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this is bad news - vague anti-riot/anti-mob legislation that simply doubles down on mandatory minimums. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article248336730.html
This is something that I fear will become common as politicians take what happened yesterday & connect it to protests of police violence as an excuse to crack down (despite, i might add, the remarkable difference in police response between yesterday and many BLM protests)
we've been here before. Anti-mob sentiment was big during late 19th/ early 20 c. lynching era, & white leaders mobilized it to bolster criminal justice system & anti-crime culture more generally. What they often avoided was talking about *why* people lynched: white supremacy.
Black anti-lynching activists highlighted how lynching was white supremacist & a threat to their communities. They wanted law enforcement to deal with it, but not bc it was an abstract anarchic threat to "law and order" or American civilization. It was a white threat to *them.*
By contrast, white leaders argued that "the real victim of lynch law is the government." And they urged tougher law-and-order measures to deal with it. Anti-lynching fed into a broader anti-crime, anti-lawlessness push. https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/10/2/116
stuff like this, as scholars like Naomi Murakawa have shown, helped lay the foundation for carceral state. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-first-civil-right-9780199892785?cc=us&lang=en&#
This is similar to expansion of police authority & funding in wake of 60s uprisings https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674979826
This same thing is happening again in FL. Politicians are speaking in generalities about "rioting" and are linking anti-riot legislation (which appears to be bad, punitive, & unnecessary on its own) with proposals to prevent budget cuts to police depts!!
"Anti-mob" simply becomes an excuse to expand policing https://news.wjct.org/post/florida-gop-leaders-release-anti-riot-legislation-following-dc-chaos
So, in sum, watch out for when politicians target abstract concepts of "unrest" and "the mob." The policies they propose will likely impact those who are most vulnerable, expand carceral state, and distract from real solutions to our problems.
