[Peace-discuss] Naomi Murakawa on TRNN

[David Green via Peace-discuss]

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12830 But the fact is, police don't suffer from a deficit of procedure; they suffer from an excess of power. And the power comes from the criminal code, and the criminal code is something that we the polity allow to be created. Right? So when police officers are out doing their patrol, they can decide to be more or less rude, they can decide to unholster their gun or not. But what they are doing is enforcing a criminal code that has been accrued through democratic processes. Right? There are usually between ten to twelve million arrests every year. About 5 to 6 percent of those are for violent crimes. Add a little bit more for property crimes. About 20 percent of all the arrests are for violent crimes or property crimes. What are the 80 percent? It's nonviolent, petty little offenses, usually misdemeanors. Misdemeanors are clogging the courts. Now, when we talk about police power and what it is that they operate within this sort of engorged criminal code, you have to sort of recognize that there were and there are police departments having the debates through the '60s, through the '70s, even through the early '80s. What do we prioritize? When almost everything is criminalized, what do we prioritize? And then broken windows policing came along and gave an answer. And the answer was prioritize everything, because everything could lead to a culture that produces homicide. So, suddenly vagrancy matters, vandalism matters. It all matters, right? And that's the sort of police that you see in Baltimore, in New York City.
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