Chapter Fourteen -- Criminal Justice as Tragicomedy

Abstract 

Skills training, weapons training, physical training – but cops can’t forget to train what they rely on more than anything else: their minds. Part of the movement to strengthen analytical and ethical intelligence in police work, the “Shakespeare for Cops” program is a meeting of minds among academics, the police, and the public. Creating a new community partnership and fostering trust among groups sometimes suspicious of each other, the program shows that cops can help scholars and citizens understand how crime and justice work in Shakespeare’s plays. And studying Shakespeare leads to better policing. How? Because interpreting crime and justice in Shakespeare’s plays brings one to recognize the hidden causes of crime and the pitfalls of even the most well-intentioned attempts to enact justice. To develop this claim, this article starts with the story of Tim Smith, a cop-turned-author who writes novels starring a Shakespeare-quoting cop in San Diego. It then details the current needs and desires for humanistic education in police departments, reviews some successful programs already underway, and reports the results of interviews with leaders in this movement. The “Shakespeare for Cops” curriculum is then summarized – offering plays to consider and questions to ask – and possible venues are discussed. In the end, “Shakespeare for Cops” illustrates that intelligence and ethics are not personality traits that some people have and some don’t. They’re talents that can be learned, and skills that need to be practiced.

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