Abstract
While punishment is a longstanding object of philosophical scrutiny, other controversial aspects of the justice system, such as policing, have flown under the radar. In this paper, we consider possible reasons why philosophers interested in crime and punishment have neglected policing. We make the case for a broader account of the political morality of the justice system, with a particular emphasis on policing. We sketch the outlines of an egalitarian version of such a theory, highlighting parallels between policing and the welfare state. Finally, we turn to recent calls for police abolition. Evaluating such radical claims requires, we argue, going beyond the traditional confines of the philosophy of punishment and considering a more holistic and interdisciplinary theory of criminal justice.
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Notes
- 1.
Kleinig (1996) is one of the earlier book-length treatments of the subject.
- 2.
Constables and city officials were responsible for tasks as diverse as managing markets and slaughterhouses; enforcing rules designed to prevent fires, keeping waterways clean and streets clear; and breaking up fights and resolving disputes. For example, medieval officials in Ghent were responsible for “keeping the streets clear of prostitutes, vagabonds, waste and family pigs” (Emsley 2021, 47).
- 3.
London’s Bow Street Runners were quasi-publicly funded, relying on both government grants and rewards. See Beattie (2012, ch. 3). Somewhat later, the exploits of Eugène-François Vidocq, a notorious French criminal informant who used his network to criminals to identify wrongdoers, helped popularize the idea of police as investigators of crime. See Emsley (2021, 127–28).
- 4.
- 5.
Bentham, however, was clearly aware of the significance of crime detection in preventing “mischief,” although he regarded the concept of police as both “multifarious” and, still worse, “foreign” (1970, ch. XVI, §17, esp. notes u-v [pp. 196–201]).
- 6.
Why has the retributivist research paradigm been so successful? While this obviously has something to do with the quality of the work produced by contemporary retributivists, it may also be associated with the rise of anti-government sentiment from the 1960s onwards, both on the right and the left. Moralistic strands of retributivism speak to natural rights—rights that individuals or communities have independent of government. Retributivism thus serves as a natural vehicle for embodying both libertarian and communitarian opposition to the many missteps of criminal justice policy by liberal democratic governments in the last fifty years, especially although not exclusively in the United States. On the left, despair at the perceived failures of rehabilitation made retribution—which at least held out the promise of principled limits on punishment—appealing in comparison. As Flanders puts it, there is something “simpler and clearer, if not more ennobling, about saying that one was being punished because one deserved it (it was a matter of justice) or that society needed to lock you up to protect itself. These theories did not carry with them the implication that you were somehow diseased or sick and in need of a doctor’s care” (2015, 391). See also Green (2014) for further discussion of the rise of retribution in the second half of the twentieth century.
- 7.
- 8.
The egalitarian account we sketch stands in contrast to those Brennan-Marquez (2021) canvasses, namely the sovereign pedigree, precursor-to-punishment, and line of fire theories.
- 9.
We recognize that it may seem counterintuitive to defend policing on egalitarian grounds, given their persistent association with harassing the poor and lower status groups. We note, however, that social welfare has its own history of humiliating and patronizing those whom it was meant to serve. See, e.g., Tani (2016). Needless to say, we do not seek to defend those aspects of either policing or social welfare policy. Nevertheless, our sense is that egalitarian commitments are ultimately better served by prioritizing less punitive modes of preventing crime over more punitive ones (Lewis and Usmani 2022).
- 10.
But see Ristroph (2018) for critical theory focused on retributivism and the philosophy of punishment.
- 11.
For a recent review of the development of research on harm emanating from policing, see Kramer and Remster (2022).
- 12.
- 13.
We are grateful to Chad Flanders for feedback on an earlier draft, and to Aaqib Mahmood and Rose Ma for research assistance. Research for this chapter was supported in part by an SSHRC Insight Development Grant.
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Wilenmann, J., Chiao, V. (2023). From the Philosophy of Punishment to the Philosophy of Criminal Justice. In: Altman, M.C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook on the Philosophy of Punishment. Palgrave Handbooks in the Philosophy of Law. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11874-6_16
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