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Its a very interesting subject, and depends how far down you want to go before you are satisfied with an answer. Both victimization and offending rates for mur
by taurath 8y ago
Its a very interesting subject, and depends how far down you want to go before you are satisfied with an answer.
Both victimization and offending rates for murder were 3-4x the rate for blacks than whites in 1980 for example. Why was that? Could it be factors like systematic racism, redlining, bundling a lot of poor people into housing projects, brain drain in cities (due to redlining post-integration)?
The result of "tough on crime" has been incarceration rates exploding. They just throw anyone in jail. 5% of black adults are in jail.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate#/media/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1925_onwards.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra...
You would think that since the crime rates are down, the incarceration rate would be going down - how can incarceration rates go up as crime goes down? Technology and standard of living increases for the poorest has probably helped crime. The mass incarcerations just help for-profit prisons.
- gascan 8y agoYes, the results are a mess. But did the voting public elect "tough on crime" politicians as a covert way to oppress minorities? Or did they elect those politicians because they were concerned about crime?
- tonysdg 8y agoOption 3: Did they elect those politicians because they were concerned about the idea of crime? Fear is a powerful motivator; I'd be interested to see how areas that elected "tough on crime" politicians correlate to actual crime rates.
- taurath 8y agoI think you have to look at the effect at the end of the day. Did redlining happen to specifically punish and oppress minorities, or to let white homeowners feel "safe from criminals"? "Lock all the criminals up" when the subtext/unspoken relation for "criminals" is "black people/minorities" is a way to oppress minorities. Its also a failure to think of or implement a different path to work against poverty or criminality - something politicians love to do as a crackdown is easier for them to implement than actually improving people's lives.