Since our criminal justice system seems to be designed to process those of some African heritage and political prisoners, and fails to enforce laws when the violation comes from the state, perhaps it is time to think of scaling back, with a view to eliminating, state provision of criminal justice.
People who are learning about anarchy ask early on "Well, who is the cop?" The answer is "you are the cop." This is in accordance with the will of God, as we see in 1 Samuel 8. Political conventions are replays of the scene in 1 Samuel 8.
It was not so long ago in the USA that we did not trust the state with criminal prosecutions. Private citizens handled it themselves. We were the cops, before there were cops:
Under English law, any Englishman could prosecute any crime. In practice, the prosecutor was usually the victim. It was up to him to file charges with the local magistrate, present evidence to the grand jury, and, if the grand jury found a true bill, provide evidence for the trial.[2]
And this...
If you read through those articles, you'll see the context is the challenges of criminal justice provision. With capitalism and the big business big state fascism, its natural child, the state arrogated unto itself a monopoly on criminal prosecutions. Its rationale was the shortcomings of private provisions. The big problem was people would initiate criminal proceedings, and then settle out of court. Why, we cannot have that! So let the state take over, so cases run their course. Of course, today, the state plea-bargains most cases. The change was to monopolize those perceived shortcomings into standard shortcomings. Things got worse.
This is a recurring theme. There was a crime called the Ponzi scheme. It was outlawed. then the US Govt set up Ponzi schemes, like Social Security. Sometime I'll make a list of crimes that become social programs.
To this day we have private attorneys general to pursue class action suits, but the time has come to admit the experiment in state provision of criminal prosecution has failed, and we should end it.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
People who are learning about anarchy ask early on "Well, who is the cop?" The answer is "you are the cop." This is in accordance with the will of God, as we see in 1 Samuel 8. Political conventions are replays of the scene in 1 Samuel 8.
It was not so long ago in the USA that we did not trust the state with criminal prosecutions. Private citizens handled it themselves. We were the cops, before there were cops:
Under English law, any Englishman could prosecute any crime. In practice, the prosecutor was usually the victim. It was up to him to file charges with the local magistrate, present evidence to the grand jury, and, if the grand jury found a true bill, provide evidence for the trial.[2]
And this...
Professor William McDonald has summarized the period: "Even after identification and arrest, the victim carried the burden of prosecution . . . [by] retain[ing] an attorney and pa[ying] to have the indictment written and the offender prosecuted."[96] Indeed, early Americans preferred a system of private prosecution because it avoided the tyranny of government prosecutors and the expense of public-funded prosecutions.[97] Thus, legal scholars report that private prosecutions were the dominant form of prosecution during the colonial period.[98]
Levine appears to believe that the practice of private prosecution came to an end with the ratification of the Constitution and its creation of a strong Executive branch of the federal government tasked with prosecuting crimes.[99] Yet at the state level, private prosecution extended well into the nineteenth century.[100] For example, the most thorough study of private prosecution in the United States—Professor Steinberg's historical review of nineteenth century prosecution in Philadelphia—reveals that direct victim prosecution of some types of crimes continued until at least 1875.[101] Specifically, Steinberg concluded that victims routinely prosecuted cases themselves during the early- to mid-1800s:
The discretion of the private parties in criminal cases was not checked by the public prosecutor. Instead, the public prosecutor in most cases adopted a stance of passive neutrality. He was essentially a clerk, organizing the court calendar and presenting cases to grand and petit juries. Most of the time, he was either superseded by a private attorney or simply let the private prosecutor and his witnesses take the stand and state their case.[102]
If you read through those articles, you'll see the context is the challenges of criminal justice provision. With capitalism and the big business big state fascism, its natural child, the state arrogated unto itself a monopoly on criminal prosecutions. Its rationale was the shortcomings of private provisions. The big problem was people would initiate criminal proceedings, and then settle out of court. Why, we cannot have that! So let the state take over, so cases run their course. Of course, today, the state plea-bargains most cases. The change was to monopolize those perceived shortcomings into standard shortcomings. Things got worse.
This is a recurring theme. There was a crime called the Ponzi scheme. It was outlawed. then the US Govt set up Ponzi schemes, like Social Security. Sometime I'll make a list of crimes that become social programs.
To this day we have private attorneys general to pursue class action suits, but the time has come to admit the experiment in state provision of criminal prosecution has failed, and we should end it.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
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