“Manufacturing crime”

I read this Twitter thread by Sean Trainor earlier today. It’s an account of one night riding along with a high-school classmate who’d become a police officer. What Trainor says he witnessed: “a full shift devoted to manufacturing crime.” Please, read what he wrote.

While you read the thread, I’ll note that after I read it, I went for a walk. And had lunch. And then the power went out. But now it’s back.

Trainor’s thread made me realize how many arrests in my small corner of reality follow a pattern: a “routine stop” for “a minor traffic violation.” And then a search with a dog, and the discovery of what’s usually a piddling amount of an illegal substance, and someone goes to jail, almost inevitably followed by probation. Sometimes a vehicle is seized.

Should someone be driving around with drugs in their car? No. But does this pattern represent the best use of a community’s resources? Does it help anyone, or is it, really, an exercise in manufacturing crime?

Thanks, Rachel.