6 ms·

The criminals committing the crimes.

deelowe 11y ago
Well, this one's settled. Evidently, people are just evil and there's nothing that can be done about it. Or, ya know, perhaps there's a reason why some culture have insanely higher incarceration rates than others?
- 3princip 11y ago
  There is something that can be done about it: Incarceration.
- necessity 11y ago
  There is a reason for higher incarceration rates: they commit more crimes proportionally. It is easy to put the blame on "evil racist cops" and whatnot, it is much harder to stop ignoring the issue that a small part of the population represents a vast amount of the criminals and start thinking about real solutions. What are the causes of the violence? There is welfare to those who need it, there are opportunities for those who work for it. Is it an economical issue, a social/cultural one? Perhaps prison life is "comfortable" compared to working your ass off, perhaps education is lacking, perhaps a bit of everything, and so forth...
  - Roodgorf 11y ago
    I feel like you're ignoring a whole host of variables with a reductionist statement like "they commit more crimes proportionally". First of all, how do you compare what "more crimes" is proportionally? Different countries have vastly different definitions of what constitutes a crime, and further, different penalties for those crimes. Even if you did isolate those factors, it's still not really an answer to "why does this happen more here than there?" You're answer is, essentially, "because it happens more often there." Edit: After rereading the second paragraph I realize that you do seem to be pointing towards solutions to the root cause of crime rates, but I find the first statement confusing in light of that.
    - dmm 11y ago
      I don't understand how no one talks about the systemic, generational poverty that a large proportion of the US black population lives in. It's just incomprehensible to me how people can't see how this leads to crime. A kid actually said this, "Writing is important so that when I grow up and I'm in jail I can write my kids like my dad writes me." because every man in his life is a gang member who sells drugs or is in jail. What the hell do you think he's going to grow up to be? It sure seems like he knows. I'm certain that racist policing is a problem but it doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the problems we have. If it's just the police why don't you(not specifically you) go raise your family in North St Louis. You can kiss them goodnight to the sound of gunshots. And it seems like everyone just ignores it. I don't really have a point. I'm just confused and frustrated. I don't understand why the US has a seemingly permanent underclass that gets completely ignored.
      - darkroasted 11y ago
        I don't understand how no one talks about the systemic, generational poverty that a large proportion of the US black population lives in. It's just incomprehensible to me how people can't see how this leads to crime. Because there are lots of instances of people living in deep poverty without killing each other at ridiculously high rates. Most people in China or India are more materially deprived than those living in the American inner-city, yet the neighborhoods there are much, much safer. Philadelphia in 1890 was much poorer, and much more unequal, yet the homicide rates were 10X lower. Also Edwardian England is a compelling counter-example. Read "The Classic Slum" by Robert Roberts. British society around 1900 was massively unequal and lots of people were desperately poor. But their homicide rates were 100X lower than the rates seen in the contemporary ghetto. The poor working class areas of England during that period had intact families, schools that provided discipline, strict policing, and strong institutions. We are a savage species and crime is the default. What prevents crime is civilization. What you see in the black inner-cities is an utter void of civilization.
        rmxt 11y ago
        How do you conclude that it's "black inner-cities" and not just "inner-cities" that are this so-called "void of civilization"?
  - calibraxis 11y ago
    "blame on 'evil racist cops'"? They're employees. Doing what the bosses say; hired by the bosses. If they're racist, guess who selected for that trait. If any enemy country had these outcomes, we wouldn't talk about police psychology or the comforts of prison life. We'd talk about the nation's distribution of power (history of slavery and dominant "white" race, systematic inequality, etc) and figure it out with cold rationality.
    - simonh 11y ago
      >If they're racist, guess who selected for that trait. So I suppose unionization in industry is caused by bosses selecting for socialist employees?
  - cottonseed 11y ago
    > There is a reason for higher incarceration rates: they commit more crimes proportionally. That's not true. At least not when it comes to drug use, blacks and white use drugs at similar rates [0]. Asymmetric enforcement is another explanation. [0] http://c1.nrostatic.com/sites/default/files/pic_corner_071014_samhsa.jpg http://c1.nrostatic.com/sites/default/files/pic_corner_07101...
    - cglee 11y ago
      This is such an important point that it really should be at the top. Just look at the punitive charges for crack vs cocaine: two very similar drugs, but consumed by different demographics. Legislators, DAs, judges and police adjust their behavior when sentences feel out of whack with the crime. Unfortunately, that empathy goes out the window when the people in charge are sentencing "other" people, who they don't empathize with. Poor, uneducated people live by one set of laws, and middle-upper class people live by another set of laws.
    - CWuestefeld 11y ago
      I don't think drug usage is the right metric, though. I believe that the law enforcement strategy is a concentration on drug dealers; prosecution of users is pretty much incidental, used to enhance sentences for other crimes as much as anything else. If prosecution of dealers is the policy, then you'd need to show that blacks and whites sell drugs at similar rates. I have no idea whether or not that's true...
      - modoc 11y ago
        And the other thing is the related factors that make them more or less likely to be caught or noticed by the law. There's counter examples I'm sure, but dealers who service more upper crust types (who in the US are more likely to be white) are frankly less likely to show up on the radar and less likely to have a dime dropped on them by a client who's bag was a little light. It's like streetwalkers vs escorts listed on TER vs companions that you'd need a gold clad personal introduction to even know they exist. The higher up the ladder you go, the more discrete all parties tend to be.
      - 11y ago
  - eljimmy 11y ago
    You also have to look at why people are being incarcerated. There are individuals doing life in prison for distribution of a plant. A plant that is native to this ecosystem. It's the most absurd thing I can think of when it comes to America's war on drugs.
  - mherkender 11y ago
    It is easy to put the blame on "black culture" then to look at the very complex socioeconoic factors that lead things to where we are today. You're the one oversimplifying.
- rayiner 11y ago
  At least one reason some countries have much higher incarceration rates than others is that they have much higher crime rates than others: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/humfig/images/11217607.0002.206-00000002.jpg http://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/humfig/images/11217607.0002.206-.... The murder rate in the U.S. has been 5-10x higher than in the U.K. since 1900, long before private prisons or the drug war or the other things people blame for crime in the U.S. The shocking thing about incarceration rates in the U.S. is not just the fact that it quadrupled from 1960 to 1995, it's that even with that increase, the growth in incarceration didn't catch up to the growth in violent crime until about 1998.
VeejayRampay 11y ago
Must be nice to live in a black and white universe where all things are absolute, must save a lot of time thinking about the world!
- mason240 11y ago
  I'm not sure who else would be to blame. I would like hear your theory on who is committing crimes if it's not the criminals themselves. Since you accusing me being a simpleton, you are going to have to explain what you mean.
  - sarciszewski 11y ago
    http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229 http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/...
    - maxerickson 11y ago
      That book is a political piece aimed at regulation, it doesn't establish that the average person commits three felonies a day and when you look at the example cases there are things like people intentionally illegally importing millions of dollars of shrimp (they were trying to avoid harvest regulations). It's a shining example of marketing having a negative impact on public discourse.
    - mason240 11y ago
      Do you have a point?
      - sarciszewski 11y ago
        I have infinitely many points. Which one do you want?
  - pizza234 11y ago
    Here's one of the many: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School-to-prison_pipeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School-to-prison_pipeline. <sarcasm>You can't blame poor people for not having access to the immunity bankers have.</sarcasm>

Well, this one's settled. Evidently, people are just evil and there's nothing that can be done about it. Or, ya know, perhaps there's a reason why some culture have insanely higher incarceration rates than others?

3princip 11y ago
There is something that can be done about it: Incarceration.
necessity 11y ago
There is a reason for higher incarceration rates: they commit more crimes proportionally. It is easy to put the blame on "evil racist cops" and whatnot, it is much harder to stop ignoring the issue that a small part of the population represents a vast amount of the criminals and start thinking about real solutions. What are the causes of the violence? There is welfare to those who need it, there are opportunities for those who work for it. Is it an economical issue, a social/cultural one? Perhaps prison life is "comfortable" compared to working your ass off, perhaps education is lacking, perhaps a bit of everything, and so forth...
- Roodgorf 11y ago
  I feel like you're ignoring a whole host of variables with a reductionist statement like "they commit more crimes proportionally". First of all, how do you compare what "more crimes" is proportionally? Different countries have vastly different definitions of what constitutes a crime, and further, different penalties for those crimes. Even if you did isolate those factors, it's still not really an answer to "why does this happen more here than there?" You're answer is, essentially, "because it happens more often there." Edit: After rereading the second paragraph I realize that you do seem to be pointing towards solutions to the root cause of crime rates, but I find the first statement confusing in light of that.
  - dmm 11y ago
    I don't understand how no one talks about the systemic, generational poverty that a large proportion of the US black population lives in. It's just incomprehensible to me how people can't see how this leads to crime. A kid actually said this, "Writing is important so that when I grow up and I'm in jail I can write my kids like my dad writes me." because every man in his life is a gang member who sells drugs or is in jail. What the hell do you think he's going to grow up to be? It sure seems like he knows. I'm certain that racist policing is a problem but it doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the problems we have. If it's just the police why don't you(not specifically you) go raise your family in North St Louis. You can kiss them goodnight to the sound of gunshots. And it seems like everyone just ignores it. I don't really have a point. I'm just confused and frustrated. I don't understand why the US has a seemingly permanent underclass that gets completely ignored.
    - darkroasted 11y ago
      I don't understand how no one talks about the systemic, generational poverty that a large proportion of the US black population lives in. It's just incomprehensible to me how people can't see how this leads to crime. Because there are lots of instances of people living in deep poverty without killing each other at ridiculously high rates. Most people in China or India are more materially deprived than those living in the American inner-city, yet the neighborhoods there are much, much safer. Philadelphia in 1890 was much poorer, and much more unequal, yet the homicide rates were 10X lower. Also Edwardian England is a compelling counter-example. Read "The Classic Slum" by Robert Roberts. British society around 1900 was massively unequal and lots of people were desperately poor. But their homicide rates were 100X lower than the rates seen in the contemporary ghetto. The poor working class areas of England during that period had intact families, schools that provided discipline, strict policing, and strong institutions. We are a savage species and crime is the default. What prevents crime is civilization. What you see in the black inner-cities is an utter void of civilization.
      - rmxt 11y ago
        How do you conclude that it's "black inner-cities" and not just "inner-cities" that are this so-called "void of civilization"?
- calibraxis 11y ago
  "blame on 'evil racist cops'"? They're employees. Doing what the bosses say; hired by the bosses. If they're racist, guess who selected for that trait. If any enemy country had these outcomes, we wouldn't talk about police psychology or the comforts of prison life. We'd talk about the nation's distribution of power (history of slavery and dominant "white" race, systematic inequality, etc) and figure it out with cold rationality.
  - simonh 11y ago
    >If they're racist, guess who selected for that trait. So I suppose unionization in industry is caused by bosses selecting for socialist employees?
- cottonseed 11y ago
  > There is a reason for higher incarceration rates: they commit more crimes proportionally. That's not true. At least not when it comes to drug use, blacks and white use drugs at similar rates [0]. Asymmetric enforcement is another explanation. [0] http://c1.nrostatic.com/sites/default/files/pic_corner_071014_samhsa.jpg http://c1.nrostatic.com/sites/default/files/pic_corner_07101...
  - cglee 11y ago
    This is such an important point that it really should be at the top. Just look at the punitive charges for crack vs cocaine: two very similar drugs, but consumed by different demographics. Legislators, DAs, judges and police adjust their behavior when sentences feel out of whack with the crime. Unfortunately, that empathy goes out the window when the people in charge are sentencing "other" people, who they don't empathize with. Poor, uneducated people live by one set of laws, and middle-upper class people live by another set of laws.
  - CWuestefeld 11y ago
    I don't think drug usage is the right metric, though. I believe that the law enforcement strategy is a concentration on drug dealers; prosecution of users is pretty much incidental, used to enhance sentences for other crimes as much as anything else. If prosecution of dealers is the policy, then you'd need to show that blacks and whites sell drugs at similar rates. I have no idea whether or not that's true...
    - modoc 11y ago
      And the other thing is the related factors that make them more or less likely to be caught or noticed by the law. There's counter examples I'm sure, but dealers who service more upper crust types (who in the US are more likely to be white) are frankly less likely to show up on the radar and less likely to have a dime dropped on them by a client who's bag was a little light. It's like streetwalkers vs escorts listed on TER vs companions that you'd need a gold clad personal introduction to even know they exist. The higher up the ladder you go, the more discrete all parties tend to be.
    - 11y ago
- eljimmy 11y ago
  You also have to look at why people are being incarcerated. There are individuals doing life in prison for distribution of a plant. A plant that is native to this ecosystem. It's the most absurd thing I can think of when it comes to America's war on drugs.
- mherkender 11y ago
  It is easy to put the blame on "black culture" then to look at the very complex socioeconoic factors that lead things to where we are today. You're the one oversimplifying.
rayiner 11y ago
At least one reason some countries have much higher incarceration rates than others is that they have much higher crime rates than others: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/humfig/images/11217607.0002.206-00000002.jpg http://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/humfig/images/11217607.0002.206-.... The murder rate in the U.S. has been 5-10x higher than in the U.K. since 1900, long before private prisons or the drug war or the other things people blame for crime in the U.S. The shocking thing about incarceration rates in the U.S. is not just the fact that it quadrupled from 1960 to 1995, it's that even with that increase, the growth in incarceration didn't catch up to the growth in violent crime until about 1998.

VeejayRampay 11y ago

Must be nice to live in a black and white universe where all things are absolute, must save a lot of time thinking about the world!

mason240 11y ago
I'm not sure who else would be to blame. I would like hear your theory on who is committing crimes if it's not the criminals themselves. Since you accusing me being a simpleton, you are going to have to explain what you mean.
- sarciszewski 11y ago
  http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229 http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/...
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    That book is a political piece aimed at regulation, it doesn't establish that the average person commits three felonies a day and when you look at the example cases there are things like people intentionally illegally importing millions of dollars of shrimp (they were trying to avoid harvest regulations). It's a shining example of marketing having a negative impact on public discourse.
  - mason240 11y ago
    Do you have a point?
    - sarciszewski 11y ago
      I have infinitely many points. Which one do you want?
- pizza234 11y ago
  Here's one of the many: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School-to-prison_pipeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School-to-prison_pipeline. <sarcasm>You can't blame poor people for not having access to the immunity bankers have.</sarcasm>