every job. Prisons though. Do you really want rapists running free?
Alex: No-one is advocating closing all prisons now. The first priority is commuting the sentences for all people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. The next step will be creating programs for rehabilitation of people who were incarcerated with a focus on job training and therapy. Going forward, there are several avenues for justice, depending on the crime committed. Take a look at Bastøy Prison in Norway, where prisoners live in wood cabins and enjoy horseback riding, farming, and caring for animals, with minimal security. It fulfills the goal of isolating these people from broader society, without the concrete walls, brutal guards, and psychologically damaging environment of American prisons. Higher security prisons can certainly exist, but should only be used for the very worst offenders, and as a deterrent against bad behavior at the "nicer" prisons. Many offenses wouldn't even require incarceration. Drug offenses can be referred to career training, detox, and psychological care. Minor sexual offenses can be referred to a few months of group therapy. This will transition justice away from being a life-ruining event to a transformative process that prioritizes healing and re-integration.
Blake: Well that just removes all the deterrent factor of imprisonment! Why should I even hesitate to shoplift if I'm just going to be sent to summer camp?!
Alex: If I offered you six months of summer camp without contact with the outside world, right now, would you take it?
Blake: No! I have a life, I have a career, I am too busy to take a six month vacation.
Alex: Exactly, you are invested in your life as it is right now. Most people who commit crimes don't have great lives. If farming for six months is appealing to you, maybe your life kinda sucks?
Blake: So if you don't like working, you can just commit a crime and go on vacation?
Alex: That's literally what we have now, except instead of vacation, it's years of punishment followed by a lifetime of stigma. Disabled people, homeless people, people with mental illness, all get scooped up by the prison system.
Blake: But people who are able to work should work, and they shouldn't have escape hatch to go to summer camp.
Alex: Why should everyone work?