I just posted a draft of my paper, Police Prosecutions and Punitive Instincts, to @ssrn. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3719408 It is an abolitionist take on police prosecutions. I understand that it is a take some may not particularly like. And I think I need to do a thread. Sorry.

The paper argues that the understandable desire to see police prosecuted for acts of brutality is problematic First, it legitimizes our flawed-beyond-repair criminal legal system, and reinscribes our addiction to incarceration as "justice," which, quite simply, it is not.

I look a the trials of three officers of color to show that the racist tropes prevalent in civilian trials are also apparent in the prosecutions and trials of officers. Also, note the prosecutors who claim justice for the entire system when they prosecute one "bad apple".

For those of us who really want to see a different system of justice, we must scrutinize our own punitive instincts when it comes to the villains we identify as deserving incarceration. If racial justice is the goal, dismantling the prison industrial complex should be the method

I also argue that individual blame solutions will not solve police brutality. We need to look at systemic forces, rather than allowing politicians and the police to claim that brutality is a problem of rogue officers. The vast majority of the time, it is not.

To end police brutality, we must reduce the footprint of the police. See work by Mariame Kaba, Angela Davis, Allegra Mcleod @orangebegum @dereckapurnell @avitale @j_simonson @monicacbell and more for inspiring work on how to imagine public safety without the police.

Forthcoming @WashULRev 2021, comments, of course, welcome.