A Self-Policing Populace (Through Social Deterrents to Crime)

    Shelby makes the nuanced claim that while the current U.S. system of mass incarceration is "grossly unjust" and functions as a tool of racial and economic oppression, incarceration itself is not inherently insidious, acting as a preventative force against those who commit "the most serious and egregious crimes”(115). He notes that any self-governing society “could come to consensus that the practice of imprisonment is the most effective, most humane, and fairest way to limit serious wrongs" (66), whilst maintaining that prison must only be a “preventative force" and not a system that punishes individuals for the sake of punishing them. To this end, Shelby introduces the idea of deterrence through "hard treatment" that induces people not to commit crimes. Deterrence creates a system of "negative incentives" where a person, being a rational agent, weighs the costs of a penalty against his proclivity to commit a crime (Shelby dubs this a prudential reason). 

    I believe that this line of reasoning can be used to advance an argument for the merits of Self-Policing. For Shelby, the aforementioned "negative incentives" are legal and punitive (fines, imprisonment, community service). But what if these negative incentives were not limited to actions of the state? What if we introduced deterrents of social relevance? The costs of communal shunning, familial shaming, and displacement in the social hierarchy could alone induce individuals to act in societally-appeasing ways. If the basic structures of a society made it so that norms were centered around obedience to laws, and strongly stigmatized disobedience, the deterrent effect of punishment would be possible without reliance on state sanctions (fines, prison, etc) and instead be reinforced by social pressures (that are structurally embedded) within the community. 

    On page 242 of Dark Ghettos, Shelby briefly discusses the social consequences of committing crime, although his discussion is limited to condemnation by the state. He writes that “I believe the public condemnation of crime can be justified by its symbolic value alone. It establishes its value through what it communicates (warranted moral criticism and disapproval)” (242). If such “warranted moral criticism and disapproval” can be internalized societally, could it be that the “hard treatment” that the punitive legal system administers may not even be required to prevent crime? Disapproval expressed by neighbors, peers, and family members would produce reputational and relational consequences that legal sanctions could not, and these may even be more effective. And if communities are capable of expressing and enforcing these norms themselves, to what extent is reliance on an external policing apparatus necessary? Would we then consider the social hierarchy of society as a policing apparatus itself?


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