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> The point is that bringing up children in poverty creates a worse outcome for society as a whole. I see your point, but it’s important to note that the autho

by marblar 11y ago

> The point is that bringing up children in poverty creates a worse outcome for society as a whole. I see your point, but it’s important to note that the authors still haven’t established causation, but are planning a follow-up to do so. The authors aren’t making quite as strong of a claim as you’re making here -yet.

scholia 11y ago
Point taken, but causation is hard if not impossible in this kind of area (we're not dealing with physics here), and do you want to wait 20 years to see the results? The immediate problem is that the costs of US courts and prisons are extremely high (1) and they are still growing quite rapidly. Jailing one criminal for three years costs over $100,000 (aside from the other social costs that other people have pointed out), which would cover a substantial amount of intervention. Further, US prisons hold very large numbers of poor people, because poor people have the biggest motive to commit crimes (nothing to lose), and the least ability to pay for bail, lawyers or other treatments (eg for mental illness). I'll take correlation if it shows that interventions help poor children to avoid this fate. (1) Quoting Wikipedia: "Judicial, police, and corrections costs totaled $212 billion in 2011 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2007, around $74 billion was spent on corrections according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics." "In 2014, among facilities operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the average cost of incarceration for federal inmates in fiscal year 2014 was $30,619.85." "In California in 2008, it cost the state an average of $47,102 a year to incarcerate an inmate in a state prison. From 2001 to 2009, the average annual cost increased by about $19,500." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...

by marblar 11y ago

scholia 11y ago

Point taken, but causation is hard if not impossible in this kind of area (we're not dealing with physics here), and do you want to wait 20 years to see the results? The immediate problem is that the costs of US courts and prisons are extremely high (1) and they are still growing quite rapidly. Jailing one criminal for three years costs over $100,000 (aside from the other social costs that other people have pointed out), which would cover a substantial amount of intervention. Further, US prisons hold very large numbers of poor people, because poor people have the biggest motive to commit crimes (nothing to lose), and the least ability to pay for bail, lawyers or other treatments (eg for mental illness). I'll take correlation if it shows that interventions help poor children to avoid this fate. (1) Quoting Wikipedia: "Judicial, police, and corrections costs totaled $212 billion in 2011 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2007, around $74 billion was spent on corrections according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics." "In 2014, among facilities operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the average cost of incarceration for federal inmates in fiscal year 2014 was $30,619.85." "In California in 2008, it cost the state an average of $47,102 a year to incarcerate an inmate in a state prison. From 2001 to 2009, the average annual cost increased by about $19,500." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...