At the Edge: Law Enforcement, Human Rights, and the Interlocking Crises of Our Time
/At the Edge: Law Enforcement, Human Rights, and the Interlocking Crises of Our Time
By: Peter Marina, PhD
To look soberly at the state of the human species today is to confront not just crisis, but the likelihood that we are nearing the end of a global system rooted in domination, denial and destruction. To critically examine the moral crises of our time requires confronting the realities of state violence, structural inequality and the erosion of human rights frameworks. Nowhere is this more evident than in Gaza, where ongoing military actions have resulted in catastrophic civilian suffering. Numerous international bodies, including United Nations officials and human rights organizations, have raised grave concerns about potential violations of international humanitarian law. Reports by figures such as UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese document patterns of mass displacement, infrastructure destruction and civilian targeting that demand urgent global attention and accountability. These events should not be reduced to partisan narratives but must be understood within a broader context of colonial legacies, militarized power and the failure of international institutions to protect vulnerable populations. As members of the human species, we have a responsibility to engage critically and ethically with such issues, fostering dialogue rooted in evidence, empathy and a commitment to justice.
Add to this the collapse of public education into a profit-driven marketplace where students are treated as customers and learning is reduced to transaction. Add mass incarceration, particularly in the United States, a global penal empire where police forces increasingly resemble domestic military units. Add mass deportations, the rise of surveillance capitalism, the erosion of the free press, the normalization of nuclear brinkmanship and the destruction of any meaningful public sphere. The evidence is not merely overwhelming, it is systemic, accelerating and global.
Law enforcement sits at the intersection of all these crises. Policing, historically a tool for the enforcement of order on behalf of dominant groups, now faces a defining choice: Reinforce the existing system of control, or reorient toward the ethical defense of human rights. In an age of terminal crises, the status quo is not sustainable. As I argue in Human Rights Policing, we need a radical shift from punitive enforcement to the principled protection of all people, especially those most vulnerable to systemic harm.
Community policing is often touted as a remedy for fractured police–community relationships, yet in practice, it is often watered down, reduced to PR campaigns or advisory committees without real power. For community policing to matter, it must be grounded in solidarity where officers and communities work together as equals to address the root causes of harm, not merely its symptoms. Within this framework, the guardian model of policing offers an important alternative to the dominant “warrior” mindset. Guardianship implies not submission, but moral responsibility and a commitment to human dignity, peace and care.
Recent research by Clifton, Torres, and Hawdon (2021) reveals that the divide between warrior and guardian is not always absolute. Many officers, particularly those from Latino/a backgrounds, report hybrid orientations suggesting that departments could nurture a principled model of policing that combines resolve with humility, responsiveness with restraint. This is not about perfection; it is about reimagining the purpose of policing in a world where control alone cannot solve the crises we face.
Because the current punitive orientation of policing feeds into the machinery of mass incarceration, law enforcement has become complicit in the systemic abandonment of entire communities. Prisons have become the default solution for social problems that demand care, housing, education and public investment. Particularly for Black, Indigenous, immigrant and poor populations, the police are not seen as a source of protection, but rather perceived as a source of harm.
And these patterns are now converging with the existential threat of ecological collapse. Climate disaster will shape every aspect of life in the coming decades, including the role of police. Natural catastrophes, resource scarcity, forced migration and mass displacement will become routine. The question is whether policing will double down on coercion and control, or evolve into a stabilizing force for justice, equity and survival.
The collapse of trust in police institutions, while visible in many marginalized communities, is far from universal. In fact, large segments of the public continue to support aggressive, punitive models of policing including agencies like ICE and programs that prioritize enforcement over care. This reflects deeper ideological divisions and the normalization of state violence as a tool of social control. The heavy-handed social control and pervasive surveillance seen in Gaza offer a stark glimpse of tactics that risk becoming normalized here in the U.S. Yet, even amid this reality, critical voices, including from historically marginalized communities, continue to call not merely for reform, but for a transformation of public safety rooted in human rights, ecological ethics and collective well-being. These demands may not represent the political mainstream, but they articulate a necessary moral counterpoint to the dominant logic of punishment and exclusion. We must hold space for these conflicting truths, interrogating both the systems of violence and the social conditions that allow them to persist.
This complex dynamic is further entrenched by fiscal policies like those exemplified in the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” which funnels billions of taxpayer dollars into ICE, law enforcement agencies and the military-industrial complex, while simultaneously granting substantial tax breaks and subsidies to the wealthiest corporations and individuals. At the same time, vital social programs, such as healthcare, housing and education face cuts or chronic underfunding. This redistribution of resources away from the public’s welfare toward enforcement and the elite exacerbates inequality, fuels social discontent and deepens the conditions that breed crime. Rather than investing in the root causes of community instability, the state’s fiscal priorities reinforce a cycle of control and punishment that undermines long-term safety and justice.
In this context, transforming policing is not simply about changing tactics. Rather, it demands a fundamental shift in how officers see their role within society. They must move beyond being enforcers of order to become guardians of human dignity, civil liberties and social cohesion. This transformation requires departments to rethink training, leadership, oversight and mission, and to end practices that criminalize poverty, suppress protest or treat vulnerable populations as threats.
And it demands that we situate law enforcement within the broader collapse of settler modernity and global capitalism. Other worlds are not only possible, they have existed. Indigenous cosmologies and ecological ethics offer vital alternative ways of knowing and being. These traditions reject domination and extraction in favor of relationality, reciprocity, and care. The contrast is stark and necessary.
There is no neutral ground in a time of disintegration. Law enforcement will either help build the trust and solidarity needed to sustain democratic life or it will contribute to its further unraveling. Officers, departments and policymakers must ask: What kind of world are we protecting? And what kind of world are we helping to destroy?
We may be near the end. But how we face that end –– what we resist, what we protect, what we create –– will shape the future for whoever or whatever comes next. If there is hope, it lies in a new kind of public servant: one who chooses humanity over force, dignity over domination, and justice over convenience.
Dr. Peter Marina is a sociologist and criminologist at the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse. Along with his father, (retired) Lieutenant Pedro Marina, he teaches human rights policing to law enforcement professionals throughout the United States. He is author of the Human Rights Policing: Reimagining Law Enforcement in the 21st Century (Routledge Press, 2023)
