5 ms·

when criminality under a given law starts to show significant correlations with an ethnicity/nationality/race/gender/orientation/etc. - i.e. with the characteri

by trhway 7y ago

when criminality under a given law starts to show significant correlations with an ethnicity/nationality/race/gender/orientation/etc. - i.e. with the characteristics acquired by birth, not by choice - it gives rise to the reasonable doubt whether the law (or its application) is just or whether it is just an oppressive tool against a specific class of people.

oh_sigh 7y ago
Yes, I was thinking the same thing, about how laws against murdering disproportionately affect men. Surely there is reasonable doubt that the law is just our matriarchal society doing testes-policing.
tristor 7y ago
That does not necessarily follow. Geography is highly ethnically divided, generally speaking, and globalism is a new phenomenon. The fact that US immigration laws predominantly affect Hispanic people in a negative way is not racist, it's because we share a land border which nearly only has Hispanic people on the other side of it to the tip of the continent and beyond. Where you have to have a concern is about ENFORCEMENT. Because the laws applied equally to a white Canadian sneaking across the border as they do to a Mexican sneaking across the border, but one is more likely to receive enforcement action than the other. But it's important to understand the distinction between enforcement and legislation. Both should be addressed, but it's silly to throw the baby out with the bathwater and fail to understand the mechanism of action.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
corporate_shi11 7y ago
That ignores the plain fact that certain "groups" commit certain crimes more than others, which is often a source of "group" correlation with crime and punishment. Assuming oppression is usually just the result of a superficial reading of the data.
caseysoftware 7y ago
> "when criminality under a given law starts to show significant correlations with an ethnicity/nationality/race/gender/orientation/etc." Yes, immigration law - both application and enforcement - tends to correlate highly with nationality. I'd wager speeding tickets also correlate with drivers. What should it correlate with?
- throwawaysea 7y ago
  If application and enforcement correlates with nationality because those violating the law are more likely to be of a given nationality, then I don’t think that is a problem. But I think enforcing the law to a different degree against similar violations of distant nationalities wouldn’t be fair. That is, if 10 Canadians and 10 Mexicans crossed into the US illegally, and all faced similar consequences, I think that’s fine. If there are only 1 Canadian and 10 Mexican violators and this causes limited border patrols to be distributed proportionally between the US-Canada and US-Mexico border, I think that’s still fine. But if 10 violating Canadians and 10 violating Mexicans who were all apprehended faced different consequences, that would not be fair.

by trhway 7y ago

oh_sigh 7y ago

Yes, I was thinking the same thing, about how laws against murdering disproportionately affect men. Surely there is reasonable doubt that the law is just our matriarchal society doing testes-policing.

tristor 7y ago

That does not necessarily follow. Geography is highly ethnically divided, generally speaking, and globalism is a new phenomenon. The fact that US immigration laws predominantly affect Hispanic people in a negative way is not racist, it's because we share a land border which nearly only has Hispanic people on the other side of it to the tip of the continent and beyond. Where you have to have a concern is about ENFORCEMENT. Because the laws applied equally to a white Canadian sneaking across the border as they do to a Mexican sneaking across the border, but one is more likely to receive enforcement action than the other. But it's important to understand the distinction between enforcement and legislation. Both should be addressed, but it's silly to throw the baby out with the bathwater and fail to understand the mechanism of action.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

corporate_shi11 7y ago

That ignores the plain fact that certain "groups" commit certain crimes more than others, which is often a source of "group" correlation with crime and punishment. Assuming oppression is usually just the result of a superficial reading of the data.

caseysoftware 7y ago

> "when criminality under a given law starts to show significant correlations with an ethnicity/nationality/race/gender/orientation/etc." Yes, immigration law - both application and enforcement - tends to correlate highly with nationality. I'd wager speeding tickets also correlate with drivers. What should it correlate with?

throwawaysea 7y ago
If application and enforcement correlates with nationality because those violating the law are more likely to be of a given nationality, then I don’t think that is a problem. But I think enforcing the law to a different degree against similar violations of distant nationalities wouldn’t be fair. That is, if 10 Canadians and 10 Mexicans crossed into the US illegally, and all faced similar consequences, I think that’s fine. If there are only 1 Canadian and 10 Mexican violators and this causes limited border patrols to be distributed proportionally between the US-Canada and US-Mexico border, I think that’s still fine. But if 10 violating Canadians and 10 violating Mexicans who were all apprehended faced different consequences, that would not be fair.