4 ms·

>The vast majority of people in prison are not dangerous Why do you think this?

• Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
  I found a source for inmate stats: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen... It's hard to precisely quantify the violent versus non-violent crimes, so I'll be making some assumptions in my summary based on some educated guesses about the kinds of crimes that land you in each category: Non-violent: 70% Violent: 30%
  • hnaccy 9y ago
    That's only counting federal prisoners. When you include state prisoners you get Violent: 47% Property: 17% Weapons: 5% It's not obvious to me that the "vast majority" of prisoners are not dangerous.
    • Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
      I question the reliability of the metrics, especially at the state-level where records keeping, analysis, and justice procedures are disjoint. I would find it hard to believe that we have both the highest prisoners per capita and the highest violent people per capita.
      • merpnderp 9y ago
        Why is this hard to believe? Even with more ready access to guns, Americans stab, beat, and bludgeon more people to death that most countries entire murder rate. The US is a violent country even without counting the guns.
        • Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
          Don't take this to absurdisms. I take it you're not American? The stereotypes about us are no more true than the stereotypes about your country.
          • cygaril 9y ago
            I believe GP's claim is factually accurate. The USA has the 4th highest homicide rate in the OECD, after Mexico, Turkey, and Estonia [1]. Roughly 2/3 of US homicides are using firearms [2]. After reducing the US homicide rate by a factor of 3, the US would still be 13th (out of 34) on the OECD list, between Portugal and France. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/oecd-homicide-rates-chart-2015-6?r=US&IR=T http://www.businessinsider.com/oecd-homicide-rates-chart-201... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States#Homicides https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_S...
          • kybernetikos 9y ago
            Which figures are you using to consider their statement absurd? I suppose the 'most' countries part is only true if you restrict it to the usually considered rich countries or 'developed' countries, but that seems like a reasonable restriction to make given the context. I did a quick calculation based on probably obsolete numbers, but I got a homicide rate of around 4.8 per 100000 of which 2.7 are with guns, leaving 2.1 without which is still higher than most European countries. (check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... )
            • Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
              The comment I was replying to was: >Americans stab, beat, and bludgeon more people to death that most countries entire murder rate. The US is a violent country even without counting the guns. Which is still not backed up. However, I am surprised to see the stats on the murder rate and gun violence all the same.
    • Domenic_S 9y ago
      "violent" is not the total subset of "dangerous".