To Serve and Protect - Annat intressant från boken

Så, nu när jag gått igenom alla tolv kapitel av Bruce Bensons To Serve and Protect tänkte jag ta upp två saker till från boken. Först, i det här inlägget, kommer lite blandade lösryckta citat som är väldigt intressanta i sig. Sedan, i nästa inlägg, tänkte jag ta upp några recensioner från vetenskapliga journaler om boken.

Två intressanta citat om det sinneslösa kriget mot folk som använder vissa droger, och hur pengar kan spenderas bättre på att hjälpa missbrukare istället för att uppräthålla drakoniska lagar:

Many of the problems now facing the criminal justice system arise at least in part because of the criminalization of the sale and consumption of various drugs, for instance (Benson 1994b; forthcoming, a; Rasmussen and Benson 1994; Benson and Rasmussen 1994b, 1996a, 1996b), a problem that apparently could be more effectively handled with treatment-based programs than with punishment-based programs (Benson and Rasmussen 1994a, 1994b). (s. 47)

A recent Rand corporation study suggests that another dollar spent on drug treatment is seven times more effective at reducing cocaine use than another dollar spent on criminal justice drug control activities (Rydell and Everingham, 1994). These researchers suggest that reducing criminal justice expenditures on drug control by 25 percent and doubling treatment offered to users would reduce cocaine use and save $2 billion. Thus, even if controlling drug use is the goal, the current level of criminal justice investment in drug control is clearly excessive. (s. 139)

Vem är det som efterfrågar detta vansinniga krig egentligen? Är det folket, eller är det så att det är särintressen som styr politiken, vilken folket senare bara anpassar sig till?

Another explanation for the trends in the reallocation of local police resources over the 1984–89 period is that powerful interest groups demanded the war. It would be surprising if this were not the case, since as Chambliss and Seidman conclude, “every detailed study of the emergence of legal norms has consistently shown the immense importance of interest-group activity, not the public interest, as the critical variable” (1971: 73). Similarly, Rhodes points out that “as far as crime policy and legislation are concerned, public opinion and attitudes are generally irrelevant. The same is not true, however, of specifically interested criminal justice publics.” (1977: 13). (s. 140)

Att hjälpa till med att fånga brottslingar är dyrt för brottsoffret i dagens USA, vilket är ett tydligt statsmisslyckande:

The cost to victims of reporting a crime and then cooperating with prosecution can be staggering. “In contemporary America, the victim’s well-being and fair treatment are not the concern of the criminal justice system or any other institution. The victim has to fend for himself every step of the way” (McDonald 1977: 298). In addition to the initial loss to the criminal, victims face the costs of cooperating in the prosecution, including (1) out-of-pocket expenses such as transportation, baby-sitting, parking, and so forth; (2) lost wages in order to meet with prosecutors and appear in court, often through several delays; (3) considerable emotional and psychological costs brought on by having to confront an assailant or endure a defense attorney’s questions; (4) a great deal of frustration with bureaucratic indifference, delays, the need to tell the same story to several different bureaucrats, and so forth; (5) considerable uncertainty about the outcome of cooperation, because of the likelihood of court dismissals, plea bargaining, light sentences, failure of offenders to appear, and prison crowding that leads to early release; and conceivably (6) retaliation by the offender, in case he or she is either unsuccessfully prosecuted or not confined for very long. (s. 54)

Om man jämför det privata borgensystemet med det offentliga så har man ett ganska bra allt-annat-lika-fall som visar marknadens överlägsenhet:

One estimate puts the fugitive rate for defendants on private bail at 0.8 percent after three years (Reynolds 1994b). Thus, release under private bond does not reduce the probability of prosecution very much. The same cannot be said for the private market’s public-sector counterpart. The public alternative to the bail system had its origins in the mid-1960s with the goal of helping those accused of nonviolent crimes who could not afford to post a bond themselves. However, “it rapidly evolved into an indiscriminate release mechanism to cap the jail population. It has failed miserably to accomplish any of its aims.” The system is administered by tax-funded pretrial release bureaucracies. Its costs are high. For instance, administering the Harris County, Texas, pretrial release program cost an average of $356 per defendant in 1992 (Reynolds 1994b: 18, 19). This agency had one staff employee for every sixteen defendants being supervised, compared to one staff person for every eighty-seven defendants supervised by one of the private bail- bonding companies in Harris County. ...

Estimates indicate that about 27 percent of the defendants supervised by pretrial release agencies initially do not appear in court (Reynolds 1994b; Carlisle 1992; Bureau of Justice Statistics 1990; Sorin 1986), and such programs have an 8 to 10 percent fugitive rate after three years. However, pretrial release programs tend to release the prisoners who are most likely to appear, leaving the remainder to be dealt with by private bail bondsmen (Carlisle 1992; Bureau of Justice Statistics 1990; Sorin 1986). And significantly, only about 14 percent of those released under a private bonding arrangement initially fail to appear (Bureau of Justice Statistics 1990: 9). Furthermore, as noted above, these private bail bondsmen have a fugitive rate that appears to be less than 1 percent, compared to the 8 to 10 percent for the public alternative (Reed and Stallings 1992: 5).7 This probably reflects the fact that public police officers are responsible for pursuing fugitives, rather than private bounty hunters, but public police officers rarely do so in any active way. They have neither the incentive nor the resources to pursue such fugitives. The most common way for the public police to capture pretrial release fugitives is in routine traffic stops when they check to see if the driver is wanted (Reynolds 1994b: 19). Thus, many urban counties have more than fifty thousand fugitives from pretrial release programs, and nationally the number probably exceeds a million (Reynolds 1994b: 19). (s. 58-59)

Den amerikanska polisen verkar inte göra ett speciellt bra jobb överlag:

Public police currently perform many duties beyond crime control. Criminologist Abraham Blumberg suggests that approximately 80 percent of police resources are used up in what he refers to as “social-worker, caretaker, baby-sitter, errand-boy” activities (1970: 185). A 1990 Bureau of Justice Statistics survey of state and local police departments (Reaves 1992a: 4) bears this out, reporting that police have responsibility for many activities that may not deter any crimes or produce any arrests: 96 percent of the surveyed departments were responsible for accident investigation, over half performed the community’s telephone and radio emergency communications and dispatch services (e.g., 911 services) for all emergency response agencies (fire, ambulance, search and rescue, etc.), 43 percent had animal control duties, 33 percent did search and rescue, 18 percent had emergency medical services, 18 percent provided court security, 14 percent did civil defense, 10 percent provided civil process serving, and so on. A similar survey of sheriffs’ departments (Reaves 1992b) notes that these agencies are even more likely to have non-law-enforcement functions to perform. (s. 277)