Security Blanket
I was very interested to read Nathan Robinson’s reflections on Astra Taylor’s 2023 book, The Age of Insecurity. He offers an explanation for why Americans who have objectively benefited a lot from Biden’s economic policies are still very discontented, namely that people are feeling a lack of security. Specifically, even if beneficial policies have passed and the current economic data are good today, people are not confident that what they have today won’t evaporate tomorrow. That’s why ‘hope’ is such an important motivator for dems - it inspires confidence in things being good in the future as well. By contrast, republicans win elections by stoking fears of loss of security. However, their vision of security is illusory; buying a gun makes you more likely to die, not less.
Robinson is onto something important here about the emotional drivers pushing Americans on policy. People crave the feeling of security, and may feel unsettled even following policy wins and other progress that should make them feel safe and prosperous. This sheds light on a paradox in criminal justice work: even when crime rates go significantly down (such as they are doing now), that doesn’t translate to a sense of feeling safe and secure. That feeling of anxious uncertainty about the future is transmuted into a negative view on criminal justice policy, which the media and electeds then cater to and amplify for their own purposes. Taylor calls this “manufactured insecurity” and it is as huge a problem for criminal justice policy today as it was with Harry Anslinger’s “reefer madness” in 1937 or Nixon’s war on drugs in the 1970s.
So, how do we make people feel a sense of security when they are being bombarded by messages designed to make them feel unsafe? I would suggest that we don’t accomplish that by only focusing on logical arguments about which policies will actually reduce crime and increase safety (here they are), because those factual statements aren’t doing much to meet the emotional need. This is also why pointing to falling crime rates doesn’t convince people, who respond that the crime stats must be flawed in some way if they themselves are feeling anxious about crime. People’s views on safety are incoherent when viewed through the lens of actual crime rates and safety. They are often about something else, such as how anxious they feel about the future in the place where they live, which perhaps helps to explain what we see in the chart below.
To tackle this thorny challenge, we must first acknowledge and validate people’s fears and anxieties, identify the manufacturers of insecurity and undermine the messages they carry, and then offer alternative paths to a broader sense of security, understanding that this security goes far beyond the factual issue of whether or not crime rates are up or down.
Appreciate naming of the dissonance between material impact and felt sense of security. Research from Kalla (Yale) and Brockman (Berkeley) on the persuasive effect of “deep canvassing” confirms that fact / logic doesn’t move the needle.
Any examples of effectively addressing the feelings around security in the Criminal Justice space?
Good piece. I think the perception of safety is indeed incredibly important, and it absolutely needs to be top of mind for anyone working to reform the criminal justice system. People will never support criminal justice reforms that they believe undermines their security.
Meanwhile, as someone who lives in the Bay Area now and who has lived there, New York, and Boston, over the last 30 years, it was interesting to see those three cities at the bottom of the murders per capita table while at the same time having very different perceptions of safety among residents.
One possible explanation, of course, is that the crime rate as a whole rather than just the murder rate has more impact on feelings of security and San Francisco and New York have significantly higher crime rates overall than Boston. I don’t know if that is the case, but I suspect that even if Boston’s overall crime rate IS significantly lower, that it’s only part of the story.
Having visited both Boston and New York recently (while going into SF regularly), I think there are a couple of other explanations that are as or more important than the crime rate for why people in SF and New York feel less secure:
- First, and most importantly, I think the visibility of street homelessness, addiction, and mental illness on the streets of SF and in the streets and subways of New York creates a sense of chaos and disorder that dramatically undermines people’s sense of security. I can tell you for certain that when I go into SF with my kids, who unlike me have never lived or worked in a place with lots of visible homelessness, they find the streets of San Francisco quite shocking. Boston, at least based on my most recent visits, has far less of this phenomenon, at lease in areas where visitors tend to go.
- Second, though I don’t know for certain whether this is different in Boston than in SF or New York, I think the prevalence of stores locking goods in cabinets to prevent shoplifting is also a very visible signal to residents that their city isn’t safe and reduces a sense of security.
It’s why I find it so frustrating that folks on the left often are opposed to measures (such as giving cities the ability to clear encampments and to force people off the streets) that would reduce the visibility of street homelessness and to taking aggressive steps to ensure that the police and the justice systems catch and prosecute “minor crimes” like shoplifting . If you’re someone who wants to see criminal justice reforms that reduce the harms of incarceration, the only way to successfully do so is to make sure that streets feel safe and that measures are in place to ensure that anyone who commits a crime is highly likely to be caught (which is the best way to reduce crime) and to go through a process that is satisfactory for the victims of crime.
That can certainly mean a restorative justice approach to convicted criminals rather than one that is simply punitive. I strongly support investing in our justice system to make such a pivot possible. But I guarantee that such an approach is only possible in a world where citizens feel their communities are getting safer, which is why those who believe in criminal justice reform have to be sure that they are making their communities become and feel safer, as they work to make the justice system less punitive.