Abolish Conspiracy
From the Abstract:
Criminal conspiracy seems as American as apple pie. Every state criminalizes conspiracy, and there are dozens of federal conspiracy statutes. The crime of conspiracy is the darling of prosecutors across the political spectrum. It has been wielded against poor Black teens and White TV moguls; anti-carceral and anti-abortion activists; rap stars and a President. Conspiracy’s hold on U.S. criminal systems is firm.
I seek to break that hold. I contend that the crime of conspiracy promotes surveillance of, and violence against, poor people of color. It is a menace to freedom of expression, the rights of criminal defendants, and the rule of law. Its purported benefits remain unsubstantiated; its costs have been understated when they have not been outright ignored. And it can’t be reformed. It should be abolished.
This story begins in the Star Chamber and culminates in present-day Georgia and Chicago. It is the story of nineteenth-century labor strikes and twenty-first-century drill rap; Emma Goldman, Angela Davis, Young Thug, and Lil Durk; the Smith Act and the RICO Act; the Conspiracy Eight and Cop City. I uncover and build upon a tradition of conspiracy criticism which grew out of left social movements. Finding that these movement critiques of conspiracy have not only been vindicated but exceeded by experience, I re-up, update, and double down.
