Drug Decriminalization in Maryland Through an African Centered Research Paradigm- Analysis and Recommendations

Part III. Recommendations and Suggestions for Future Research
An important prerequisite to establishing a research paradigm and strategy to study
decriminalization is to define the scope and definition of decriminalization. Jordan Blair Woods
uses an analysis of the decriminalization of certain traffic offenses to argue that decriminalization
advocates often have a narrow focus on criminal sanctions, failing to address fundamental
questions of policing authority. In his conclusion, he offers an interesting analysis on how
decriminalization should be evaluated, questioning whether “cost benefit analysis” should be the
operative frame for evaluating decriminalization police, writing
“It is difficult to propose bright-line rules or methodologies about when legislative
judgments will weigh in favor of restricting police authority and discretion during
decriminalization efforts because of the diversity of contextual factors at play. Limiting
police authority and discretion against the backdrop of decriminalized traffic offenses
might be viewed as posing qualitatively and quantitatively different harms and costs to
civilians and to the state than does restricting police authority and discretion against the
backdrop of other decriminalized offenses. Further, even if a cost-benefit analysis weighs
in favor of not restricting police authority and discretion in specific contexts, the extent to
which cost-benefit paradigms should define the scope of individual protections (whether
constitutional or statutory) in policing contexts is debatable.398 There may be certain
civilian harms stemming from policing that laws and doctrine should not tolerate or
encourage, even when that approach is viewed as not cost-efficient (especially to the state).
Regardless of methodological choice, approaching decriminalization as a process that
implicates more than criminal sanctions encourages deeper and more systematic
conversations about policing costs and fairness in situations involving decriminalized
conduct. In focusing on sanctions, narrower accounts of decriminalization do not offer
meaningful frameworks to evaluate the full scope of these policing matters, regardless of
whether lawmakers and other criminal justice actors ultimately conclude that they weigh
in favor of sustaining police authority and discretion.” (Woods, 2014).
Even if preserving some police authority could have some positive effects, Woods offers the
possibility that the potential harm of racialized violence through police traffic stops warrants a
more comprehensive reduction of police authority through an expanded conception of
decriminalization. He also notes that even after decriminalization, police stops continued , as
decriminalization had so deeply focused on whether the driver would receive a criminal or civil
sanction from traffic violations, that they did not address the authority police have to pull people
over in the first place. It is useful to remember Akbar’s assertion that there is a domino effect
involved in research, with the underlying assumptions determining the methodology pursued to
collect data, which then determines the conclusions researchers achieve through evaluating their
data. If decriminalization is seen as a primarily legalistic process of changing the legal sanctioning
related to the criminal legal system, more fundamental questions around the nature of punishment
and power risk being obscured:
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