Is America Institutionally Violent?

This is a big topic and deserves much greater detail but you have to start somewhere. I believe that America has become an institutionally violent nation. By this I mean that the violence is either condoned or accepted by the federal government, the governments of the American states, cities and towns, as well as other political institutions that govern America. What leads me to my conclusion of institutional violence is that state governors, city and town mayors and their administrations pay lip service to those offended, plead for calm if citizens take protests to the streets but do very little or nothing to change police training or the mind sets of the officers. Certainly, there are no proposals to tighten laws.

The events of Baltimore and Ferguson are fresh in people’s minds. In both cases, extreme police violence and brutality were visited on black men, leading to their deaths. In neither case were the police under threat.

Under American law, the police do not have the right to be judge and jury. However, cases of police brutality are often investigated by internal police commissions and/or district attorneys. Internal police commissions have often been criticized for a lack of accountability and for bias favoring officers, as they frequently declare the officers acted within the department's rules, or according to their training. For instance, an April 2007 study of the Chicago Police Department found that out of more than 10,000 police abuse complaints filed between 2002 and 2003, only 19 resulted in meaningful disciplinary action. There are many other examples, leading to the conclusion that times have not changed.

Two years ago, twenty-seven innocent children were murdered at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. Since the turn of the century, nearly two hundred children and university students have been murdered, usually because of gunshot wounds. What meaningful legislation on gun control has been proposed since 2000 by the White House? What laws have Congress passed? In a word, none that are significant. In the states, has there been any action to halt the slaughter? Some, such as Oregon, have passed new gun background check laws but the states who have done this are very much in the minority. Do these laws make much of a difference? Time will tell but I doubt that the slaughter of school children will be halted as a result. It seems that those with the power to make change will not accept the unpalatable truth that until Americans can no longer carry guns, the killings will continue unabated.  

If the legislators and the administrators just sit on their hands, what can the judges do? From the very birth of America, its people experienced the violence of the War of Independence, followed by other wars, such as the War of 1812. The Framers were persuaded to protect the individual rights of American citizens in the Bill of Rights but the cruel and unusual punishment exception in the 8^th Amendment did not stretch to lawful execution.

The Supreme Court came close to considering the problem in the 1970s. It declared a moratorium on the death penalty whilst considering the way it was administered. In cases from the California and Georgia appellate courts, the Supreme Court accepted the qualitative difference of death from all other punishments. As such, when a person is convicted of murder in America, a second trial takes place to determine the sentence. Here was an instance of the Court taking decisions out of the hands of Congress and getting the job done.

Last week, the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of death by lethal injection. A year ago in Oklahoma, an execution was bungled, the lethal drug was ineffectual and the convict survived for 43 minutes. The supposed best legal minds in America debated lethal injection procedures. One, Justice Alito, accused those protesting the procedure of “waging a guerrilla war against the death penalty.” Presumably, he considers it proper that people die at the hands of the state.  And so the debate continued as the learned justices dissected the merits and use of certain drugs and the humane way to kill somebody legally.

This discussion was patently ridiculous. Any person who has had surgery under anaesthetic knows you get put to sleep and wake up a while later, not knowing anything about the intervening time. Why is it beyond the wit of those who want to execute people to adopt this simple solution?

I find it discomforting that the Court did not discuss a far more important issue, namely whether in 2015 the state has the right to take a life? Are the Supremes too scared to break with precedent and tell Congress and the executive branch that America is out of step with the rest of the western world and needs to re-think the execution issue? Perhaps the majority of the Court considers the legal system would be weakened without this deterrent.

Until the three branches of the federal government, as well as their counterparts in the states and cities, come to grips with police enforcement, the virtually unrestricted right to own guns and executing people, I cannot see any likelihood of reduction in acts of violence throughout the United States. If all these administrators, legislators and judges are satisfied with the status quo, the charge that America is institutionally violent must stand.