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The US has significantly more misdeeds, e.g. ~5 times as many homicides as most West European nations. This is a result of very many things of course. But U.S

The US has significantly more misdeeds, e.g. ~5 times as many homicides as most West European nations. This is a result of very many things of course. But U.S. is improving, though; 25 years ago the difference was more like 10 times. Some countries in Europe (like Sweden) have actually stopped improving, so eventually the U.S. will catch up. Then it will have less homicides, which is likely to also bring less incarceration. Sometimes I think that the European style is not necessarily better. E.g. yesterday I read about two cases in the local newspaper crime news section. There was 5.5 years prison sentence given to a hamburger restaurant owner for tax evasion done over the course of 6 months, and 90 hours of community service plus conditional imprisonment for an aggravated child molestation over a period of 7 years. This ratio doesn't look right to me, but it's what we do to get the low incarceration rate.

vacri 10y ago
25 years ago was when the US incarceration rate was ballooning. The 80s and 90s were the start of a massive surge in incarceration[1], up from the baseline. The idea that the US is improving and other nations have 'stopped' is only because the US departed so significantly from the pack in the first place. Similarly, while the US has a ridiculously high homicide rate, most of the people in prison are not murderers. The way you're phrasing it is like saying "The A+ student has stopped improving, whereas the failing student is still failing but improving[2]. One day he'll catch up to the A+ student" As for the odd sentences you mention, you can cherrypick weird sentences in any system. In Texas, for example, there was a black 14-year-old who punched some and they died, and he got ten years for it. There was a wealthy white 16-year-old whose reckless driving killed four and injured seven, and he got no jail time for it. The defense arguments included 'he never learned to say sorry because he was brought up wealthy - you sent money instead of saying sorry'. The kicker about these two sentences? They were issued by the same judge [3]. In California, another serious case ended in a significantly reduced sentence because the judge thought that the defendant's wealthy upbringing meant he wouldn't be able to 'survive prison as well'. And New York is replete with stories of people being incarcerated for years without a trial [4]. Then there's the famous 'pizza-slice' felony, where three-strikes laws sent a man to prison for life for stealing a slice of pizza [5]. The point here is that you can find all sorts of oddities in sentencing - what really matters on a national scale is the aggregate. You mention the sentence for that single child molester - is that happening for a large number of such cases? The US system is ridiculously fucked up, and it has to improve a lot before it can join its contemporaries. Given the general American public's bloodlust towards punishment, it ain't gonna happen. edit: sorry for the waffle, I just find the US incarceration system both fascinatingly and horrifyingly out-of-the-ordinary. -- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate#/media/File:US_incarceration_timeline-clean.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra... [2] Actually, it isn't improving. Incarceration is much higher in the US now than 25 years ago, see [1] [3] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2524108/Judge-let-spoiled-rich-teen-killed-DUI-previously-boy-aged-fourteen-prison-TEN-YEARS.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2524108/Judge-let-sp... [4] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/nyregion/kalief-browder-held-at-rikers-island-for-3-years-without-trial-commits-suicide.html; https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/nyregion/kalief-browder-h... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/01/nyregion/9-years-in-jail-3-trials-12-judges-and-no-verdict-in-bronx-murder-case.html; https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/01/nyregion/9-years-in-jail-... http://nypost.com/2015/06/15/kid-arrested-at-17-has-been-at-rikers-awaiting-trial-for-7-years/; http://nypost.com/2015/06/15/kid-arrested-at-17-has-been-at-... http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-ala-man-jail-8-years-awaiting-trial-article-1.2422168 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-ala-man-jail-8... [5] http://articles.latimes.com/1995-03-03/local/me-38258_1_jerry-dewayne-williams http://articles.latimes.com/1995-03-03/local/me-38258_1_jerr...
- ptaipale 10y ago
  > The idea that the US is improving and other nations have 'stopped' When mentioning improvement, I was referring to homicide and violent crime, not incarceration. In crime statistics, the U.S. improvement is clearly visible. U.S. was for a long time oscillating somewhere around 10 homicides per 100 000 pop per year, the peak was in 1991, and after that it started to do gown and is now around 4. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-13799616 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-13799616 Incarceration rate in the U.S. is somewhat following this. It increased from 1970 until about 2007, and has since then turned slightly downwards (see figure 5) https://www.brookings.edu/research/ten-economic-facts-about-crime-and-incarceration-in-the-united-states/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/ten-economic-facts-about-... [edit:language]

vacri 10y ago

25 years ago was when the US incarceration rate was ballooning. The 80s and 90s were the start of a massive surge in incarceration[1], up from the baseline. The idea that the US is improving and other nations have 'stopped' is only because the US departed so significantly from the pack in the first place. Similarly, while the US has a ridiculously high homicide rate, most of the people in prison are not murderers. The way you're phrasing it is like saying "The A+ student has stopped improving, whereas the failing student is still failing but improving[2]. One day he'll catch up to the A+ student" As for the odd sentences you mention, you can cherrypick weird sentences in any system. In Texas, for example, there was a black 14-year-old who punched some and they died, and he got ten years for it. There was a wealthy white 16-year-old whose reckless driving killed four and injured seven, and he got no jail time for it. The defense arguments included 'he never learned to say sorry because he was brought up wealthy - you sent money instead of saying sorry'. The kicker about these two sentences? They were issued by the same judge [3]. In California, another serious case ended in a significantly reduced sentence because the judge thought that the defendant's wealthy upbringing meant he wouldn't be able to 'survive prison as well'. And New York is replete with stories of people being incarcerated for years without a trial [4]. Then there's the famous 'pizza-slice' felony, where three-strikes laws sent a man to prison for life for stealing a slice of pizza [5]. The point here is that you can find all sorts of oddities in sentencing - what really matters on a national scale is the aggregate. You mention the sentence for that single child molester - is that happening for a large number of such cases? The US system is ridiculously fucked up, and it has to improve a lot before it can join its contemporaries. Given the general American public's bloodlust towards punishment, it ain't gonna happen. edit: sorry for the waffle, I just find the US incarceration system both fascinatingly and horrifyingly out-of-the-ordinary. -- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate#/media/File:US_incarceration_timeline-clean.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra... [2] Actually, it isn't improving. Incarceration is much higher in the US now than 25 years ago, see [1] [3] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2524108/Judge-let-spoiled-rich-teen-killed-DUI-previously-boy-aged-fourteen-prison-TEN-YEARS.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2524108/Judge-let-sp... [4] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/nyregion/kalief-browder-held-at-rikers-island-for-3-years-without-trial-commits-suicide.html; https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/nyregion/kalief-browder-h... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/01/nyregion/9-years-in-jail-3-trials-12-judges-and-no-verdict-in-bronx-murder-case.html; https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/01/nyregion/9-years-in-jail-... http://nypost.com/2015/06/15/kid-arrested-at-17-has-been-at-rikers-awaiting-trial-for-7-years/; http://nypost.com/2015/06/15/kid-arrested-at-17-has-been-at-... http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-ala-man-jail-8-years-awaiting-trial-article-1.2422168 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-ala-man-jail-8... [5] http://articles.latimes.com/1995-03-03/local/me-38258_1_jerry-dewayne-williams http://articles.latimes.com/1995-03-03/local/me-38258_1_jerr...

ptaipale 10y ago
> The idea that the US is improving and other nations have 'stopped' When mentioning improvement, I was referring to homicide and violent crime, not incarceration. In crime statistics, the U.S. improvement is clearly visible. U.S. was for a long time oscillating somewhere around 10 homicides per 100 000 pop per year, the peak was in 1991, and after that it started to do gown and is now around 4. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-13799616 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-13799616 Incarceration rate in the U.S. is somewhat following this. It increased from 1970 until about 2007, and has since then turned slightly downwards (see figure 5) https://www.brookings.edu/research/ten-economic-facts-about-crime-and-incarceration-in-the-united-states/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/ten-economic-facts-about-... [edit:language]