4 ms·

1.) Violent crime is a rare event (in post-WW2 European societies), so the proportion of offenders is rather small. 2.) One time offenders have a hard time gett

1.) Violent crime is a rare event (in post-WW2 European societies), so the proportion of offenders is rather small. 2.) One time offenders have a hard time getting their feet on the ground after being released from prison. Without appropriate support & back in their old networks, they often have few alternatives than going down that road again. IMHO that's not exactly news. I personally find it slightly surprising that only about one quarter of people committing violent crimes become repeat offenders. This rate is actually lower than what I would have estimated. I thought the number would be about one half. Maybe we should reconsider the effectiveness of our penal system and think of other ways to deal with violent crime that helps offenders not to become repeat offenders.

BigBuzzKill 9y ago
Maybe in Europe? Not in the USA it isn’t. We’ve seen drops in homicides and the like in some cities (NYC), but disturbing trends in homicides places like Baltimore and Chicago.
- stewbrew 9y ago
  Numbers please.
  - BigBuzzKill 9y ago
    Baltimore: https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/07/daily-chart https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/07/daily-... Chicago: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/data/ct-homicide-spikes-comparison-htmlstory.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/data/ct-homicide-spikes-c...
- weberc2 9y ago
  In the long term crime is falling even in Baltimore and Chicago. The short term trends are probably the result of police learning to cope with abrupt, significantly increased scrutiny in those cities.
- pjc50 9y ago
  Even in the US it's declining. It's just much higher. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/10/03/america-is-a-violent-country/?utm_term=.b5c9007eb741 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/10/0... (I suspect from the places named that the more corrupt the police are the more violence is present, but have no evidence for that).
  - BigBuzzKill 9y ago
    It has nothing to do with police corruption, and everything to do with the pull back in policing due to anti-police media/BLM narrative. But don’t take my word for it, just ask the people that live there and who are the victims of such crime: https://www.npr.org/2017/12/31/574824963/baltimore-residents-blame-record-high-murder-rate-on-lower-police-presence https://www.npr.org/2017/12/31/574824963/baltimore-residents... A particularly powerful quote from the article: On whether the community wanted police to back off after the death of Freddie Gray “No. That represented our progressives, our activists, our liberal journalists, our politicians, but it did not represent the overall community. Because we know for a fact that around the time Freddie Gray was killed, we start to see homicides increase. We had five homicides in that neighborhood while we were protesting.” I wonder if the media provocateurs and the liberal journalists will look into this, or perhaps even consider the idea that their narrative has directly lead to the deaths of minorities?
    - pjc50 9y ago
      I thought I'd researched Baltimore recently, and found my comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16281512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16281512 Higher death rate than a tanks-and-carbombs national emergency? Police routinely planting toy guns on kids they've murderd? Something is deeply, deeply wrong there and the rest of the US should stage an intervention.
    - dang 9y ago
      > media provocateurs and the liberal journalists Please don't post ideological boilerplate to HN. This is not a site for ideological battle. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
xchaotic 9y ago
One quarter gets caught (again) the other I assume gets away with it. But it's our very unscientific assumptions.
frabbit 9y ago
"One time offenders have a hard time getting their feet on the ground after being released from prison. Without appropriate support, they often have few alternatives than going down that road again." I would suspect that is the case too. Given the high OR for "personality disorder" I would imagine that changing that person to make them capable of sustained, beneficial interaction with society would be difficult. And that is completely ignoring the fact that they have a criminal record, a probable lack of training/skills which could have been acquired when younger etc.

BigBuzzKill 9y ago

Maybe in Europe? Not in the USA it isn’t. We’ve seen drops in homicides and the like in some cities (NYC), but disturbing trends in homicides places like Baltimore and Chicago.

stewbrew 9y ago
Numbers please.
- BigBuzzKill 9y ago
  Baltimore: https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/07/daily-chart https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/07/daily-... Chicago: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/data/ct-homicide-spikes-comparison-htmlstory.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/data/ct-homicide-spikes-c...
weberc2 9y ago
In the long term crime is falling even in Baltimore and Chicago. The short term trends are probably the result of police learning to cope with abrupt, significantly increased scrutiny in those cities.
pjc50 9y ago
Even in the US it's declining. It's just much higher. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/10/03/america-is-a-violent-country/?utm_term=.b5c9007eb741 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/10/0... (I suspect from the places named that the more corrupt the police are the more violence is present, but have no evidence for that).
- BigBuzzKill 9y ago
  It has nothing to do with police corruption, and everything to do with the pull back in policing due to anti-police media/BLM narrative. But don’t take my word for it, just ask the people that live there and who are the victims of such crime: https://www.npr.org/2017/12/31/574824963/baltimore-residents-blame-record-high-murder-rate-on-lower-police-presence https://www.npr.org/2017/12/31/574824963/baltimore-residents... A particularly powerful quote from the article: On whether the community wanted police to back off after the death of Freddie Gray “No. That represented our progressives, our activists, our liberal journalists, our politicians, but it did not represent the overall community. Because we know for a fact that around the time Freddie Gray was killed, we start to see homicides increase. We had five homicides in that neighborhood while we were protesting.” I wonder if the media provocateurs and the liberal journalists will look into this, or perhaps even consider the idea that their narrative has directly lead to the deaths of minorities?
  - pjc50 9y ago
    I thought I'd researched Baltimore recently, and found my comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16281512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16281512 Higher death rate than a tanks-and-carbombs national emergency? Police routinely planting toy guns on kids they've murderd? Something is deeply, deeply wrong there and the rest of the US should stage an intervention.
  - dang 9y ago
    > media provocateurs and the liberal journalists Please don't post ideological boilerplate to HN. This is not a site for ideological battle. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

xchaotic 9y ago

One quarter gets caught (again) the other I assume gets away with it. But it's our very unscientific assumptions.

frabbit 9y ago

"One time offenders have a hard time getting their feet on the ground after being released from prison. Without appropriate support, they often have few alternatives than going down that road again." I would suspect that is the case too. Given the high OR for "personality disorder" I would imagine that changing that person to make them capable of sustained, beneficial interaction with society would be difficult. And that is completely ignoring the fact that they have a criminal record, a probable lack of training/skills which could have been acquired when younger etc.