5 ms·

Scandinavian countries in particular tend to do better in encouraging rehab and reintegration. Part of it is definitely related to cost, those countries tend to

by AS126 7y ago

Scandinavian countries in particular tend to do better in encouraging rehab and reintegration. Part of it is definitely related to cost, those countries tend to have stronger funding for their prison/reform systems. Draconic punishment is not ideal especially because criminals return to society with less prospects and are likely to turn to crime once again. That is if they return at all.

dariusj18 7y ago
I think it's a vicious cycle. Many countries with less "crime" require less police, therefore they can be more selective about the people they hire and spend more money to train them. In the US, policing and prison are huge industries, and at a certain point there are not enough qualified individuals to go around. Now imagine the TSA and Border patrol and many other government security institutions. So many cast offs.
- ComputerGuru 7y ago
  There aren’t enough qualified candidates because they literally are not interested in hiring people that can think for themselves rather than blindly follow orders and protocol. I know how petty this statement sounds, and you’re probably thinking “ok there, someone has an axe to grind or needs to learn some nuance,” but read this news article about what (legally!) disqualifies a candidate from being hired as an officer: https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...
  - SamReidHughes 7y ago
    No, they just want to save money on training by avoiding high turnover.
- username90 7y ago
  Another point is the kind of work police has to deal with. In a low crime country police almost never has to deal with criminals with weapons or guns, so they never have to fear for their lives. This means that people who don't like violence don't mind joining the police. However in USA where police have to engage in lots of violence just to do their job the people who want to join the police are very different.
romaaeterna 7y ago
The small numbers of African-origin minorities in Scandinavian countries commit more crime per capita than those in the United States. (The same is also true internally within the Unites States when differentiating between northern and southern states). I'm afraid that Scandinavian models haven't solved the minority crime problem, but only make it worse. Sometimes far worse, as in Oslo, etc.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  https://www.thelocal.se/20180508/why-sweden-doesnt-keep-stats-on-ethnic-background-and-crime https://www.thelocal.se/20180508/why-sweden-doesnt-keep-stat... > It doesn't take much effort to find articles claiming to have the 'truth' about the relationship between immigrants or refugees and Swedish crime. Yet the real truth is that there is no up-to-date public data on the ethnic background of criminals in the country, with existing figures more than a decade old. Do you have reputable citations for Oslo/Norway crime by ethnic background that demonstrate what you assert? Norway says overall rates are down, which would be weird if the influx of refugees was increasing crime: https://www.tnp.no/norway/panorama/crime-rates-decrease-norway https://www.tnp.no/norway/panorama/crime-rates-decrease-norw...
  - romaaeterna 7y ago
    So why did Sweden stop reporting numbers on minority crime? And why have they taken down their "most wanted" list from the internet? There was an SVT (Swedish public broacasting) report on rape convictions in 2018 by national background, you'll find. The BBC has good coverage of it in English. As far as the Norway question, you do realize that minorities are a very small part of Norwegian population, and it would be sort of bizarre (and racist!) to imagine them driving overall crime?
  - username90 7y ago
    Last time Sweden released an official study they were very over-represented. The numbers for the following groups are the rate compared to natives, 1 means that they would commit the same amount of crime as Swedes: Västasien (West Asia) 3.7 Nordafrika (North Africa) 4.6 Östafrika (East Africa) 3.5 Övriga Afrika (Rest of Africa) 5.2 (The numbers written in the study had native swedes at 0.8 so I multiplied these numbers by 1.25 to normalize it) https://www.bra.se/download/18.cba82f7130f475a2f1800012697/2005_17_brottslighet_bland_personer_fodda_sverige_och_utlandet.pdf https://www.bra.se/download/18.cba82f7130f475a2f1800012697/2... Nothing since then has shown that the rates have changed, so you can assume that they are still valid. Everybody knows that these groups are over-represented and that accepting immigrants increases crime, that isn't really a part of the debate. You can argue why they are over-represented, such as poverty and discrimination, but not that there are more criminals among them. Anyhow, wrt America, even the worst right wing propaganda doesn't show our African immigrants committing as much crime as African Americans, so the Swedish model seems to work at least somewhat.

by AS126 7y ago

dariusj18 7y ago

I think it's a vicious cycle. Many countries with less "crime" require less police, therefore they can be more selective about the people they hire and spend more money to train them. In the US, policing and prison are huge industries, and at a certain point there are not enough qualified individuals to go around. Now imagine the TSA and Border patrol and many other government security institutions. So many cast offs.

ComputerGuru 7y ago
There aren’t enough qualified candidates because they literally are not interested in hiring people that can think for themselves rather than blindly follow orders and protocol. I know how petty this statement sounds, and you’re probably thinking “ok there, someone has an axe to grind or needs to learn some nuance,” but read this news article about what (legally!) disqualifies a candidate from being hired as an officer: https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...
- SamReidHughes 7y ago
  No, they just want to save money on training by avoiding high turnover.
username90 7y ago
Another point is the kind of work police has to deal with. In a low crime country police almost never has to deal with criminals with weapons or guns, so they never have to fear for their lives. This means that people who don't like violence don't mind joining the police. However in USA where police have to engage in lots of violence just to do their job the people who want to join the police are very different.

romaaeterna 7y ago

The small numbers of African-origin minorities in Scandinavian countries commit more crime per capita than those in the United States. (The same is also true internally within the Unites States when differentiating between northern and southern states). I'm afraid that Scandinavian models haven't solved the minority crime problem, but only make it worse. Sometimes far worse, as in Oslo, etc.

ceejayoz 7y ago
https://www.thelocal.se/20180508/why-sweden-doesnt-keep-stats-on-ethnic-background-and-crime https://www.thelocal.se/20180508/why-sweden-doesnt-keep-stat... > It doesn't take much effort to find articles claiming to have the 'truth' about the relationship between immigrants or refugees and Swedish crime. Yet the real truth is that there is no up-to-date public data on the ethnic background of criminals in the country, with existing figures more than a decade old. Do you have reputable citations for Oslo/Norway crime by ethnic background that demonstrate what you assert? Norway says overall rates are down, which would be weird if the influx of refugees was increasing crime: https://www.tnp.no/norway/panorama/crime-rates-decrease-norway https://www.tnp.no/norway/panorama/crime-rates-decrease-norw...
- romaaeterna 7y ago
  So why did Sweden stop reporting numbers on minority crime? And why have they taken down their "most wanted" list from the internet? There was an SVT (Swedish public broacasting) report on rape convictions in 2018 by national background, you'll find. The BBC has good coverage of it in English. As far as the Norway question, you do realize that minorities are a very small part of Norwegian population, and it would be sort of bizarre (and racist!) to imagine them driving overall crime?
- username90 7y ago
  Last time Sweden released an official study they were very over-represented. The numbers for the following groups are the rate compared to natives, 1 means that they would commit the same amount of crime as Swedes: Västasien (West Asia) 3.7 Nordafrika (North Africa) 4.6 Östafrika (East Africa) 3.5 Övriga Afrika (Rest of Africa) 5.2 (The numbers written in the study had native swedes at 0.8 so I multiplied these numbers by 1.25 to normalize it) https://www.bra.se/download/18.cba82f7130f475a2f1800012697/2005_17_brottslighet_bland_personer_fodda_sverige_och_utlandet.pdf https://www.bra.se/download/18.cba82f7130f475a2f1800012697/2... Nothing since then has shown that the rates have changed, so you can assume that they are still valid. Everybody knows that these groups are over-represented and that accepting immigrants increases crime, that isn't really a part of the debate. You can argue why they are over-represented, such as poverty and discrimination, but not that there are more criminals among them. Anyhow, wrt America, even the worst right wing propaganda doesn't show our African immigrants committing as much crime as African Americans, so the Swedish model seems to work at least somewhat.