A Defunding Thought

     The other day in the shower, I suddenly had what seemed like a crazy idea, but I can't quite dismiss it from my head.

     When someone runs afoul of the criminal law, their first point of contact with the system is almost always the police, and this is necessarily an adversarial, conflict-ridden situation. Why do we do it this way? Obviously if the police are at the scene while a violent conflict is underway and they break up the fight, they're in a position to apprehend the suspect and hold them pending a bail hearing, but as a general procedure, do we actually need to send police to arrest someone as the first step of a criminal case?

     What if, upon investigators deciding to charge someone, before issuing a warrant they were to forward a notice to a defence lawyer, who can approach the accused in a non-threatening context, inform them of their rights and obligations, and make arrangements to respond to the charges?

      * * *

     "Excuse me, Mr. Doe?"

     "Who are you? A cop?"

     "Not at all. I'm a lawyer. Actually, I'm your lawyer for now, unless you already have or decide to hire a different one."

     "Don't need one, and I'm not gonna pay you."

     "You're not expected to pay me. This is one of the things that whole 'defund the police' business is paying for. My job is to advise you of your legal rights and obligations, and to help you through the process. And the first step in that is to inform you that a prosecutor has elected to charge you in connection with an assault alleged to have happened last Friday night outside Roe's Pub."

     "That bastard. He started it."

     "We can talk about the facts and your defense later in my office. Right now, I need you to know that there will be legal proceedings against you, and you are ordered by the court to attend on this date. You should know that if you don't show up, they'll charge you with failure to appear as well. I will be there in any event, and do my best to defend you, but I will not lie for you. And you should know that if you are convicted, the police will be coming for you."

     "They'll have to find me first."

     "Well, I found you."

     "Yeah, but I wasn't hiding."

     "You want to go into hiding for the rest of your life? Look, right now you're merely an accused, presumed innocent until proven guilty. If you don't help me defend you, it's very likely you will be proven guilty, especially if you are guilty of simply failing to show up when commanded to do so. And once you've been convicted, you will be officially a fugitive, and actual arrest warrants will be issued. Moreover, depending on the seriousness of the crime, they may implement other enforcement measures: forfeiting your Basic Income, seizing property. They'll be going to great lengths to make it more costly for you to break the law than to obey it."

     "Hmmm."

     "I know. It's a big decision. As your lawyer, I can only advise you as to what your legal options are, and legally you have no choice but to appear. I can ask the court to reschedule your appearance if this date is impossible for you, but they won't allow it if they think you're just avoiding it."

     "Okay. I'll be there."

     "Great! Now, is there a good time for you in the next week for us to talk about the case?"

     * * *

     Obviously this approach wouldn't be practical in all cases. There are going to be times when someone is apprehended in the middle of a violent crime and needs to be subdued and isolated to protect others. And this model doesn't fully address what I think are serious problems with the basic idea of incarceral justice in the first place. And there are a host of practical complications and considerations that I haven't thought of here (and a bunch of others I've deliberately not included in my example narrative). But it seems to me that the current approach of leading off with coercive force by the police, is a really bad default position to take.

All Mammals Breathe Air!

A: "Cats breathe air."
B: "ALL mammals breathe air!"

     B's statement is true, but unhelpful. It is best understood as a snarky way of saying, "I already know that." The snark is understandable if we assume that A's intention is to inform B of something new, because it's kind of insulting to be presumed not to already know that cats breathe air. Everyone knows that!
     Yes, everyone knows that. And everyone knows that everyone knows that, so it's equally insulting to presume that A doesn't already know that B knows cats breathe air.  So when someone tells you that cats breathe air, they're probably not informing you, but reminding you, calling your attention to one particular piece of common knowledge because it is immediately relevant to the situation at hand. It's one thing to know, in the abstract, that all mammals are air-breathers, but if you've forgotten to punch some holes in that cardboard box before packing Mr. Fluffy into it for a trip to the vet, it's not clear that you've fully grasped the implications of that knowledge.
     Or maybe B is misreading A's statement to mean that only cats breathe air. This is even worse; B is not just assuming that A condescendingly underestimates B's grasp of common knowledge, but that A is shockingly wrong about the common knowledge itself. One would have to be quite perversely deluded indeed to believe that dogs and deer and humans and horses don't need to breathe air, and yet B is presuming that A is just that stupid.

     In both cases, B is essentially attacking a straw man, creating a weak effigy of A's statement to attack rather than making a good faith effort to understand what A actually means. By making the argument about a perceived insult to B's intelligence, B is trying to avoid engaging with the initial statement, which is irrefutably true and actually reinforced by restating the general claim about all mammals. But not all mammals are about to be transported to the vet in a sealed cardboard box; the fact that cats, and this cat in particular, need air is the point that B is obtusely sidestepping, with potentially disastrous consequences for Mr. Fluffy.