Scarecrow

I came across a couple of articles in the aftermath of the trial of Derek Chauvin, namely “Why A Guilty Verdict For Derek Chauvin Doesn’t Change The Reality Of Police Violence” and “There Will Be More Derek Chauvins.”

The basic theses of each piece are, respectively:

In short, Chauvin’s indictment is not evidence that police violence will stop or that police reform will suddenly be widespread.

and

There will be more Derek Chauvins, because his conviction alters nothing about this system.

It's clear when one reads them that both of these articles have, as their central premise, the idea that there should be no expectation that, for all that it was a public spectacle, the trial and conviction of Derek Chauvin will lead to a reduction in, let alone the end of, police killings of civilians that are, or are widely believed believed to be, unjustified. To which my question is: Who honestly thinks that it will? The lack of an answer in either article left me with the suspicion of a straw man, but I presume that I can imagine someone who might think that some momentous corner has been turned. I’m simply unaccustomed, I suppose, to major news and commentary outlets catering to imaginary readers.

What struck me as odd about these pieces, from the moment I read their headlines, was how uncontroversial the point seemed. Why would anyone expect that this one conviction, in this one case, would noticeably move the needle? Consider this quote, from Alex Samuels’ FiveThirtyEight piece:

“Criminal prosecution is not an effective way to change policing,” Rachel Harmon, a professor of law and director of the Center for Criminal Justice at the University of Virginia, told me. “It’s individualistic, whereas most of the problems in policing are institutional.” In short: An individual verdict “doesn’t particularly contribute to broader reform,” she said.

But isn't this true of all other crimes? The United States has consistently been at or near the top of incarceration statistics worldwide for years, if not decades. I am not aware of any single sort of criminal activity that the nation has managed to eradicate by convicting people of crimes. If “you can't arrest your way out of [fill in the blank]” has effectively become a mantra in criminal-justice circles, why would any expect that poor police practices/police brutality would be an exception? The clearance rate for bank robberies is pretty good; Arizona State University reported it as being in the area of 60%, with many bank robbers being caught the day of the crime. Despite this, there are a couple thousand attempts annually. And criminal prosecution for bank robbery is an individualistic attempt to answer a broader societal problem. While many of the bank robbers that make their way into the news might be relatively well-off people looking to score large amounts of money for some or another reason, most people who try to rob banks are simply hard up, and banks are where the money is. If a better-than-even chance of being caught and sent to prison isn't a deterrent there, why would it be for anything else?

As I said before, I can imagine people who would attach some great significance to the trial of Derek Chauvin and its verdict. But there are always going to be people who look at progress in combating a long-standing problem, and eager to put it behind them, declare victory. When I was in high school some of my classmates were so quick to declare that the Civil Rights Movement had put an end to racism and so willing to repeat the claim that I started to wonder what planet they were from. (And where I could book a tour of the place.) But are there really so many people out there that believe this, and read left-learning news and commentary sites, that they’re going to encounter one of these articles? It seems more likely to me that both of these stories are preaching to the choir, telling a group of people something that they already know to be true. Whether they’re useful as reminders is a different question, one that I don’t have the answer to.