Human beings are dangerous animals generally with poor emotional, political, social and intellectual intelligence but with God-like technology. So, on its face, it would seem we would need to be governed by a police force to deter crime.
I argue, what we need is a strong and well-funded Police Force who implement ‘Transformative Justice’ approaches for less serious wrongdoings, as well as the ability to use force to protect innocent others within the full purview of the criminal law. Police intervene to prevent harm(s) and are a part of the state apparatus that enforces accountability to those who harm others. Transformative justice measures, applying to aberrant behaviours without attracting a finding of criminality, should include mandatory counselling, mandatory community service, mandatory written apologies, and attendance of appointments at rehabilitation centres (but with freedom of movement: people can go home at night if they wish, for example), as well as mandatory re-socialization tertiary humanities’ courses, and thus constitute a person approach. Feelings of guilt and shame may result from the causing of harm to another or others, so a comprehensive rehabilitation approach would involve strategies for dealing with these feelings. This would entail the further investment in training of the existing police force to uphold and implement transformative justice approaches to reducing harm and for social accountability. For serious crimes – murder, manslaughter, rape, sexual cuckolding, theft and property damage, prison sentences should be mandated for these serious and acute aberrant behaviour(s). This should setup a deterrent to achieve the socially pressing goal of zero incarceration.
In the wake of over-representation of incarceration of certain racial and ethnic identities, many socialists are calling for the defunding of the police, to stop the disproportionate black deaths in public, people’s homes and in custody. This disproportionate black incarceration is a result of their disadvantaged socio-economic status afflicted by colonial and now late-capitalist relative social inclusion. I propose instead we invest more in the training the existing police force(s), including in transformative justice principles. This should be done alongside closing the gap between rich and poor – structurally assisting in dissolving crime.
Whilst we need law and order, we can achieve this with a community-minded post-carceral approach for non-serious crime(s) which should not attract a criminal record, and a penal deterrent system for serious crimes along with a libertarian socialist dynamic which would reduce all kinds of crime through a more socially nurturing and cooperative environment. Again, to stress the point – zero incarceration is the authentic social and political goal and mandate.
Currently, police officers are working class, often working exorbitant hours for inadequate pay. It’s a tough job, for certain, often being put in harm’s way and in dangerous situations. We should better invest in their training, remuneration and work-life balance for better (socially just) outcomes.
We should note that closing the wealth-gap will assist in preventing crime, structurally, as impoverishment leads to crime and recidivism.
It is argued that the police serve a tiny elite. This is true in some sense as they uphold private property rights in a capitalist economy. However, it is overly cynical to believe that the police do not serve their local communities – they do – often keeping the people in their locales safe from crime and harm. This can be socially streamlined with a synthesis of the implementation of transformative (justice) approaches, along with a penal system for deterrence.
Whilst better training of police and more funding for this training is imperative and pressing for better social justice, we shouldn’t alienate the police who are working class, and instead seek to redress the over-representation of black persons (as compared with whites) and men (as compared with women) incarcerated and instead administer transformative (justice) training for aberrant behaviour(s) as an important adjunct to the penal system applied to criminal acts (seriously and acute aberrant behaviour(s) listed above). Criminal records should perhaps lapse, for less serious crime, in some cases, after a period of good behaviour post-imprisonment.
Blue and Black lives matter.
Henry Willoughby's Social Justice Blog 