Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

No justice, no peace!

The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean, and accompanying blogs, has prioritized public safety and remediating/mitigating crime as paramount for the region. Despite the focus on economics, the book asserts that to elevate Caribbean society there must be a focus on the region’s security and governing engines to provide justice assurances. So in addition to economic empowerments (jobs, investments, education, entrepreneurship, etc.), the book posits that security concerns must also be front-and-center in any roadmap along with these economic efforts.

This is easier said than done.

In the previous blog/commentary in this series, the effort to reduce crime and remediate violence was identified as an “Art” and “Science”. This heavy reliance on artists and scientists have provided a lot of history for us to study and glean best-practices in this cause. What can we learn today from a study in the history of interpersonal violence as related to street violence?

This is commentary 2 of 3 considering this subject of interpersonal violence, and how it relates to the Caribbean homeland in 2016. The historic issues addressed are:

1. Duels
2. Street Violence
3. Domestic Violence

Street violence stems from 3 considerations: 1. Need, 2. Greed, and 3. Justice.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate the region’s economic, security and governing engines. The roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

• Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy and create 2.2 million new jobs.
• Establishment of a security apparatus to provide public safety and protect the resultant economic engines from economic crimes.
• Improve Caribbean governance, with a separation-of-powers between member-state administrations and the CU federal government (Executive facilitations, Legislative oversight and judicial prudence) to support these economic/security engines.

So the CU/Go Lean roadmap addresses the issue of more jobs; this will lower the “need” factor for crime; (there is no expectation that these efforts would fully eliminate violent crime; but this start will mitigate the risks). The book relates that with the emergence of new economic drivers, that “bad actors” will also emerge thereafter to exploit the opportunities, with good, bad and evil intent. The second factor, “greed” is tied to opportunities. The executions of the Go Lean roadmap (Page 23) are specifically designed to minimize opportunities for crime with these security mandates:

• Adapt the Ethos: Public Protection over Privacy
• Embrace Electronic Payment Systems – Carry less cash
• Whistleblower Protection – Consider all allegation, anonymous and overt
• Witness Security & Protection – Ensure Justice Process
• Youth Crime Awareness & Prevention; Anti-Bullying and Mitigation – “Nip it in the bud”
• Intelligence Gathering – Universal Video Surveillance
• Light Up the Dark Places – Eliminate the figurative and literal “shadows”
• Prison Industrial Complex – Engage to reduce recidivism

The third contributor, justice, is tied to street riots, civil unrest and other outbursts against perceived injustices. The marching call of many of these movements is “No Justice; No Peace”.

Consider here the historicity of street violence (including sexual violence from strangers) in this AUDIO Podcast (48 minutes) here:

Click on Photo here to Play AUDIO Podcast; Click BACK to Return

What’s Behind Trends In U.S. Violent Crime Rates?
Guest Host: Indira Lakshmanan; posted February 9, 2016 – For more than 20 years violent crime rates in the U.S. states have been declining, but data from the first six months of 2015 suggest an unwelcome change: The FBI reports that from January and June 2015 overall violent crime was up nearly 2% and homicides jumped more than 6 percent with spikes in both small towns and big cities. The Justice Department cautioned it’s too soon to know whether the latest data signals an upturn in violence in America. Join us to talk about what drove violent crime down so dramatically over the last two decades in the U.S. and what could be ahead.

Guests

• Khalil Muhammad director, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture  New York Public Library
• Paul Butler professor, Georgetown Law School
• Barry Latzer emeritus professor of criminal justice,  John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY  most recent book: “The Rise and Fall of Violent Crime in America”

The foregoing AUDIO Podcast relates the experience of the Black and Brown populations in the American criminal-justice system. There is no doubt, there is a “divide in America’s execution of their justice mandates”. But, the scope of the Go Lean/CU roadmap is to reform and transform the Caribbean, not America. We need to do better here, in our homeland. America’s success and failure does relate to us, as many of our Diaspora lives there, but frankly, the Go Lean book asserts that it is easier to fix the Caribbean, than to fix America. We simply need to keep our people at home. We need to minimize the “push and pull” reasons that drive them away. Curbing crime here – a “push” factor – helps this cause; messaging the real experiences of our Black and Brown Diaspora as they engage the criminal justice system in the US should also help our cause, in lowering the “pull” factors.

So let’s fix the Caribbean!

The quest of the Go Lean movement is to elevate Caribbean society above our dysfunctional past. We can improve upon public safety! The goal of the roadmap is to optimize society through economic empowerment, security & justice optimization, and also governing efficiencies in the region, since these are inextricably linked to this same elevation endeavor.

The cause-and-effect of failing economics leads to increasing criminality, the “need” factor. So the cause-and-effect of improving economics should therefore lead to lesser criminal activities. Improved security facilitation (i.e. intelligence gathering and analysis) should reduce the opportunities for crimes of convenience, thus mitigating the “greed” factor. Funding grants to improve Justice institutions (Police, Courts, Prison Industrial Complex), their transparency and accountability, should lower the outcries for justice. Thus the Go Lean/CU has devised a tactic of publishing rankings-and-ratings (i.e. Best Places in the Caribbean To Live …); this should exacerbate failings and failures more prominently to the monitoring public, at home and abroad.

The motivation of this Go Lean/CU roadmap is the basic principle, described in the book (Page 21), that “Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices and Incentives”.

This roadmap fully envisions the integration of shepherding – leadership – for the Caribbean region’s economic, security and governing initiatives under the same organization: the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. These points are pronounced early in the Go Lean book (Page 12) with these opening Declaration of Interdependence statements:

x.   Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices … to assuage continuous threats against public safety.

xi.   Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xii.  Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state …

xiii. Whereas the legacy of dissensions in many member-states …  will require a concerted effort to integrate the exile community’s repatriation, the Federation must arrange for Reconciliation Commissions to satiate a demand for justice.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes, including piracy and other forms of terrorism, can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

The Caribbean appointing “new guards”, or a security pact to ensure justice and public safety will include many strategies, tactics and implementations deemed “best-practice”, including an advanced Intelligence Gathering and Analysis effort to mitigate and remediate street crime in the region, and also to optimize the “art and science” of crime, including prison reform; (see Page 211 of the Go Lean book for a discussion on criminology and penology). The Go Lean book details the series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to optimize justice institution and provide increased public safety – “top-down” and “bottoms up”  – in the Caribbean region:

Other  subjects related to crime, justice and security empowerments for the region have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentary, as sampled here:

The vision of the Go Lean roadmap is to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play. This means measurable reduction (mitigating and remediation) of interpersonal violence in the region. The Go Lean book presents a regional solution – CariPol et al – to remediate and mitigate street crime in the Caribbean, featuring details of strategies, tactics and implementations designed from world class best-practices to reduce street violence in the region.

The premise in the Go Lean book is that “bad actors” will always emerge, from internal and external origins. We must be prepared and on-guard to defend our homeland against all threats, foreign and domestic, including street crime and interpersonal violence. Plus, we must accomplish this goal with maximum transparency, accountability, and commitment to due-process and the rule-of-law. Thusly, there is a place for closed-circuit TV (CCTV), dashboard and body cameras. If there is the community “will”, the CU will ensure the “way”!

An additional mission is to lower the “push” factors (from “push-and-pull” reference) so that our citizens are not led to flee their homeland for foreign (North American and European) shores. Where we have failed in the past, we now want to reform and transform our communities, so that we can re-invite our Diaspora to return; this time, offering security assurances. Among the many reasons people emigrate or refuse to repatriate, is victimization of interpersonal violence or fear of crime.

There is “good, bad and ugly” in every society. We must therefore mitigate the “need, greed and justice” reasons for interpersonal violence in our society.

So all stakeholders in the Caribbean – people and institutions – are urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap for the elevation of the Caribbean’s societal engine: economy, security and governance. The roadmap calls for the CU to do the heavy-lifting, so as to impact the Greater Good for justice, peace and security. This is conceivable, believable and achievable.  🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Go Lean Commentary

When we think of crime, what concerns us the most? Burglary, Fraud, or Assault?

Most likely, it is the threat to life-and-limb; to the person, and then secondarily, the threat to property.

While we all want to live in a society free of crime, we are more concerned about being free of violence. We all consider the curtailing of violence in society as a measurement of good civilization. It is one way in which we may judge societal success: simply, less interpersonal violence = success; more violence = Failed-State.

Sometimes this measurement is controversial. Many people feel that the misdeeds of corporate crimes (think Wall Street) are more troubling to society than muggings in the streets, and yet, we rarely see these types of White Collar crimes prosecuted, but society “throws the book” at people who commit violent crimes.

Blame it on an evolutionary survival instinct. We all want to be physically safe!

Public safety – remediating and mitigating crime – is therefore a study in the “Art” and “Science” of violence. (This is not a consideration of military or terrorist violence; these are separate and distinct discussions). The subject of interpersonal violence can be very academic; it can also be very practical. We therefore rely more heavily on artists and scientists to help in this cause. What can we learn today from a study in the history of interpersonal violence? Firstly, that there are 3 reasons for violence:

• Need,
• Greed, and
• Honor.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean asserts that to elevate Caribbean society there must be a focus on the region’s economic, security and governing engines. While the book primarily targets economic empowerments (jobs, investments, education, entrepreneurship, etc.), it posits that security concerns – threats to public safety – must also be front-and-center along with these economic efforts. While a more effective execution of economic empowerment would address the availability for more jobs, and thusly lower the “need” factor for crime, this would not fully eliminate the incidences of violent crime; but this start will mitigate the risks.

This is due to the second factor: greed. The incidences of “greed” seems to be more opportunistic, than accidental. The Go Lean book is specifically designed (Page 23) to address these opportunities with the execution of its security mandates:

• Privacy versus Public Protection
• Whistleblower Protection
• Witness Security & Protection
• Anti-Bullying and Mitigation
• Intelligence Gathering – Video Surveillance
• Light Up the Dark Places – Eliminate the figurative and literal “shadows”.

This commentary is therefore focused on the third contributor to interpersonal violence, which surprisingly, is NOT covered in the Go Lean book: Honor or Honour.

1. Think “Duels”!
2. Think street violence!
3. Think domestic violence!

This commentary is 1 of 3 considering the above subjects; these lessons are especially apropos for application in the Caribbean homeland of 2016. We have well-documented history of all of these incidences in our community.

The Go Lean book directly relates (Page 23) that with the emergence of new economic drivers that “bad actors” will also emerge thereafter to exploit the opportunities, with good, bad and evil intent. This is a historical fact, and is bound to repeat. There have always been and will always be conflict among individuals and many “bad actors” assuredly resort to violence during conflicts. (Think Cain and Abel).

Consider here the historicity of dueling or the “Duel” in the Appendix Reference below. This is how many addressed disputes or challenges to their “honor code” – today, instead they would sue each other for slander, libel or other offences to reputation – litigation is better than “pistols at dawn”. Consider the experience of Alexander Hamilton in the VIDEO here:

VIDEO – Alexander Hamilton – Mini Biography – https://youtu.be/NP2a1xkbLgU

Published on Sep 16, 2013 – Watch a short biography video of Alexander Hamilton, the first United States Secretary of the Treasury who was shot by Aaron Burr during a duel.

The story of Hamilton is all the vogue right now, there is a new Broadway Musical chronicling his life in song-and-dance. This original Caribbean immigrant (Nevis) teaches America … and the whole world so much. See Appendix VIDEO below.

(A consideration of duels is a reflection of “art imitating life”. Consider too, duels involving the fictional Lightsaber weapon are a cornerstone and major showpiece of the Star Wars franchise).

The quest of the Go Lean movement is to elevate Caribbean society above our dysfunctional past. Surely, duels are a fixture of the past; surely there are many civil alternatives in modern society – such as commencing a civil court case. Surely? But a cursory review of the Caribbean eco-system reveals that civil trials are cumbersome and complicated in this region. It may be easier for a Man of Honor to simply settle his differences in a back alley, than to take the matter to court. This is sad! We all know how this story ends:

One person brings his fist, while another comes with a knife; another a gun; another, a bigger gun. The one-upmanship continues.

We must reform and transform Caribbean life. We must remediate the “civil court” systems; we must make it easier to sue and/or have “your day in court”. The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate the region’s economic, security and governing engines. The roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

• Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy and create 2.2 million new jobs.
• Establishment of a security apparatus to provide public safety and protect the resultant economic engines from economic crimes.
• Improve Caribbean governance, with a separation-of-powers between member-state administrations and the CU federal government (Executive facilitations, Legislative oversight and judicial prudence) to support these economic/security engines.

The goal of this roadmap is to confederate all of the Caribbean – all 30 member-states – under a unified entity to provide these societal solutions for the local region. The CU security goal is just for public safety, optimizing Caribbean society through economic empowerment, security optimization, and governing efficiencies in the region, since these are all inextricably linked to this same endeavor.

The cause-and-effect of failing economics leads to increasing criminality, the “need” factor. The cause-and-effect of improving economics should therefore lead to lesser criminal activities. Improved security facilitation (i.e. intelligence gathering and analysis) should reduce the opportunities for crimes of convenience, the “greed” factor. Funding grants and heightened rankings-and-ratings (i.e. Best Places in the Caribbean To Live …) should allow for improved small claims and civil courts, the “honor” factor. The motivation of this Go Lean/CU roadmap is the basic principle, described in the book (Page 21), that “Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices and Incentives”.

This roadmap fully envisions the integration of shepherding – leadership – for the Caribbean region’s economic, security and governing initiatives under the same organization: the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. These points are pronounced early in the Go Lean book (Page 12) with these opening Declaration of Interdependence statements:

x.   Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices … to assuage continuous threats against public safety.

xi.   Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xii.  Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state …

xiii. Whereas the legacy of dissensions in many member-states …  will require a concerted effort to integrate the exile community’s repatriation, the Federation must arrange for Reconciliation Commissions to satiate a demand for justice.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes, including piracy and other forms of terrorism, can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

The Caribbean appointing “new guards”, or a security pact to ensure justice and public safety will include many strategies, tactics and implementations deemed “best-practice”, including an advanced Intelligence Gathering and Analysis effort to mitigate and remediate crime in the region, and also to optimize the “art and science” of crime, including prison reform; (see Page 211 of the Go Lean book). This represents “top-down” and “bottoms up” optimization of the justice and security processes to better protect the Caribbean homeland. This comprehensive focus is “Step One/Day One” in the Go Lean roadmap, covering the approach for adequate funding, accountability and control. The Go Lean book details the series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to optimize justice institution and provide increased public safety in the Caribbean region:

Other subjects related to crime and security empowerments for the region have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentaries, as sampled here:

The vision of the Go Lean roadmap is to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play. This means measurable reductions (remediation and mitigation) of interpersonal violence in the region. The Go Lean book presents a regional solution to remediate and mitigate crime in the Caribbean. There is the need for easier access to courts, mediators and “Justices of the Peace”. This latter is a feature from British Colonial history and is applicable in many Caribbean member-states; (not just the British legacy). Here are the technical details from Jamaica:

A Justice of the Peace (JP), according to the Ministry of Justice, is a person of unquestionable integrity who seeks to promote and protect the rights of the individual and helps to provide justice to persons in a particular community. Additionally, the JP serves as a justice in petty court sessions, attends juvenile court sessions, issues summonses, considers applications for bail, explains and signs legal documents, sits on licensing panels, and gives counsel/advice. Any Jamaican citizen that can speak and write English is eligible to become a JP. Any club/organisation/citizen can recommend someone to become JP for a community. JPs are chosen under the Governor-General‘s discretion.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_of_the_peace#Jamaica retrieved February 17, 2016.

The book features details of strategies, tactics and implementations designed from world class best-practices to reduce violence in the region, including:

• Caribbean Police (CariPol)
• Regional Security Intelligence Bureau
• Enhanced Witness Protection Solutions – Maximizing Justice Assurance
• Youth Crime Awareness and Prevention
• Prison Industrial Complex – Messaging against the Honor Code

The premise is that “bad actors” will always emerge, from internal and external origins. We must be prepared and on-guard to defend our homeland against all threats, foreign and domestic, including crime and interpersonal violence. Plus, we must accomplish this goal with maximum transparency, accountability, and commitment to due-process and the rule-of-law.

An additional mission is to lower the “push” factors (from “push-and-pull” reference) so that our citizens are not led to flee their homeland for foreign (North American and European) shores. Among the many reasons people emigrate, is victimization of interpersonal violence or fear of crime. There is “good, bad and ugly” in every society. We must therefore mitigate the “need, greed and honor” reasons for interpersonal violence.

So all stakeholders in the Caribbean – people and institutions – are urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap for the elevation of the Caribbean’s societal engine: economy, security and governance. The roadmap calls for the heavy-lifting so as to impact the Greater Good for justice, peace and security.  🙂

Download the free e-book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———–

Appendix Reference – Title: Duel
(Source: Wikipedia – Online Reference Source; retrieved February 16, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duel)

A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with agreed-upon rules.

Duels in this form were chiefly practiced in early modern Europe, with precedents in the medieval code of chivalry, and continued into the modern period (19th to early 20th centuries) especially among military officers.

During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly fought with swords (the rapier, later the smallsword), but beginning in the late 18th century in England, duels were more commonly fought using pistols; fencing and pistol duels continued to co-exist throughout the 19th century.

The duel was based on a code of honour. Duels were fought not so much to kill the opponent as to gain “satisfaction”, that is, to restore one’s honour by demonstrating a willingness to risk one’s life for it, and as such the tradition of dueling was originally reserved for the male members of nobility; however, in the modern era it extended to those of the upper classes generally. On rare occasions, duels with pistols or swords were fought between women; these were sometimes known as petticoat duels.^[1][2]

Legislation against dueling goes back to the medieval period. The Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215) outlawed duels,^[3] and civil legislation in the Holy Roman Empire against duelling was passed in the wake of the Thirty Years’ War.^[4] From the early 17th century, duels became illegal in the countries where they were practiced. Dueling largely fell out of favor in England by the mid-19th century and in Continental Europe by the turn of the 20th century. Dueling declined in the Eastern United States in the 19th century and by the time the American Civil War broke out, dueling had begun an irreversible decline, even in the South.^[5] Public opinion, not legislation, caused the change.^[5]

History
Early history and Middle Ages
In Western society, the formal concept of a duel developed out of the mediaeval judicial duel and older pre-Christian practices such as the Viking Age holmgang. In Medieval society, judicial duels were done by knights and squires to end various disputes.^[6][7] Countries like Germany, Britain and Ireland practiced this tradition. Judicial combat were of two forms in medieval society, the feat of arms and chivalric combat.^[6] The feat of arms were done to settle hostilities between two large parties and supervised by a judge. The battle was fought when one party’s honor was disrespected or challenged upon in which the conflict cannot be resolved in court. Weapons were standardized and must be of the same caliber. The duel lasted until the other party was too weak to fight back. In early cases, the defeated party are then subsequently executed…

Renaissance early modern period
During the early Renaissance, dueling established the status of a respectable gentleman, and was an accepted manner to resolve disputes.

According to [writer] Ariel Roth, during the reign of Henry IV, over 4,000 French aristocrats were killed in duels “in an eighteen-year period” whilst a twenty-year period of Louis XIII’s reign saw some eight thousand pardons for “murders associated with duels”. Roth also notes that thousands of men in the Southern United States “died protecting what they believed to be their honour.”^[10]

The first published code duello, or “code of dueling”, appeared in Renaissance Italy. The first formalised national code was France’s, during the Renaissance. In 1777, a code of practice was drawn up for the regulation of duels.… A copy of the code, known as ‘The twenty-six commandments’, was to be kept in a gentleman’s pistol case for reference should a dispute arise regarding procedure.^[11] During the Early Modern period, there were also various attempts by secular legislators to curb the practice. Queen Elizabeth I officially condemned and outlawed duelling in 1571, shortly after the practice had been introduced to England.^[12]

However, the tradition had become deeply rooted in European culture as a prerogative of the aristocracy, and these attempts largely failed. For example, King Louis XIII of France outlawed dueling in 1626, a law which remained in force for ever afterwards, and his successor Louis XIV intensified efforts to wipe out the duel. Despite these efforts, duelling continued unabated, and it is estimated that between 1685 and 1716, French officers fought 10,000 duels, leading to over 400 deaths.^[13]

Enlightenment-era opposition
By the late 18th century, Enlightenment era values began to influence society with new self-conscious ideas about politeness, civil behaviour and new attitudes towards violence. The cultivated art of politeness demanded that there should be no outward displays of anger or violence, and the concept of honour became more personalized.

By the 1770s the practice of dueling was increasingly coming under attack from many sections of enlightened society, as a violent relic of Europe’s medieval past unsuited for modern life. As England began to industrialize and benefit from urban planning and more effective police forces, the culture of street violence in general began to slowly wane. The growing middle class maintained their reputation with recourse to either bringing charges of libel, or to the fast-growing print media of the early nineteenth century, where they could defend their honour and resolve conflicts through correspondence in newspapers.^[14]

Influential new intellectual trends at the turn of the nineteenth century bolstered the anti-duelling campaign; the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham stressed that praiseworthy actions were exclusively restricted to those that maximize human welfare and happiness, and the Evangelical notion of the “Christian conscience” began to actively promote social activism. Individuals … and similar societies, who had successfully campaigned for the abolition of slavery, condemned dueling as ungodly violence and as an egocentric culture of honour.^[15]

Modern history
Dueling became popular in the United States – the former United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton was killed in a duel against the sitting Vice President Aaron Burr in 1804. Between 1798 and the Civil War, the US Navy lost two-thirds as many officers to dueling as it did in combat at sea, including naval hero Stephen Decatur. Many of those killed or wounded were midshipmen or junior officers. Despite prominent deaths, dueling persisted because of contemporary ideals of chivalry, particularly in the South, and because of the threat of ridicule if a challenge was rejected.^[16][17]

By about 1770, the duel underwent a number of important changes in England. Firstly, unlike their counterparts in many continental nations, English duelists enthusiastically adopted the pistol, and sword duels dwindled.^[18] Special sets of dueling pistols were crafted for the wealthiest of noblemen for this purpose. Secondly, the office of ‘second’ developed into ‘seconds’ or ‘friends’ being chosen by the aggrieved parties to conduct their honour dispute. These friends would attempt to resolve a dispute upon terms acceptable to both parties and, should this fail, they would arrange and oversee the mechanics of the encounter.^[19]

In the United Kingdom, to kill in the course of a duel was formally judged as murder, but generally the courts were very lax in applying the law, as they were sympathetic to the culture of honour.^[20] This attitude lingered on – Queen Victoria even expressed a hope that Lord Cardigan, prosecuted for wounding another in a duel, “would get off easily”. The Anglican Church was generally hostile to dueling, but non-conformist sects in particular began to actively campaign against it.

By 1840, dueling had declined dramatically; when the 7th Earl of Cardigan was acquitted on a legal technicality for homicide in connection with a duel with one of his former officers,^[21] outrage was expressed in the media, with The Times (British newspaper) alleging that there was deliberate, high level complicity to leave the loop-hole in the prosecution case and reporting the view that “in England there is one law for the rich and another for the poor” and The Examiner [newspaper] describing the verdict as “a defeat of justice”.^[22][23]

The last duel between Englishmen in England occurred in 1845, when James Alexander Seton had an altercation with Henry Hawkey over the affections of his wife, leading to a fatal duel at Southsea. However, the last fatal duel to occur in England was between two French political refugees, Frederic Cournet and Emmanuel Barthélemy near Old Windsor in 1852; the former was killed.^[19] In both cases, the winners of the duels, Hawkey ^[24] and Bartholemy,^[25] were tried for murder. But Hawkey was acquitted and Barthélemy was convicted only of manslaughter; he served seven months in prison. However, in 1855, Barthélemy was hanged after shooting and killing his employer and another man.^[25]

Dueling also began to be criticized in America in the late 18th century; Benjamin Franklin denounced the practice as uselessly violent, and George Washington encouraged his officers to refuse challenges during the American Revolutionary War because he believed that the death by dueling of officers would have threatened the success of the war effort. However, the practice actually gained in popularity in the first half of the nineteenth century especially in the South and on the lawless Western Frontier. Dueling began an irreversible decline in the aftermath of the Civil War. Even in the South, public opinion increasingly came to regard the practice as little more than bloodshed.

Colonial North America and United States
European styles of dueling established themselves in the colonies of European states in America. Duels were to challenge someone over a woman or to defend one’s honor. In the US, dueling was used to deal with political differences and disputes, particularly during the Civil War. Dueling in the US was not uncommon, even after 1859, when 18 states outlawed it, but it became a thing of the past in the United   States by the start of the 20th century.^[73] …

The quick draw duel is a stereotypical aspect of a gunfighter story in the American Western film genre – [mostly fiction and fantasy, rarely factual] – although real life Wild West duels did happen such as the Wild Bill Hickok – Davis Tutt shootout, Doc Holliday and Mike Gordon duel, and Luke Short – Jim Courtright duel (see Real-life Wild West duels). Fatal duels were often fought to uphold personal honor in the rural American frontier, and they were partly influenced by the “code duello” brought by Southern emigrants.^[75][76][77] Towns such as Tombstone, Arizona, and Dodge City, Kansas, prevented these duels by prohibiting civilians from carrying firearms, by local ordinance.^[78]

To this day, any politician sworn in as Governor of Kentucky must declare under oath that he has not participated in a duel.^[79]

Decline in the 20th century
Duels had mostly ceased to be fought to the death by the late 19th century.

By the outbreak of World War I, dueling had not only been made illegal almost everywhere in the Western world, but was also widely seen as an anachronism. Military establishments in most countries frowned on dueling because officers were the main contestants. Officers were often trained at military academies at government’s expense; when officers killed one another it imposed an unnecessary financial and leadership strain on a military organization, making dueling unpopular with high-ranking officers.^[36]

Charles I outlawed dueling in Austria-Hungary in 1917. Germany (the various states of the Holy Roman Empire) has a history of laws against dueling going back to the late medieval period, with a large amount of legislation dating from the period after the Thirty Years’ War (1618 and 1648). Prussia outlawed dueling in 1851, and the law was inherited by the Reichsstrafgesetzbuch of the German Empire after 1871.^[4] Pope Leo XIII in the encyclica Pastoralis officii (1891) asked the bishops of Germany and Austria-Hungary to impose penalties on duelists.^[38] In Germany, dueling was again outlawed by Adolph Hitler in 1937.^[39] After World War II, German authorities persecuted academic fencing as duels until 1951, when a Göttingen court established the legal distinction between academic fencing and dueling.^[40]

———–

Appendix VIDEO – HAMILTON, Starring Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr., Jonathan Groff & More – https://youtu.be/NBkI_9cr1Ws

Published Aug 5, 2015 – Get tickets to HAMILTON: http://www.broadway.com/shows/hamilto…

This is an official video clips of Broadway’s HAMILTON, starring Lin-Manuel Miranda. The production opened August 6, 2015 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.