Reference note: standpoint epistemology mainly refers to valuing lived experience and narrative over empirical evidence and data. Like most of my threads this essay began as a response to a Quillette article, this one entitled In Defence of Absolute Truth.
One of the great tragedies of standpoint epistemology is that it gives license for a form of superconfirmation bias. Those with whom we agree are eagerly encouraged to the point we reinforce our own bad reasoning, whilst those with whom we disagree are dismissed for no better reason than we doubt their motives and integrity.
Recently I’ve been watching Philly D.A. through BBC iPlayer- a documentary series produced by PBS. Although it’s impossible to disagree with at least some of his motives and observations, Larry Krasner’s inability to engage in either retail politics or good faith compromise with his former adversaries in the police is as infuriating as his deference to the ‘Science’ of handpicked experts on his staff.
A case in point is the claim that ‘Broken Windows’ or proactive was proved ineffective by Police Union industrial action in New York. This is wrong for two reasons. First, the industrial action mainly related to what would be better classified as a reduction in municipal rent-seeking and has almost nothing whatsoever to do with proactive policing. A lack of bench warrants issued as a result of a ‘failure to appear’ may look like a reduction in proactive activity, but was in reality the simple refusal of Police Officers in New York to work as glorified meter maids for greedy Democrat Politicians intent upon using fines issued against the most vulnerable and poor to fund their ill-advised White Elephants- at least whilst their Union grievances were ongoing.
Second, the benefits from proactive policing are an accrual- it can take years for the effects to wear off, for the economic opportunities which more orderly communities provide to evaporate, and sometimes this will only be witnessed with a major economic shock.
Perhaps DA Krasner would be better off asking the question why, as proactive policing and COMPSTAT was rolled out throughout the advanced economies of West it produced the self-same miraculous reductions in violent crime without substantially increasing prison populations? Could it be because we adopted a more measured and humane approach to sentencing?
An interactive visualization from Our World in Data.
In America, the liberal media at the time was suffering from both a ratings-hungry ‘If it bleeds, it leads’ ethos and a love affair with the Clintons which meant they were criminally negligent in performing their role of questioning power. An entire society bought into the lie of the ‘super predator’ confusing criminally neglectful nurture for the innate nature of a relative few, in so many instances. In what was doubtless a mockery of justice, grandstanding politicians used a tiny percentage of liberal judges at one end of the political spectrum disproportionately represented in the media to steal Judicial Discretion from the hands where Natural Justice demands it should reside and place it instead in the hands of politically ambitious prosecutors.
Still, Mr Krasner’s motives seem pure, even if his reasoning at times may appear faulty. Too long in the trenches I imagine- spent defending then hopeless causes. A better approach might be to consider Scotland as an example of how to tackle reform in the correct manner. Tens of thousands of wayward teenage boys were transformed into laudable hardworking blue collar men in a country with a population of only 5.4 million. The fallacy lies in imagining the Police simply abandoned proactive policing, when really it was more a matter of a change of approach once they had a wayward youth in custody and bang to rights.
And what does all this have to do with standpoint epistemology? Because it is as likely to produce changes for the better as a bridge built without the help of trained engineers is to be safe. Yet again, the media will highlight specific instances where the Criminal Justice system produces failures, this time highlighting failures in Public Safety, and yet again America will be no closer to producing a Judicial system which does a decent job of determining guilt or innocence, doesn’t systemically deprive poorer defendants of adequate counsel and is able to work in a relatively just manner without compromising public safety.
It’s a system guaranteed to produce official misconduct and travesties of justice for the simple reason it is chronically overworked. American Law Enforcement numbers may appear inflated, but they are roughly similar to any of the more comparable Western economies. The difference is they have to deal with five to seven times the level of violent crime. The US counts its homicides per 100,000, many countries count theirs by the million.
America is a country whose recent policies have been driven by terrible availability heuristics, and stupid narratives are just as harmful when they are aimed at men and women in uniform as they were when they were aimed at Black and Brown teenage boys.
A couple of years ago, I watched a BBC documentary short which was never aired- or at least not in prime time. It featured the life of a Texas Death Row Corrections Officer and a young Black man under his charge, subsequently put to death. He was friends with the family because he had been able to recognise that whilst this young man had done an awful thing, it was a stupid and tragic mistake made by a young man beset by anger and resentment. He was able to treat the young man with a degree of compassion in the months leading up to his death.
The BBC documentary maker decided it might be a good idea to visit the Prison cemetery to say goodbye. This seasoned prison officer had some kind words to offer the young man’s grave. The woman then asked whether he had any words to say to the man in the adjacent grave. “Roast in hell, motherfucker!” were his exact words. Sufficed to say her liberal sensibilities were somewhat taken aback.
It is a truism of most Western prisons which house the most violent offenders divide into two main categories of prisoners, split roughly fifty-fifty. The first group is comprised of people, overwhelmingly male, who committed terrible and awful mistakes, mainly when they were young. The second category are those who deserve to never to be let out of prison, and if the afterlife exists might well burn for all eternity, if you happen to believe in a punitive God. Most Corrections Officers will admit this and it certainly tallies with the behavioural science which tells us that roughly 50% of all murders are committed by ‘psychopaths’- or, more properly these days, those who exist at the extreme end of the ASPD spectrum.
We will know exactly when our Western cultures have grown up and matured. It will be the day when both Judges (in sentencing) and Parole Boards are equipped with the most advanced medical diagnostic science can offer, as well the best knowledge provided by clinicians in the psychiatric fields- because trying to polish a turd is just as a foolish an endeavour as is continuing to imprison people who have paid their debt to society and no longer pose a substantive risk. Only then will we be able to walk the tightrope between endangering public safety on the one hand, and being cruel and inhumane, on the other.
The graph is shocking. The variation over at least two orders of magnitude. How is that possible within one species? The US sticking out as badly as El Salvador.
Americans don't do nuance, prefer zero tolerance to avoid having to think things through, and still believe they can create ever more laws to solve problems without regard to the trade-offs.
The graph is shocking. The variation over at least two orders of magnitude. How is that possible within one species? The US sticking out as badly as El Salvador.
Americans don't do nuance, prefer zero tolerance to avoid having to think things through, and still believe they can create ever more laws to solve problems without regard to the trade-offs.