What does it say about someone psychologically to be in a place of power, overstep that power, push people to the limit, make them lash out, and then punish them and make them think they deserve it for an entirely human reaction?
Unfortunately, this is not a theoretical question.
It is playing out in prosecutorial offices and courtrooms across Michigan, often quietly, often procedurally, and almost always with devastating human consequences.
Across cases, courts, and counties, a familiar pattern emerges. Individuals in positions of legal authority create pressure, withhold information, ignore boundaries, or escalate control. When the person subjected to that pressure reacts like a human being, the system responds not with accountability, but with punishment. The reaction becomes the offense. The harm disappears. The narrative flips.
This is not justice. It is psychological power abuse embedded in legal process.
The Pattern: Provocation Followed by Moral Inversion
The first step is rarely overt misconduct. It often looks administrative. Delays without explanation. Notices that never arrive. Threats framed as discretion. Silence where explanation should be required.
These acts destabilize people who are already under strain. Defendants. Families. Survivors. Advocates. Attorneys. The law recognizes that people under stress react. Courts even account for this in doctrines ranging from duress to mitigation.
Yet in these cases, the reaction is anticipated and then weaponized.
Once distress surfaces, the narrative changes. The person harmed is reframed as volatile, unreasonable, or dangerous. The authority figure becomes the victim of the reaction they provoked.
Context is erased. Proportionality is abandoned. Procedure becomes punishment.
This tactic is known in psychology as reactive abuse framing. In institutional settings, it is more accurately described as narrative laundering. The system cleanses itself of responsibility by isolating the final reaction from the chain of causation that produced it.
The Power Imbalance No One Acknowledges
This dynamic cannot be understood without acknowledging the extraordinary power imbalance at play.
A prosecutor can, in practice, snap their fingers and have a person arrested. That decision is rarely questioned in real time. It is not subjected to an adversarial hearing before the harm occurs. It is not meaningfully reviewed before liberty is taken. The consequences are immediate, and the scrutiny is delayed or nonexistent.
The person on the receiving end does not have reciprocal power. They cannot summon handcuffs. They cannot trigger detention. They cannot compel compliance through force of law. Their only available tools are speech, protest, or emotional response.
When a system allows one side to deploy arrest, detention, and public accusation with near-automatic legitimacy, then treats human reactions to that power as evidence of moral or legal failure, the playing field is not merely uneven. It is coercive.
Any psychological analysis that ignores this imbalance is incomplete.
The Legal “Show of Force”
In the military, a “show of force” is a deliberate exercise; troops, vehicles, or aircraft are deployed not because combat is necessary, but because visibility itself is the point. The goal is psychological. Demonstrate overwhelming capability. Signal consequences without having to use them. Discourage challenge by making resistance feel futile.
The exercise works precisely because it is asymmetrical. One side has tanks, jets, and command authority. The other does not. The message is never spoken, but it is understood.
A similar dynamic appears in some prosecutorial practices.
When a prosecutor escalates quickly to arrest, detention, or public accusation in situations where less coercive options exist, the legal purpose may be thin, but the psychological impact is immediate. The display of power becomes the deterrent. The handcuffs are not just functional. They are symbolic.
This is not about public safety in the narrow sense. It is about authority maintenance.
The person subjected to the show of force learns a lesson before any judge evaluates the facts. Questioning is risky. Pushback carries consequences. Nothing short of full compliance is expected.
Unlike in military doctrine, where shows of force are governed by rules, oversight, and civilian control, prosecutorial shows of force often occur without scrutiny. Arrests happen first, review comes later, if at all. The harm is front-loaded and the accountability is deferred.
When legal systems tolerate this dynamic, they reward intimidation over proportionality. They teach that power need not justify itself, only demonstrate itself.
That is not the rule of law. It is psychological dominance parading as procedural legitimacy.
Punishment as Conditioning, Not Correction
The resulting sanctions often exceed what the law requires. Bond revocations. Contempt findings. Charging decisions that escalate instead of resolve. Professional retaliation. Procedural stonewalling.
These actions do not correct behavior; they condition it.
The message is clear. Emotional responses invalidate credibility. Resistance invites retaliation. Compliance is safer than truth.
Over time, people internalize the blame. They stop asserting rights. They doubt their own perceptions. They regulate their emotions not for health, but for survival.
It is not discipline, instead it is learned helplessness imposed through legal authority.
Why Power Holders Believe Their Own Story
A disturbing feature of this pattern is that many of the actors involved appear to sincerely believe their reframed version of events.
Why? Because power insulates. Prosecutors and judges rarely experience meaningful feedback loops. Institutional culture rewards outcomes, not ethical reflection. Case volume replaces human impact as the metric of success.
When accountability feels like an attack, self protection takes over. Responsibility is externalized. The institution unfortunately becomes synonymous with the individual. Questioning the act becomes questioning the office itself.
Perhaps the best recent example of this, is when a public figure became visibly agitated over a FOIA request; a systemic process that had absolutely nothing to do with them.
This dynamic aligns with well documented traits of authoritarian systems and defensive narcissism, especially in roles where discretion is broad and oversight is minimal.
Over time, empathy erodes, control feels like order, and harm feels justified.
The Cost to the People Caught Inside It
For those on the receiving end, the damage is cumulative.
People experience trauma confusion. They replay interactions endlessly, trying to identify the moment they supposedly crossed a line. Shame replaces anger; memory fractures. Nervous systems remain on high alert long after proceedings end.
And it’s always families that absorb the fallout. Children learn silence. Partners carry fear. Communities lose trust not because the law was enforced, but because it was used to punish humanity itself.
Why This Matters
This pattern matters because it is not at all rare; it is structural.
When prosecutors and judges are permitted to provoke, punish, and morally invert without consequence, the system stops functioning as a neutral arbiter. It becomes a behavioral control mechanism.
Michigan courts allegedly rely on discretion. But discretion requires restraint, self awareness, and accountability. And when those fail, the law becomes a tool for domination rather than resolution.
Ignoring the psychological dynamics of power abuse does not make courts safer. It makes them more volatile. The more human reactions are punished, the more explosive the eventual outcomes become.
Justice requires more than rules. It requires systems that do not intentionally manufacture harm and then prosecute the response.
What Accountability Actually Requires
Real reform starts with naming the pattern.
It requires training that recognizes coercive dynamics, not just legal procedure. Oversight that evaluates conduct, not just outcomes. Records that preserve context, not just conclusions.
Most of all, it requires significant legal system cultural change. Authority must be understood as responsibility, not an entitlement. Emotional regulation cannot be demanded from those under extreme pressure while excused in those who wield all of the power to arrest anyone they want without immediate challenge.
Until that shift occurs, the question at the top of this article will keep answering itself in courtrooms across the state.
And the cost will keep being paid by the people least able to absorb it.
Sources and Further Reading
- Herman, Judith. Truth and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice. Basic Books. (2024).
- Haney, Craig. The psychological impact of incarceration and legal authority. https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/psychological-impact-incarceration-implications-post-prison-adjustment-0 (2001).
- Kelman, Herbert. Violence without moral restraint. https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1973.tb00102.x (1973).
- Ahmad, Bina. The Professionalized Violence of Prosecutorial Power and Misconduct. CUNY. (2024).
- Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 3.8 and Rule 8.4
