CHAPTER 16
POLICING AGGRESSION
POLICING AGGRESSION
In the past few chapters, we've seen how we create and encourage crime. First, disadvantaged workers are forbidden by law to create wealth through minimum wage and licensing laws. If they turn to theft, they find that they are not required to right their wrongs. Crime pays. When prohibitive licensing prevents legitimate businesses from selling recreational drugs, organized crime and youth gangs spring into action. The disadvantaged turn to theft once again to buy drugs that give them, for a time, a high that their reality does not. Polluters find it profitable to poison the environment when they are not required to undo the damage they have done. If we practiced non-aggression, we'd have much less crime to deal with. We create crime and then blame our overworked police for
not controlling it. Our local police are handicapped by being exclusive,
subsidized government monopolies (Third Layer aggression). As always, the
incentive structure of such monopolies results in high-cost, low-quality
service with minimal innovation. As a result, we pay more money for less.
The private company saved its customers money with used cars and equipment. (2) The private police officers enforced the law, while clerical personnel took care of the "social-worker, caretaker, baby-sitter, errand-boy" activities that can amount to 80% of public police work. (3) Oro Valley, Arizona, enjoyed similar savings when the town contracted out its police work to Rural/Metro in 1975. However, the Arizona Law Enforcement Officers' Advisory Council took the matter to court, arguing that an employee of a private company could not be a municipal police officer. The Council wanted the guns of government to give state troopers an exclusive monopoly on providing police service. Ironically, the public police wanted to use collective aggression against the very people they were supposed to protect from individual aggression! The court expenses were too much for Rural/Metro. They withdrew from Oro Valley. In 1975, the city had paid $35,000 to Rural/Metro; by 1982, it needed $241,000 to subsidize the public police. (4) The police that were hired to protect the public used the guns of government to exploit them! The Oro Valley community lost more than money, however. Rural/Metro could charge less and profit more by preventing crime instead of fighting it. Rural/Metro did things the public police had no incentive to do, such as checking homes twice a day when residents went out of town. These measures had cut burglary rates 95%! (4) The private police had to please their customers, or the
community would hire a company that would. Rather than trying to offer to
serve Oro Valley residents better, the public police used the guns of government
against them. The blame cannot be laid at the feet of public police, however.
Like most American communities, local voters had not honored their neighbor's
choice when they established the public police as an exclusive, subsidized
monopoly in the first place. In trying to control others, voters found themselves
controlled. When a community such as Reminderville contracts with a private police company instead of hiring its own employees, local taxes are still used to pay for the service. Our enforcement agents take our money - at gunpoint, if necessary - to protect us from others who wish to take our money at gunpoint! As usual, poor people are hurt the most by the aggression of taxation. The poor pay a large portion of their income for rent, which reflects the property taxes that support the local police. As a percentage of their income, the poor may pay more for police protection than their middle income neighbors. Most crime occurs in low-income neighborhoods; nevertheless, the poor are largely ignored. My mother and sister came out of a drug store one day to find their bikes had been stolen. They silently followed the thieves to a ghetto apartment, where my mother and sister could see their bikes just inside the open door. The police officer they called told the two women that the police just didn't go into that apartment complex because it was far too dangerous! He advised my mother and sister to get whatever money they could from their insurance company! If my mother and sister couldn't get the police to rescue their bikes that were in plain sight, what chance would a person dwelling in that complex have of police support? If the poor could threaten to take their tax dollars elsewhere, they would at least have some leverage. Without having the option to vote with their dollars, poor people are largely ignored. When individuals have sued unresponsive police, the courts have ruled that "the police do not exist to provide personal protection to individual citizens."(5) The individuals who get the least protection of all are the poor. As a result, they are forced to provide their own, in addition to supporting a police force that favors other segments of the population over them. Only by giving poor people their economic vote back can we hope to achieve equality. Leaving the Poor Defenseless The poor pay taxes to subsidize a police force that discriminates
against them. Left to their own resources, the poor patrol their own neighborhoods
and rely on inexpensive handguns. Sophisticated alarm systems or trained
dogs are beyond their economic reach. As if their plight were not bad enough,
society attempts to disable the poor further by stopping them- at gunpoint
- if necessary - from purchasing handguns. Defending oneself with a handgun makes sense: a victim who submits is twice as likely to be injured as a victim who resists with a gun. Defending oneself without a gun, however, results in injury more often than submission. (9) By the late 1970s, armed citizens were killing more criminals in self-defense than the police. (10) Handgun ownership acts as a deterrent to crime. In October 1966, the Orlando police began a highly publicized program designed to train women in the use of firearms. The program was prompted by an increase in rape in the months preceding its implementation. The rape rate dropped from 34 incidents for every 100,000 inhabitants in 1966 to 4 incidents per 100,000 in 1967, even though the surrounding areas showed no drop at all. Burglary fell by 25%. No woman ever had to use her gun; the deterrent effect sufficed. Even five years later, Orlando's rape rate was 13% below the 1966 level, although the surrounding area was 308% higher.11,12 In Albuquerque, New Mexico; (13) Highland Park, Michigan;8 New Orleans, Louisiana;8 and Detroit, Michigan;8 crime rates, especially burglaries, plummeted when shopkeepers publicized their acquisition of handguns. When the city council of Kennesaw, Georgia, passed an ordinance requiring each household to keep a firearm, crime dropped 74% the following year. (14) Surveys of convicted felons indicate that when the risk of confronting an armed victim increases, robberies are abandoned. (15) Among police officers, 90% believe that banning ownership of firearms would make ordinary citizens even more likely to be targets of armed violence. (16) Criminals do respond to incentives. (17) When they think they will have their own actions reflected back to them, they choose cooperation instead of exploitation. The TIT FOR TAT strategy makes sure that crime doesn't pay. Few criminals are affected by handgun bans anyway, since five-sixths of them don't purchase their guns legally. (18) Gun bans harm only the innocent. Do handguns encourage domestic violence? After all, 81% of handgun victims are relatives or acquaintances of the killer. (19) However, two thirds to four-fifths of the killers have prior arrest records, frequently for crimes of violence. (20) Thus, the average domestic killer is not a model citizen corrupted by gun possession, but a person continuing a life of violence. A gun does not make one predisposed to kill any more than a functioning sex organ makes a man predisposed to rape. How one uses what one has determines its value. A gun can protect or kill. A man can violate or cherish. To castrate a man or disarm a person - at gunpoint, if necessary - is aggression. Indeed, many of the domestic killings are acts of self-defense. Among murdered spouses, 50% are husbands of abused wives. (21) These women might be dead today if they had not had access to the family handgun. Guns give weaker victims equality with their attackers. Women are quite capable of handling firearms. Some studies suggest that women learn how to handle guns more quickly than men! (22) New Zealand, Switzerland, and Israel have more gun ownership
than the United States, yet in all these countries, homicides are less frequent.
(23) On the other hand, the District of Columbia has the toughest antigun
laws in the nation, yet it has become the murder capital of the United States.
(24) Clearly, stopping people from owning guns - at gunpoint, if necessary
- does not stop people from killing. As a result of our aggression, crime runs rampant. We lock ourselves inside our houses and take care when we walk through our world. We do not dare to give hitchhikers a ride for fear they will attack us. We live in the unfriendly world that we have created by our willingness to do unto others before they do unto us. When we abandon our aggression, we will eliminate the crime we have encouraged. We will also set the stage for better protection against those who would trespass against us. Eliminating the aggression of taxation would allow individuals or neighborhoods to hire the police service of their choice. If the private police didn't do the job they were hired to do, individuals could contract with someone else. Today, of course, consumers have no choice. They must subsidize police service without any guarantee of service. Customers hiring private police might elect to make an annual payment that includes patrolling, apprehending criminals, or any other items mutually agreed upon. Since preventing burglaries and assaults would keep costs down and profits up, police officers would advise their clients of ways to prevent crime. Prevention might also include house checks when the client is out of town. A protection agency with a reputation for effective capture of criminals might deter criminals just by posting its logo on the insured's building. The very poor could pay for police services by participating in neighborhood patrols organized by the neighborhood's protection agency. Today, in spite of paying taxes through their rent, the poor must patrol without compensation. In 1977, 55% of the citizen patrols were found in low-income neighborhoods, while only 35% and 10% were in middle- and high-income neighborhoods, respectively. Approximately 63% of the patrols were volunteers, (25) suggesting again that the poor pay both their taxes and their time for their inadequate protection. Without the aggression of handgun bans, the poor could be armed if they chose to be. Police brutality, often directed at the lower classes,
would also be curtailed. Private police would not only be liable if they
failed to live up to their contract with their client, but they could also
be held personally liable for any brutality toward those they apprehended.
Law-abiding citizens would shun a firm with a reputation for viciousness
and would effectively put such a company out of business. Even when criminals are captured, they seldom go to prison. The courts are so crowded that plea bargaining is a regular practice. (28) The criminal gets a suspended sentence; the prosecutor tallies up another conviction. The victims have nothing to say about it - even though their taxes pay the prosecuter's salery. Victims cannot even take criminal charges elsewhere if the prosecutor decides not to take their case. The prosecutor has an exclusive, subsidized government monopoly on bringing criminal charges. Without this exclusive license, victims could hire the lawyers of their choice to prosecute - or could prosecute the case personally if they chose. Since a convicted criminal would have to pay the trial costs - in a work prison, if necessary - even a poor victim would be able to attract competent counsel on contingency. No taxes would have to be collected for justice to be served. No victims would have to pay for a prosecuter who would not help them. Today, the guilty have everything to gain and nothing to lose by dragging out the court proceedings. If they had to pay all the costs associated with their conviction, however, they would not be so eager to appeal repeatedly. Instead, many would choose to settle with the victim out of court to avoid such costs. With fewer cases coming to trial, justice would be swifter than it is today. If the disputing parties could not reach an agreement, they could hire a judge or arbitrator. In California and several other states, justice has been deregulated. Aggression to enforce an exclusive, subsidized government monopoly on judgeship has been abandoned. Anyone who is qualified for jury duty can render a legal judgment. (29) In addition to California's independent judges, companies such as Civicourt; Washington Arbitration Services, Inc.; Judicial Mediation, Inc.; Resolution, Inc.; and EnDispute, Inc., offer quick, inexpensive justice. Judicate, founded in Philadelphia, has been referred to as the "national private court," with offices in 45 states as of 1987. (30) The rapid and reasonably priced trials these private courts provide are obviously considered a good deal by both parties, since mutual agreement is required to take the case from the public courts to a private one. Although most of the private courts currently deal with property disputes, there is no reason that litigants in a criminal case should not be able to choose their judges as well. With the criminal routinely paying for the costs of the trial, no taxes would be needed to support these courts. Would such a system of multiple courts promote different codes of justice in different areas of the country? Probably not. Today, we have several layers of jurisdiction between city, county, state, and federal courts. Judgments, laws, and penalties differ from state to state, for example, without causing undue hardship. History suggests that in the marketplace ecosystem, free from aggression, justice tends to be consistent. When the Western states were only territories, as many as four courts shared a jurisdiction. Those who observed such systems in action noted that "appeals were taken from one to the other, papers certified up or down and over, and recognized, criminals delivered and judgments accepted from one court by another."31 The judges had the best motive in the world for making their decisions clear and consistent - litigants would not hire them if they didn't give clear, consistent judgments. To improve our domestic security, all we need to do is abandon aggression. If we were successful in doing this, what would our country be like?
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