America can’t seem to get a handle on how to stop crime, and I think I know why. Most often, citizens want the police to take care of it all, while they sit back and criticize. That is the gist of a recent article published by KUTV.com, entitled “Salt Lake police make 100s of arrests along Jordan River Trail; residents want more done.” (10-17-24) In America we have been taught to believe that because we pay taxes to support public services in our cities, that’s that. We don’t need to do anything more.
Our ancestors knew a much different reality, according to a history of criminal justice in this country. We didn’t have a paid police force in this country until the mid-1800s. Even then, the citizenry worked to keep criminal justice expenses down by participating in policing themselves. There were 210 documented vigilance movements from 1849 through 1902…