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John Odermatt: 7 Essential Criminal Justice And Policing Reforms

by | Jun 11, 2020 |

John Odermatt on his podcast Felony Friday at The Lions Of Liberty has been interviewing a wide range of people caught up in the criminal justice system. One of the recurrent themes in his many interviews is how difficult it is to get out once you are in the criminal justice system.

John has 7 recommendations for making lasting change to the criminal justice system. I would also add that politicians and bureaucrats should not be left out of any reform (or criticism) – they make the laws the police have to go out and enforce, they should also be held accountable.

“For the past five years I’ve worked to shine a light on the rampant injustice in the United States criminal justice system. During that time I’ve hosted a show called Felony Friday on the Lions of Liberty Podcast. I’ve interviewed hundreds of previously incarcerated individuals who have shared stories of injustice that will bring tears to your eyes and cause you to cry out for change. These individuals have also shared the triumphs they’ve achieved as they navigated the obstacles in front of them as they strive to find success after the world turned their backs on them.

I have also interviewed former law enforcement officers who have shared the broken culture in policing and the systemic racism built into the system. They’ve spoken about a system focused on filling prisons, rather than helping to keep the communities safe.”

It’s going to take action. We need structural change in the system. You cannot correct a systemic problem, without CHANGING THE SYSTEM!

With that said. Here’s my 7 point plan to de-escalate the current situation and setup a scenario where we can begin to get the boot off the neck of the citizens.

1. Demilitarize the police. Stop programs that transfer military equipment used in foreign wars to local communities. The Department of Defense’s 1033 program, which began in the early 90s during the height of the War on Drugs, created the pipeline for local law enforcement agencies to begin to build a cache of military grade equipment. On top of that, President Trump signed an Executive Order in 2017 that made it easier for police departments to access this equipment.  

2. Decriminalize all drugs. Ending the War on Drugs will significantly decrease police interaction. There is no reason for police to be intervening in consensual transactions. Furthermore, we should treat drug abuse and addiction as a health issue rather than one to be criminalized. The drug war was founded in racism and it has done more damage to the black community than any other government initiative.

3. End mandatory occupational licensing. Allow insurance and the market to regulate. This will minimize police intervention in consensual transactions. With occupational licensing, individuals are forced to pay the State to get a license to cut hair, do tattoos, paint nails, be a handy man, etc. Police often setup stings to catch people operating without a license. As long as they aren’t committing fraud and falsifying certifications that they do not have, then there is no reason to put government officials between two adults that consented to the transaction. 

4. Ban no-knock raids. They escalate tensions and create an unsafe environment for all parties. The risk far exceeds any reward. The recent police killings of Breonna Taylor and Duncan Lemp reveal the barbaric nature of this tactic. It has to stop now. 

5. End Qualified Immunity. Government officials should not be placed in a tier above citizens. It is ridiculous that we have a federal law that shields government officials from being sued for discretionary actions performed within their official capacity. Under Qualified Immunity police can only be sued if their actions violated “clearly established” federal law or constitutional rights. We need equality under the law and a level playing field. 

6. Stop using taxpayers funds to pay victims of police brutality. Mandate that lawsuits filed against police departments or officers are paid out by either police held insurance policies or police pension funds. There is no reason for the taxpayer to be held responsible for paying the victims of police brutality.

7. End Civil Asset Forfeiture. Civil forfeiture allows police to confiscate any property they allege to be involved in a crime. The owner of the property does not even need to be charged or convicted of a crime! Cash, cars, or even real estate can be be taken away permanently by the government. The government can then decide to keep the property or sell it! 

People are upset right now. The protests are totally justified. But we need practical solutions that will lead to structural change in the system to go along with the protests. These 7 essential criminal justice and policing reforms would be a good start. 

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AIPAC Sets Limit For U.S. Lawmakers – Criticize But Don’t Cross The Line

by | Jun 11, 2020 |

From the Times Of Israel

AIPAC has spoken – U.S. lawmakers are on notice. OK to criticize annexation but don’t take it too far.

Untitled 58 640x400WASHINGtON (JTA) — The leading pro-Israel lobby in the United States is telling lawmakers that they are free to criticize Israel’s looming annexation plans — just as long as the criticism stops there.

“The donor, who is deeply involved in lobbying Congress, said AIPAC was making it clear that it would not object should lawmakers choose to criticize annexation. “We are telling the senators ‘feel free to criticize annexation, but don’t cut off aid to Israel,’” said the donor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The congressional staffer, a Democrat who is the target of AIPAC’s lobbying, described the same message from AIPAC. “They want to make sure members of Congress understand this is the time to warn Israel but not to threaten the Memorandum of Understanding,” the deal signed in 2016 between the Netanyahu and Barack Obama governments guaranteeing Israel $3.8 billion annually in defense aid for a decade, the staffer said, “not to threaten assistance.”

 

Robert Gates Has Dementia

by | Jun 11, 2020 |

Poor old guy has no idea that he is literally the one and only single human man who was secretary of defense of the United States of America at the start of the Libya war in 2011. The way he remembers it, he had nothing to do with the war at all.

“The consequences of an insufficiently planned military intervention can be devastating. Take, for example, the U.S. intervention in Libya in 2011, which I opposed. Once President Barack Obama decided to go in, the administration made two strategic mistakes. The first was agreeing to expand the original NATO humanitarian mission from simply protecting the people of eastern Libya against the forces of Libyan President Muammar al-Qaddafi to toppling the regime. NATO could have drawn a proverbial line in the sand somewhere between the capital, Tripoli, and the eastern city of Benghazi; a no-fly zone and attacks on Qaddafi’s ground forces could have protected the rebels in the East without destroying the government in Tripoli. Under those circumstances, perhaps some kind of political accommodation could have been worked out.

“As I said at the time, Qaddafi had given up his nuclear program and posed no threat to U.S. interests. There is no question he was a loathsome and vicious dictator, but the total collapse of his government allowed more than 20,000 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles and countless other weapons from his arsenal to find their way across both Africa and the Middle East, sparked a civil war in 2014 that plunged Libya into years of turmoil, opened the door to the rise of ISIS in the country, and created the opportunity for Russia to claim a role in determining Libya’s future. The country remains in a shambles. As happened in Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, and Iraq, expanding the U.S. military mission in Libya beyond the original objective created nothing but trouble.”

Isn’t that hilarious. The guy who doubled and lost Iraq War II, tripled and lost Afghanistan and started the war in Libya, “open[ing] the door to the rise of ISIS in the country,” now says the U.S. needs to retrench a bit so that it can “recover the full range of its powers.”

Hey Bob, remember that time when you were deputy director of the CIA and spent the 1980s backing Saddam Hussein and the Arab-Afghan army while lying so badly about the power of the USSR that you missed the fact it was disintegrating right before your eyes? No wonder you got promoted to secretary of defense. And no wonder you killed so many people for so little reason.

22 of your men kill themselves every day. Just sayin’.

Taking Steps Towards a City Without Local Police

by | Jun 9, 2020 |

Recently, Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender was interviewed regarding the Council’s latest political move towards abolition of the local police department. The interview left me underwhelmed. She gave no indication that she was familiar with the technical details of what abolishing the police could look like. I am not surprised by this though. The speed with which the City Council acted to signal willingness to change gave them no time to thoroughly think through the implications of, or a set of reasonable steps to take towards, abolishing the police.

The first point to consider is that, much to my dismay, nobody is talking about getting rid of all publicly funded law enforcement in Minneapolis. As it stands, there are a series of overlapping jurisdictions, of which the local police are only one. Park police, transit police, the County Sheriff’s department, State patrol, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and any number of federal law enforcement agencies will still operate as they always have. Many investigations, arrests, and incarcerations will be handled by essentially the same people handling them now.

 

Don’t worry Minneapolis City Council, we have you covered! Here are a list of steps you should be seriously considering:

 

Disarm all traffic patrol and restrict their interaction with the public to traffic citations and response to traffic calls.

It is plausible that traffic patrol is necessary to keep reckless drivers off the street. I remain unconvinced, but even if we assume this as a premise, there is still absolutely no reason these people need to be armed, or even to be cops. There are various towns and cities across the country which employ non-police parking enforcement, and even major cities such as NYC have special divisions of traffic “cops” that are functionally distinct from their beat and detective counterparts.


End patrol.

There is no evidence that going around looking for people breaking the law does any good. More likely, it is the mechanism by which the racial disparity in criminal justice is manifest. In the transition period, any publicly funded police functionality should be strictly limited to response, not to patrol.


Shut down all proactive non-violent crime investigations and end no-knock raids

The vast majority of no-knock raids are used to execute search warrants and result in the confiscation of zero contraband. Instead, they often lead to innocent people being killed or maimed. Getting rid of the police means that society will have to fundamentally rethink the way it approaches non-violent crime, and drug crime in particular. Thank goodness in 2020, that proposition is not as far fetched as it once was.

Form a first response team of mental health workers for mental health/domestic violence calls

This step may on the surface appear to be anti-libertarian. But much the way Dr. Joe Salerno suggested we meet the left halfway regarding the Fed, this is a step where in a case of alternatives, one is clearly the more libertarian choice. Mental health is a crisis in the US. one in ten calls to police concern mentally ill people who generally pose little harm to anybody. Society has thoroughly neglected these folks, dumping them in the laps of emergency rooms and county jails, neither of which  are remotely equipped to deal with them. Coming up with an infrastructure, either public or non-governmental, is a moral obligation, regardless of the role you think the police ought to play

Disarm all investigators of non-violent crime reports

Once you’ve eliminated proactive non-violent crime policing, such infractions as vagrancy, public drunkenness, sexwork, loitering, and on and on remain as the type of non-violent crimes our interim police department will have to deal with. These types of calls do not require an armed response whatsoever. We also need to rethink the role incarceration, in county or city jail for instance, plays in our society. Maybe the answer is in fact, leaving people alone and simply not enforcing these “crimes”. If you can’t do that, however, perhaps not immediately escalating the situation with an armed officer is the best course of action.


Liquidate all tanks/submarines/LRAD/MRAP or other military grade equipment

Please don’t tell me “we a need militarized capacity in case of complete social breakdown”. We literally just watched their response to that. They have proven themselves to be completely powerless, and more often than not they actually increase the chances of social breakdown. I am not really interested in making a well thought-out, nuanced case as to why local police shouldn’t have submarines. These tools of war, designed to be used against enemy combatants, have no place in a municipality used by those sworn to protect the people, even would-be criminals.

Where Does That Leave our Interim Department?

That leaves armed police as first responders to violent crime calls. Private  and community security will begin to develop a city wide infrastructure to create stability for businesses. Case law will develop to determine what is reasonable and what crosses the line when it comes to policing. Neighborhood watches and private police patrols (such as can be found in San Francisco and Atlanta) will organically form depending on the needs of the communities and property owners.

Otherwise, there is to schedule dates for turning over investigations of violent/non-violent crime calls to private enterprise and NGOs. In the meantime, acquaint yourself with the literature. Luckily, academics have been preparing for this for some many decades, and have developed sophisticated treatments for what a world without publicly funded police would look like.

 

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