We've Got to Try Something Different: Alternatives to Policing and the Structural Emergence of Perpetual Experimentation

• In Event: Crime, Law and Deviance Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 1: Punishment and Criminal Justice Reform

Abstract

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, protesters across the country called for investment in community, not cops. But what does it mean for government to invest in community? At the federal, state, and local levels, the answer has often proven to be experimental pilot projects structured as short-term, competitive contracts with nonprofits. This paper probes the origins of this arrangement in two defining aspects of American statecraft in the 21st century—the punitive turn and the rise of nonprofits—by charting the recent history of struggles to establish community-based approaches to violence in California. Comparing the efforts of advocates in Oakland and Fresno, I show how, in response to earlier crises of policing, fragmented structures of opportunity and exclusion channeled reform efforts led by members of subjugated communities into short-term pilot programs and demonstration grants through competitive grantmaking to nonprofits. Over time, the result was to make it increasingly easy to experiment with alternatives to policing but difficult to institutionalize them. The paper points to the value for scholars of punishment to attend to the social processes of reform and remaking, not simply cycles of repression. And it illuminates the double-edged nature of attempts to develop new models of public safety outside the state.

Author

• Isaac Dalke, Northeastern University