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I was disappointed to see this piece, and folks on the left should be wary of accepting these pro-prosecutorial arguments /1 https://twitter.com/jacobinmag/status/1295238931441647616
Anyone concerned about mass incarceration & the U.S. preference for what @JonathanSimon59 calls “governing through crime” should be skeptical about a claim that the way to regulate or solve a social problem is via criminal law /2
The idea that accountability=crim punishment flies in the face of important work done by a host of abolitionist & anti-carceral activists & scholars (e.g. @survivepunish, @C_Resistance, @elisabeth, @ayagruber, @dereckapurnell, @prisonculture, @orangebegum, @DorothyERoberts)/3
And, for critics of capitalism, singling out a few bad actors and subjecting them to state violence is hardly a way to address the underlying structural issues & the deeper flaws of U.S. political economy /4
That’s one reason why it’s particularly frustrating to see this arg advanced in @jacobinmag – it’s one thing to frame the problem in terms of individual bad actors if you believe that capitalism works. /5
I’ve criticized Elizabeth Warren for pro-prosecutorial positions in the past, but they make more sense for her: she has stated her belief in capitalism, so rounding up bad actors helps capitalism work better in her view /6
The claim here (from a socialist or non-capitalist left publication) seems to be that society can criminalize & punish its way to socialism &/or greater equality, which strikes me as both wrong & also dangerous /7
I’ve written about these concerns at length in a forthcoming @UCDavisLRev article ( https://bit.ly/3aQKtfW ) & in @JCLCnlaw ( https://bit.ly/3gvFRxf ) /8
. @CBHessick & I have expressed similar concerns in @slate about this turn to criminal law as a tool for market regulation ( https://bit.ly/31m4APU ) /9
@klevine02 & I also have an article, Redistributing Justice, in the works that critiques the idea that criminal institutions can serve left-redistributive ends /end
