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> We don’t have an end design in mind. At the same time, however, the costs of continuing along our historically unprecedented levels of incarceration remain o
by calibraxis 11y ago
> We don’t have an end design in mind. At the same time, however, the costs of continuing along our historically unprecedented levels of incarceration remain obscure to all but the most determined news hounds.
Two sides of the coin: a) conspiracy theory and b) unintended consequences. You use unintended consequences when pretending your ruling class (you know, the ones who literally make the many rules we live under) is just bumbling, perhaps selfish but more or less benevolent overall.
Conspiracy theory typically has the same overall systematic benevolence, except some evil schemers perverted everything.
Imagine a politician stumbling across Wikipedia: "Hmm that's odd, we imprison ourselves way more than anyone else. And somehow, we keep funding all the infrastructure needed for that. Ehh, you learn a random weird thing everyday."
Someone with the least bit of institutional awareness can — hold on to your hats — entertain the thought that the system is running as expected and intended. Just like if any other nation had these results. Not a bug, but a feature.
> prisons have failed to deliver on the promises of rural economic development so often touted.
An illustration of how "unintended consequences" perverts our minds. What strange person writes, "Russia's prisons failed to economically develop rural areas, as so often touted" with a straight face? (Or China, or Iran?) No, some claims are such an insult to intelligence that no one would write them with a straight face. And yet, here it is.
(Such a sentence is so disturbing that I hope I just missed the part where he admitted to satire. It's just intellectual self-defense not to read this article too closely.)
- happyscrappy 11y agoWhile it is easy to pretend that some secret cabal is pulling all the strings the reality is the majority of the population wants to be tough on crime. This leads to politicians competing to be seen as tough on crime.
- noir_lord 11y agoExcept the majority of the people want to be tough on crime because they have a grossly distorted view of how much crime there is and how severe it is because of the large news corporations 24/7 coverage of every violent incident. Which re-enforces the "tough on crime" mechanism, the whole system is rigged towards incarcerating people.
- happyscrappy 11y agoSure, but this is a structural problem not a conspiracy. You cannot sell newspapers saying 10,000 flights landed safely today.
- rayiner 11y agoI'm not sure that's really true. Here's the homicide rate in various western countries: http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5463783b6da811d82983136a-960/screen%20shot%202014-11-11%20at%205.56.18%20pm.png http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5463783b6da811d8298.... Our current prison industrial complex was designed in the 1980's and 1990's, at a time when our murder rate was 5x higher per capita than in our peer countries. Chicago, which features prominently in the news, has over 4x as many murders as London, despite the latter being a much larger city. You're much more likely to be murdered in Chicago than to die in a traffic accident,[1] while the opposite is true in most of the western world. [1] Interestingly, you're also about 3x more likely to die in a traffic accident in the U.S. than in the U.K.
- throwaway1967 11y agoFirst of all, the US is an Oligarchy, not a Democracy: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 So whatever the "majority of the population wants" doesn't count, period. Second of all, if you really believe the US isn't ruled by a secret cabal, like so many US Presidents and other important US politicians have warned us about since before Andrew Jackson, I'm sorry to say but it just makes you come across as ahistorical.