“What is the purpose of government?” Such a perennial question underscores government’s essential purpose: to protect our basic rights, such as life, liberty, and property. Defending these rights is foundational for any successful society. Today in our state the bad news is that there are public safety issues to confront. The good news is that more attention is being given to protect our rights, and so there are good reasons for hope.
Consider two stories about public safety. First, a recent story reports:
Washington state was ranked the most dangerous state to live in for 2024 due to rampant crime, according to a new study from WalletHub, which ranked all 50 states for safety based on violent crime, property crime, traffic-related fatalities, and total law enforcement employees per capita.
Second, there is a case at the Washington Supreme Court that considers reducing caseloads for overworked public defenders. Prosecutors warn that a reduction could inadvertently lead to law enforcement filing fewer criminal charges to ensure no one’s right to counsel is violated. This, in turn, could lead to increased levels of vigilante justice, where individual citizens “enforce the law on their own” without police or government.
“This is a social contract. People give up vigilante justice in exchange for the government to administer justice,” Okanogan County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Teddy Chow told justices in a hearing on Wednesday. “Vigilantism will not only be limited to revenge or retribution to a particular offender but may also endanger those who work in public and criminal justice.”
The state Supreme Court is considering reducing caseloads for public defenders because “too few public defenders and too many cases are stressing the criminal justice system” and proponents argue dropping the caseload max from 150 felony cases per year to a maximum of 47 felony cases or 120 misdemeanor cases per year would help stabilize the system.
While it’s important to recognize public defenders are often overworked and underpaid, the solution should be to hire more public defenders rather than decrease the amount of work current defenders are allowed to take on.
“Without sufficient attorneys or without sufficient resources, it would lead to a de facto decriminalization and an increase in vigilantism,” Russell Brown, executive director of the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, noted.
There’s no denying our state is in a difficult position: keep caseloads the same and risk losing overworked and underpaid public defenders, adding to an already serious shortage, or reduce caseloads and prosecute fewer cases, potentially leading to more crime in our communities.
“Public defense is in a downward spiral. We can fix this,” Jason Schwarz, director of the Snohomish County Office of Public Defense and chair of the Washington State Bar Association’s Council on Public Defense, explained. “This will be expensive. Justice is not cheap.”
We know that ensuring public safety and defending the rights of the people are essential roles of government. Failing to prosecute cases where a citizen’s rights have been violated is a failure of government that will result in more crime – either due to vigilante justice or criminals assured they will not face punishment from an under-equipped justice system.
Cops, or Conscience?
Peter J. Keeft introduces an important principle applicable to Washington’s crime problem known as Colson’s Law, or the four “C’s”: Chaos, Community, Conscience, and Cops.
He describes the chart above as follows:
Community and chaos are “vertical” opposites, good versus evil, while cops and conscience are “horizontal” opposites, two goods to be balanced. Community and chaos are inherently opposed forces, like battling armies.
Cops and conscience are the two possible weapons of the defensive army (community) against the offensive army (chaos).
Both pairs of opposites are inversely proportionate, but the two vertical opposites are necessarily opposed (chaos and community destroy each other), while the horizontal ones are not (in fact, cops and conscience are often complementary).
But the need for each one decreases as the supply of the other increases: The more conscience a community has, the fewer cops it needs, and the more cops it has, the less conscience it needs to rely on.
In Washington, we face a crisis of conscience. Thus, we need more cops (and public defenders) who will enforce justice to restore balance in society.
“The paradox of democracy is that it is founded on the premise of strong consciences but tends to produce weak ones by its very permissiveness,” Keeft writes in his book How to Win the Culture War. “Its maximization of freedom (freedom from cops) rests on the willing submission of its citizens to conscience; yet this very freedom from cops tempts us to free ourselves from conscience, too. Paradoxically, this excess of freedom, or rather this mistaken kind of freedom, requires more cops to stave off chaos, thus resulting in less freedom.”
One thing is clear: reducing caseloads for public defenders is not in Washington’s best interest. A large part of the government’s role in society is to enact justice and protect the rights of the people. That founding principle supports the proper functioning of society and cannot be abandoned, especially amid Washington’s crime epidemic. We encourage our elected officials to look for other solutions, such as reallocating money to hire more public defenders, rather than decreasing caseloads. This is a fixable problem that, if handled properly, could play a part in reducing crime in our communities.
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