‘Tough on crime’ mindset has turned US into police state

The list of criminal statutes is so long that experts believe the average person unknowingly commits three felonies each day.

and among those convicted of manslaughter, half had.

According to a recent Gallup poll, over the last five years, only 55 percent of citizens expressed either “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the police. The meaning is clear: Either 45 percent of Americans are criminals, or there are more than 100 million law-abiding adults in this country who regard the police with, at best, indifference and at worst, enmity. This is most pronounced among black Americans, of whom only one-third report they trust the police.

We live in a police state, and our legal system is to blame.

The law holds police to lower standards than regular citizens. Both prosecutors and judges give police a benefit of the doubt they do not extend to ordinary citizens. When going about their duties, police are legally protected by qualified immunity, making it all but impossible for citizens to hold them accountable in civil court. And when they are accused of wrongdoing, who investigates them? Other police. In our zeal to criminalize all manner of victimless behavior, we empowered the police then made them unaccountable.

The way to unwind this police state is to prohibit lawmakers from criminalizing any activity in which there is no clear and well-defined victim, to end coercive plea bargaining, and to remove the qualified immunity protections that shield police from the consequences of their actions.

The police shouldn’t be the enemy of the people, but to the extent that they are it is because we have made them so. We were complicit in building the police state, but with common sense reforms we can begin to unwind it.

Antony Davies is associate professor of economics at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. James R. Harrigan is CEO of Freedomtrust. They host the weekly podcast, “Words & Numbers.” They wrote this for Insidesources. com.