Pandemic measures

At the apex of this pandemic, it is shocking that the US federal government has no legal right to enforce a nationwide lockdown and a mask-wearing mandate of the sort that we have seen in Italy, Spain, and France. State police powers stand in the way, making governors and county leaders the proper locus of authority for these measures.

We know that many states and counties have not imposed them. However, even in those places where these orders are in effect, general enforcement is less than optimal. Holiday parties still happen, mask-wearing is not pervasive, social distancing is ignored, and law enforcement is nowhere to be found.

This seems inconsistent in a country where, under normal circumstances, the police will fine you up to $500 for loud music that bothers the neighbours on a weekend night.

In other democracies, arrests for violating lockdowns and seriously endangering others are not aberrations. The vast majority of citizens accept them as legitimate and see them as temporary – even if draconian – measures of last resort to fight a healthcare crisis of monumental proportions.

One should not minimise the potential for abuse – especially in weak democracies and dictatorships – that a central government charged with enforcing these far-reaching orders represents. However, the idea that just because governments do this, democratic institutions are bound to die is not a logical conclusion one can draw.

Spain, France, and Italy are not devolving into liberty-devouring tyrannies. Neither are Chile or Argentina, developing nations that have established quite strict and long-lasting lockdowns since the COVID-19 crisis began.

What is surprising about the situation in the US is that the laxity of enforcement regarding public health measures during this pandemic is inconsistent with the overall approach to crime in the country. When it comes to punishment, the US is quite an unforgiving society: legal sanctions for misconduct are generally harsher than in other well-established democracies.

Despite intuitions about the great respect for individual freedom that Americans supposedly hold, every day, social life seems to be more regulated than in other liberal societies. Take police presence in schools, which many times results in minors leaving the school building handcuffed for offences that not long ago were treated with a reprimand or a suspension.

To non-Americans, this is truly unbelievable, but it is consistent with a pervasive culture of criminalisation that is prone to hurt minorities disproportionately more because they are seen as stereotypically more likely to act illegally and violently.

The American criminal system and the political culture undergirding it are jail-centred and designed to dispense punishment for minor offences that do not seem to warrant it or at least not so harshly.

Examples of acts that are met with severe penal responses by the justice system and by the police include public urination, disorderly conduct, drinking on the sidewalk, etc.

Excerpted: ‘The policein the US must enforce pandemic measures’

Aljazeera.com