Having now read her book, "The Highest Law in the Land," this is a riff on my old blog piece about the book, which riffed on Shakespeare in saying, "First, we get rid of all the sheriffs."
The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy by Jessica PishkoMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
For me thinking of other reviewers, on Goodreads, it was really right at 2.5, but I'm bumping down, albeit reserving the right to come back and bump back up. For me as me, it's at 2 stars flat and period
First, Pishko is preaching to the converted, overall, per the non-nutter 2-star reviewer besides me. That said, that's with an asterisk which I'll get to at the end.
Second, without claiming to know every detail of every movement within the constitutional sheriffs' world, I've long known the big picture, so nothing new here. In addition, I'd read two reviews of the book already, one at Capital and Main and the other at the Texas Observer, per my original piece. With that said?
I'm not converted on her "ergo" — the elimination of sheriffs. Not at all convinced. I have the advantage, per other lower-star reviewers, of living in a semi-rural county and knowing enough about sheriff's offices and sheriffs that run them — the good, the bad and the ugly.
Getting rid of ELECTING sheriffs? Hellz yes and I've said that for more than a decade, and in newspaper columns. We don't elect city police chiefs, we don't elect state directors of public safety, and we don't elect the head of the FBI, ATF, etc. Why should we elect sheriffs today? (That said, I know why, and with generally good reason, sheriffs were elected a century and more ago, and you won't find that in Pishko's book.) I've also said that, here in Tex-ass, we ought to get rid of the office of constable in every county and transfer constabular functions to that county's sheriff's office.
But, we need sheriff's-level policing. State directors of public safety, especially in plains and Western states with large counties, don't want to take that over, either. Patrolling county roads and knowing signs to look for is different than highway patrol. And, first-order investigative work is different from second order work that a state bureau of investigtion does.
So keep sheriffs. Just don't elect them. (And, beyond the constitutional sheriffs movement, there's plenty of other reason to remove politics from sheriff's offices, and, as a newspaper editor, I've seen and heard some of that personally.)
For other reasons, I disagree on abolishing jails. I agree on abolishing private prison contractors. I agree with making it easier for many people who have been arrested, mainly non-violent detainees, to bond out more easily. I agree with spending more money on jailer pay and total jailers, and also having somebody besides the sheriff run them. But, not every detainee should bond out easily. And, jails are also needed for more severe non-felony convictions. (I am talking specifically about jails, not prisons.)
And now, that asterisk. It comes from the conclusion, where Pishko goes off on mass incarceration, sheriffs and immigration and even Roe.
She makes clear she's a Democrat.
I'm a non-duopoly leftist, so I'm going to speak from her left.
Clinton, Obama and Biden, all in their first two years in office, had the opportunity of doing something in terms of federal protection for abortion, beyond EMTALA, which we've seen how post-Dobbs courts treat. They didn't. And, in any case, that has ZERO to do with sheriff's offices.
Mass incarceration? It is a problem. And national and state Democrats as well as Republicans, have largely supported the War on Drugs that is a primary fueler of it. Presidents of both parties have supported militarization of city police, county sheriffs and state departments of public safety all alike, as discussed in a book like Radley Balko's "The Rise of the Warrior Cop." (Balko has his own problems as an extreme libertarian, like wanting to entirely get rid of DWI laws; that's part of why I said "a book like.")
As for getting rid of policing in general, as proposed by Alex Vitale, who blurbs this book and with whom Pishko seems to half agree or more? No, policing doesn't have roots in colonialism, slavery and the rise of industrialization. I addressed that in refuting policing myths of libertarians and the New Left, noting that "the Shah's eyes and ears" of the Achaemenid Empire were cops. (Balko, unsurprisingly, is among those who gets this totally wrong.) Likewise, in writing about what I already knew about the book a month or so ago, I said Plato's archons were cops, or at least halfway so.
Immigration? Dear Leader (that would be Barack Obama) practiced family separation at the border before Trump did. Biden continued Trump's Article 42 by other means, namely tech-neoliberal ones.
Related? Presidents of both parties have continued government deals with private prison contractors on housing detained immigrants.
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