As I said yesterday, the recent events in Ferguson, MO have caused me to totally rethink the race for Attorney General. Both Warren Tolman and Maura Healey are competent, basically progressive lawyers, each with some interesting and creative ideas for what the Attorney General’s role should be, and I’m pretty sure both would do a good job in office.
What I have not heard from either of them is a strong position on the question of militarizing local police forces. I recognize that it is a complicated issue that isn’t readily reduced to sound bites. But that’s why we have blogs, right? Here are some thoughts – please correct me, or tell me what I’ve missed, in the comments.
- We need cops. And cops need to be prepared to deal with the bad guys they face on an unfortunately regular basis. If police are outgunned by the very people from whom they are trying to protect the community, that isn’t going to end well.
- For that reason (among others), I don’t find comparisons to Great Britain or other countries to be especially useful. The simple and sad fact is that those countries don’t have the gun problem that we have. This is the point raised by Michael Cohen on today’s Globe’s op-ed page, and he’s right to raise it. America’s gun culture is a huge part of the problem here, but unfortunately, there is no short- or medium-term solution to that problem in view.
On the other hand, seriously arguing that suburban police need to be militarized because ISIS seems a tad hysterical. And an almost all-white police force looking like this (photo from Ferguson, of course) when mostly-black, unarmed demonstrators are coming toward them is obviously unacceptable.- The problem is not limited to Missouri. Right here in Massachusetts, suburban police departments have, and deploy, military equipment in situations that don’t seem to call for it, sometimes with tragic results. The ACLU of Massachusetts explains:
all too often, as our review of open source material in Massachusetts and empirical figures from other states show, SWAT raids in America are executed in drug-related cases where there is no justifiable use of such extreme force. Worse still, these militarized drug raids do not impact all Americans equally: unjustifiable force and SWAT raids against people in their homes most often target people of color and the poor. The ACLU’s national office recently found that the majority of people impacted by the more than 800 SWAT raids it investigated were people of color.
Perhaps no story illustrates this problem more locally—and tragically—than the 2011 death in Framingham of Eurie Stamps, an African-American grandfather of twelve, in his own home. Using military-style tactics, including the use of a battering ram to break down the door after midnight, the Framingham SWAT team raided Stamps’ house in an attempt to apprehend his stepson and another man suspected of dealing drugs, when an officer killed the elderly, unarmed Stamps.
- Compounding the problem locally, as has been discussed here before, is the bizarre fact that some (most? all?) Massachusetts SWAT teams are organized into private nonprofits and therefore, among other things, consider themselves exempt from public records laws. For SWAT teams not to be accountable to the public in that way strikes me as a recipe for disaster. And it’s surely one that the Attorney General – current and prospective – should weigh in on, as it seems squarely within the AG’s bailiwick.
Where does this leave us? There are situations in which urban – and, less frequently but occasionally, suburban or even rural – police departments can justify using equipment that goes beyond the standard-issue sidearms. Training in its use is, of course, essential, but the issue seems to me to go well beyond training. Should every department have such equipment at the ready? Which departments? How much? Who decides when it should be deployed? Is there any oversight of local decision making? How does all this get decided?
Surely, a more rational policy than what we have now (which appears to be dictated simply by how quickly the feds can get rid of the stuff they can’t use) is desperately needed. And it seems to me an excellent opportunity for our Attorney General candidates to think creatively and boldly about how to take Massachusetts in the right direction. I look forward to hearing what they have to say.
Military veterans especially must be retrained for law enforcement (and conversely maybe if we recruited cops who know how to follow procedure for constitutional interrogations and get results for the military we wouldn’t resort to more “enhanced” techniques abroad).
The higher level equipment need not be in the hands of local departments for most cases. They should be held in reserve by county sheriffs and state troopers which can be called in if necessary.
Get the guns! I’ve lost all patience with the law-abiding citizen, good guy with the gun argument. Unless you are advocating common sense ways to make sure ONLY law abiding citizens have guns you are just coddling criminals. Call THEM soft on crime!
Cops should not shoot first and should not assume that every demonstration is a riot waiting to happen. They should assume that part of their job is to keep protesters safe as well.
goes a long way.
The Root has a good short piece on what changes in policing can help. In short, 1) more community policing 2) better manners (ex. don’t say, Get the fuck out of the road! 3) More college education in the force. 4) More exercise and foot patrols.
I don’t know what the training they receive in the South, but up here, there’s a pretty extensive full-time police academy for full-time cops. Six months, I think. It’s hard work from what I understand. The younger cops we hire these days tend to all have Bachelor’s degrees. Those we recently hire my small town has hired seem to all have criminal justice degrees. A lot of people knock the cost of the Quinn Bill, but it has improved the force in my town.
All of these things can help. What won’t help? The Root says “diversity training.”
control, there’s something called the Madison Method. It was implemented after the protests of the 60s and 70s. It was used effectively when Madison, WI had a demonstration of 70,000 people. That’s what? Two Fenway Parks? The method also borrowed from England and Europe in dealing with unruly soccer matches.
Generally speaking, the Madison Method does what regular policing should do: treat people like people. Here are their general principles:
Not exactly Ferguson, MO.
Of course, it works best when both parties are peaceful.
The point of this approach is to change the way police handle situations where the crowd is NOT inclined to be peaceful.
a crowd or portions of a crowd that are not peaceful. Treat them accordingly, but don’t punish the peaceful for the actions of a small portion of violent people.
The best AGs have been advocates for, and defenders of, the people of Massachusetts. The worst have been hopped-up District Attorneys, for whom the job is about catching bad guys.
I want an AG who will protect me and my family and my community not just from bad guys but from corporations and, if necessary, government and its enforcement arm, the police.
I really don’t have a good sense on where the candidates stand on that. It may be technically difficult to catch and convict bad guys, but it is not ethically challenging.
To stand up for the rights of all wherever that takes you—even if it pits you against your law-enforcement partners—takes guts, moral toughness, and integrity. Who has that?
Tolman. Sounds like you were a Harshbarger fan-a guy whose main goal was stopping government corruption, unethical business practices, and protecting consumers. Tolman, whom Harshbarger endorsed early, has these attributes in spades. He has already taken on the special interests: the NRA, Big Tobacco, and even his own party when he took on Tommy Finneran in the clean elections fight. He isn’t afraid to go after anyone who is abusing their power or exploiting the vulnerable. I think he’s your candidate.
So ironic that he nonetheless opposes repealing the casino law… just sayin’.
As you pointed our, Ferguson is a lot more important than casinos for the AG race. Either way, they will be bound by what the voters decide. Since she came out for repeal I haven’t seen Healey cut any ads for Yes on 3 or otherwise coordinate her campaign with theirs. It was an easy flip flop to make with zero political costs. She is still deeply embedded with the Coakley organization and they share many of the same supporters-in spite of the fact that Coakley worked harder than any public official to keep that repeal off the ballot.
Tolman, like striker, comes from a union household and background and feels, wrongly in my view, that casinos will create jobs for a vulnerable population. You can see all my engagements with striker where I’ve argued that won’t be the case-but I would never argue striker or Tolman are bad progressives or men who don’t fight the good fight for social justice. We happen to disagree profoundly on the means, not on the ends.
Healey, other than her symbolic opposition to casinos, has not articulated any strong statements on the issues that are significantly different from Tolman’s and he has a longer track record of delivering results. I suspect she would largely continue the mixed bag status quo of the current AG. Her statements on Ferguson were long on analysis about the situation and short on actual solutions.
Granted, Tolman also has room to articulate more clearly what his specific strategy is to achieve community policing that isn’t
racist, militarized, or suppresses civil liberties.
Casinos are the biggest public policy issue separating the Democratic candidates for Governor and Attorney General. Irrelevant? Nonsense. No, the AG doesn’t have authority over whether or not we have casinos here. But the Governor has no direct authority over, for example, whether the state Constitution should be amended to bar same-sex marriage, yet I can’t imagine you’d deem that “irrelevant” to your decision as to whom to support.
As for Ferguson, I agree that I’d like to hear a few more specifics from Healey. And I’d like to hear anything at all on that subject from Tolman – I sent exactly the same invitation to him, via Twitter and email, that I sent to Healey, but have heard nothing back.
A Governor can muscle support in the legislature, can put his/her political machine or campaign infrastructure to lobby behind such an amendment, and has a much bigger bully pulpit from where he/she could preach on the subject and get media attention for it. For instance, I would argue it was far more significant that President Bush support such an amendment, or that President Obama openly supported same-sex marriage, than it would’ve been had John Ashcroft or Eric Holder issued advisory opinions or wrote case articles about it in the past. Granted, they are cabinet officials and are not directly elected, but it is a much lower profile office than the Governorship.
Were Healey to coordinate her campaign for the Yes on 3 vote, or cut an ad with other public officials opposing in, than it would be something else. As I see it, this was a fairly easy way for her to distinguish herself from Tolman and it’s a flip flop many otherwise reasonable people have bought and are using to make their decision in this race.
George W Bush had no ability to get that amendment passed, and confessed in his memoir he always personally opposed it, but it was an easy win for Rove to rally the religious right to beat Kerry. In a similar contest here, it is an easy win for Healey, in spite of the fact that just 9 months ago she was working for the same public official who did the most to defeat that repeal, and with whom she shares a lot of overlapping supporters and consultants. Other than a short press release, what did Healey do to help that campaign? Has she donated to the repeal effort or encouraged her supporters to do the same? It seems like, as Bob readily admits, she took a page from the Rove playbook and played a good game of political hardball by taking an issue Tolman was vulnerable with progressives on and riding it to her current position in the polls. And she did the same on Buffer Zones and Clean Elections, giving herself the credit in spite of the fact that he authored those laws. It’s a cynically effective strategy sure, does it actually tell us anything substantive about what they would do in office? I doubt it.
I also think progressives of good will can disagree on casinos, to me, it’s largely an economic question. I am unconvinced the promised revenue or jobs will materialize, or even if they do, if they are worth the significant costs. But it doesn’t strike me as a litmus test the way support for abortion or gay rights would, particularly for this office. But I would agree with you that Tolman has been running a poor campaign, and could be doing a lot more to show where he is more progressive than Healey. Ferguson gives him an opening that he should take.
I know you’re a strong Tolman backer, but your anti-Healeyism is getting a little shrill. Of course the Governor’s bully pulpit and ability to influence the legislature is bigger; that doesn’t mean the AG shouldn’t use the pulpit that’s available – indeed, a big part of Tolman’s campaign is that he’d be better at doing exactly that. And the charge that Healey “flip flopped” on casinos, simply because Coakley favors them, is AFAIK baseless. While Healey was working for Coakley, it would obviously have been inappropriate for her to take a public position on the issue, especially one at odds with the one Coakley’s office had taken.
I agree that the issues relating to Ferguson give both candidates an opportunity to stand out. A big question, to me, is whether either of them is willing to piss off the police unions by seriously questioning over-militarization. No strong indication yet from either candidate that they are, though Healey’s statement that she backs Obama’s review of the issue is a small step in that direction.
I feel that many, though not all, of her supporters here were quite shrill and dismissive of Tolman as some two time hack due to his business issue and his stance on casinos. So perhaps I have become overly defensive, my position on this race has always been that we have two good candidates, I respect Healey and think she’d make a good AG, I just know and like Tolman better.
That said, you have to admit it’s a little incongruous for joint Coakley/Healey supporters to claim that Healey’s opposition to casinos is why they are backing her, and Tolman’s support of them is why he is so awful, when their preferred candidate for Governor has clearly done the most at of anyone on a statewide ballot this year to prevent repeal from getting to the ballot. That’s pretty annoying.
I happen to think her evolution comes from the George Plunkett school of politics “I seen my opportunities and I took em'”, it was an easy issue to move to Tolman’s left while separating herself from her former boss without alienating Martha’s considerable number of supporters. But, as you said, we have no way of proving that claim one way or the other. And from your perspective opposition to casinos, whether sincere or insincere, is preferable to clearly sincere support of them. I get that.
What we can prove is that both candidates have the same approach to regulating casinos if repeal fails, so it is a wash. Her bully pulpit against casinos as an incumbent AG would be pretty useless if voters choose to allow them, similarly, Tolman’s bully pulpit in their favor is fairly useless if they choose to prevent them. I get that this is your main issue this election, it’s a position you and I share, and I have made several posts arguing why they are a bad idea. I just think it’s sort of silly that some people are applying a litmus test on this issue to the AGs race that they are not for Governor. I can admit I erred in saying it was irrelevant to this race, but it certainly is significantly less relevant in this race than it is in the Governor’s race. And far too many posters here are inverting that for reasons that escape me.
As for Ferguson:
At this point, I am not sure. I would hope either one of them had the courage to do that, but I suspect they have more votes to lose than to gain in a tight race such as this by going too far in one direction. Sadly, the black vote is much bigger in IL than it is here, so while Ferguson is becoming a major issue in Quinn’s appeal to black voters and Emmanuel’s shrinking re-election prospects, it doesn’t seem to be here, though it definitely should. You and SomervilleTom get significant credit in my book for consistently keeping this issue front and center in this race. I don’t know that it would be were it not for BMG and Progressive Mass. I await Tolman’s response, and hope it doesn’t disappoint.
In my view has nothing to do with Coakley. Healey made multiple public statements that casinos would present key enforcement issues for the next AG, which Tolman also believes. That’s it. Then one fine day Healey wakes up in favor of total repeal. Seems like someone smart figured out there was a political opportunity in that territory. But thanks to your efforts the voters will decide this. If they vote for repeal I think the legislature will be leery of going against that. If they don’t then casinos are coming, at least somewhere in Massachusetts. Period. I think jconway’s right: it’s political points with no real substance.
Specifically expressed a desire to rein in the militarization if the police and the invasions of privacy made possible by advancing technology. IIRC his answer even impressed SomervilleTom. I’d like to see a statement here but he has spoken out on this issue.
Heck, I was a Bellotti fan. I’m easy.
Thank you for asking about this. Please see my response on a new thread here.
A book I strongly recommend is “The Spirit Level” by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. In short, it explains (with boat loads of data) how greater equality makes societies stronger and how inequalities lead to events like Ferguson.
One key finding is that in societies with greater inequality there is a hardening attitudes towards the “criminal element” and a greater willingness to adopt punitive attitudes in an “us versus them” mentality. More unequal societies are tougher, harsher places and more money is diverted from welfare, education, etc into the criminal and judicial systems.
Since 1984, the State of California has built one new college but twenty one new prisons.
In short, gross inequality is not only immoral, it’s dangerous and it’s bad for business, unless perhaps you are in the business of building prisons or supplying military grade riot gear to police forces.
All means all and we would all be wise to elect a governor and others who wants to attack the cancer of inequality now, not down the road, not after some other state leads the way, not until the polls show support.
The Illusion of the Free Market. It uses a Foucault’s methodology tracing the free market back to the 1700s. The idea of the free market–the market is governed by natural law that doesn’t need man-made law–appeared and was applied to criminal punishment.
People who disobeyed the law, which was based on natural laws, needed to be disincentivized with punishment. Punishment needed to be proportional to the crime.
There are a lot of connections between neo-liberalism and criminalization.
We have privatized prisons creating a free market in inmates, we shouldn’t be surprised that the laws have been rewritten to put more people in jail for longer periods of time. It’s what the market would want after all-more products to sell and more clients to buy.
Bernard Harcourt. I think he’s a University of Chicago guy. He talks about Gary Becker and Richard Posner.
Great prof! And yes he debated them in the past and it was quite a show. He was my roommates BA advisor and one of the sought after professors in the SOSC sequence (sorry to geek out a little).
I love to hear.
I get a kick of of libertarians who tell me about these “natural laws” that establish their right to property. When I even suggest any social contract or any sort of natural responsibility, they whine and say “what contract, I did not sign any contract” and I tell them it’s on the flip side of the document that explains the natural law.