A Theoretical Defense of Police Recalibration in Columbia, South Carolina

This paper defends police recalibrationism as the best means of reforming law enforcement. Columbia, South Carolina, will serve as a case study to demonstrate the philosophical and practical justifications of recalibrationism. Police recalibration, which aims to reconceptualize the role of police by reallocating extraneous responsibilities to other entities, offers a more comprehensive and viable solution than abolition, fiscal restraint, and managerialism. The paper further examines proposals that align with police recalibrationism through the lens of the philosophical frameworks of social contract theory and utilitarianism to demonstrate how the reform would fulfill the proposed goals of the American criminal justice system. The paper concludes that police recalibrationism and the proposed programs for implementation in Columbia would effectively address underlying societal ills that encourage a propensity toward crime and combat the impacts of long-standing structural injustices.