{"id":12402,"date":"2020-10-07T12:24:27","date_gmt":"2020-10-07T16:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/?p=12402"},"modified":"2020-10-07T12:24:27","modified_gmt":"2020-10-07T16:24:27","slug":"woke-superheroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/woke-superheroes\/","title":{"rendered":"Woke Superheroes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spiderman, Superman, even Ms. Marvel<\/a>\u2014they\u2019re not superheroes for the woke era. In their day, strong men in spandex were celebrated for bringing justice to their cities. But today, our concept of justice is markedly different than it was in the 1960s.<\/p>\n

Spiderman tracked down people in the middle of an anti-social act and beat them to a pulp. That strategy doesn\u2019t work today for a few reasons. First, we don\u2019t think that beating someone up is tolerable, let alone laudable. Why are we celebrating violence begetting violence? The whole reason Spiderman\u2019s nemesis is a \u201cbad guy\u201d is that he<\/em> was using violence. Maybe Spiderman is actually the bad guy! Second, the label \u201cbad guy\u201d is troubling. Someone who does something wrong shouldn\u2019t<\/a> be defined<\/a> by that act alone<\/a>. They probably experienced childhood trauma, have a mental health disorder, never learned to find productive outlets for their emotions, or are desperately poor and had no way to earn a legitimate livelihood. Why are you so quick to judge, Spiderman? Finally, what do superheroes do after they incapacitate a baddy? They hand him over to the cops and prosecutors, where he will be abused as a defendant in an unjust, racist<\/a> criminal punishment system. While still presumed innocent, he\u2019ll be strip searched<\/a> and sent to a disgusting<\/a> jail cell. He\u2019ll stay there for weeks or months<\/a> if he cannot afford bail. If convicted, he may be sent to prison for years of inhumane<\/a> treatment<\/a>. Undoubtedly, having gone through this experience, the trauma and social stigma will haunt him for life.<\/p>\n

Traditional superpowers reflect an outdated and overly simplistic model of responding to anti-social behavior: figure out who the bad people are, punish them for their bad deeds, and incapacitate them to stop their inherent wickedness from infecting others. That\u2019s not how things really work. Crime comes from desperation<\/a>, mental illness<\/a>, and lack<\/a> of opportunity<\/a>. Harsh punishment cannot deter<\/a> these forces. Incarceration only exacerbates<\/a> them. What good are super strength, knives that shoot out of your hands, or superhuman flexibility toward solving those problems? Not much.<\/p>\n

We yearn for the perfect criminal justice intervention. That\u2019s why the concept of incapacitation is so appealing. Beating someone up, putting them in handcuffs, and throwing them behind bars feels <\/em>absolute. But that promise is illusory. Prison does not eliminate<\/a> crime, it merely isolates it, and only temporarily: Prisons are riddled<\/a> with violent<\/a> crime. Prison makes people more<\/a> likely<\/a> to commit a crime in the future. Prison causes collateral<\/a> damage that leads to more crime: tearing<\/a> apart families<\/a>, fragmenting<\/a> a community<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We want, we expect, we demand alternatives to incarceration that are equally reassuring. And so we\u2019re tempted to insist on programs that guarantee that a person will do no more harm; a rehab program that promises full and permanent sobriety; a therapist who will quickly and reliably end someone\u2019s mental health troubles. Unfortunately, those don\u2019t exist. And they never will. They are akin to superpowers.<\/p>\n

Beginning with the killing of George Floyd this summer<\/a>, our country has begun to question<\/a> and scrutinize<\/a> its criminal system at an unprecedented scale. Over the past few months, you almost certainly have, and will continue to, encounter many proposals to change our systems of policing and criminal punishment. I urge you to be realistic when you consider these options: every proposal will involve tradeoffs, and many are extraordinarily expensive. Some will take years to produce results and others will fail altogether. Remember that those features are not unique to \u201cprogressive\u201d or \u201creform\u201d policies. The status quo is also astronomically expensive. It also comes with tremendous tradeoffs: police killings are a prominent, but by no means the only, symptom of a profoundly broken system.<\/p>\n

Traditional comic books were misguided about the solutions to crime: simply beating up enough bad guys will not eliminate society\u2019s scourges. But they were right to present an easy solution as a mere fantasy. The real options are harder and do not work 100 percent of the time. We cannot count on cheap, flawless, always reliable alternatives to prison and policing any more than we can count on Spiderman to stop a robbery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In their day, strong men in spandex were celebrated for bringing justice to their cities. But today, our concept of justice is markedly different than it was in the 1960s: beating up or caging enough “bad guys” will never eliminate society\u2019s scourges. The real options are harder and do not work 100 percent of the time. We cannot count on cheap, flawless, always reliable alternatives to prison and policing any more than we can count on Spiderman to stop a robbery.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101940,"featured_media":12403,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1487,1691,1776,1808,1807],"coauthors":[1689],"class_list":["post-12402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amicus","tag-criminal-justice-reform","tag-criminal-punishment-system","tag-police-reform","tag-prison-violence","tag-superheroes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/80\/2020\/10\/spiderman-jail.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZrWS-3e2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101940"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12402"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=12402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}