Author(s)
Source
New York University Law Review, Vol. 94, pp. 1-60, 2019
Summary
In the future, more than half of the population of the United States will be people of color. Afrofuturists foresee a world in which egalitarian policies and technology reduce crime and bias in criminal justice.
Policy Relevance
Surveillance technology can be used for good.
Main Points
- By 2044, over half the population of the United States will be comprised of people of color, making the U.S. a "majority-minority" country.
- In an Afrofuturist future, crime would drop dramatically.
- Much crime arises from frustrations with wealth inequality and capitalism.
- Surveillance and big data would make it nearly impossible to commit crime in public without detection.
- In the future, technologies will allow a reduction in the use of force by the police, and reduce the interactions that lead to “blue on black” violence.
- Technology will enable police to detect illegal firearms remotely.
- Police will stop vehicles remotely, and driverless cars will be perfected, reducing traffic stops and car chases.
- Some fear surveillance technologies, but Afrofuturists' commitment to equality would mean that, in a majority-minority future, technology will be put to good use.
- Surveillance cameras now function as tools of survival and proof of the reality of racism.
- Mass surveillance will be a welcome change from race-based surveillance.
- The future Supreme Court will be technology-friendly, and will continue to permit nontargeted surveillance in public, recognizing that surveillance reduces unequal policing and furthers the goal of equality.
- Algorithmic sentencing will be individually tailored, and its main goal will be rehabilitation.
- Prisons will be used only as a last resort.
- Legislators or the Supreme Court will abolish the death penalty.