4 ms·

How will those social programs stop, e.g., rapists from committing more rape when they're freed on bail when none of the prison reform programs so far are doing

by Natsu 6y ago

How will those social programs stop, e.g., rapists from committing more rape when they're freed on bail when none of the prison reform programs so far are doing that? Are we not better simply containing the rapists so that they cannot access a vulnerable population instead?

camgunz 6y ago
Please don't strawman me by implying that I'm advocating for freeing rapists. That's not productive, nor is it discussing in good faith. Let me give you some stats from the Wikipedia article I linked, which I encourage you to read: "tough-on-crime" laws adopted since the 1980s have filled US prisons with mostly nonviolent offenders. 46% of state prisoners serving > 1 year are serving time for a nonviolent offense. (I flipped this around from "54% of state prisoners serving > 1 year are serving time for a violent offense). 15% of state prisoners have been convicted of a drug offense as their most serious infraction. And here's the source the Wikipedia article links called "Why Texas is closing prisons in favour of rehab" [1]. That's hundreds of thousands of people serving harsh sentences for nonviolent and drug offenses. It's pretty well known at this point that the US criminal justice system has serious problems and is--again--extremely expensive. I encourage you to google around and read up on it. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30275026 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30275026
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  For what it is worth, Your position cant be strawmanned if you don't explain it. If your core position is that money can be saved by avoiding incarceration, you would probably get a more productive response by stating it explicitly as well as how it relates to the post you respnded to: >What does that even mean? Have you costed out your helping program to show this is true. We have more social programs, care agencies and food banks than ever before, yet the problems and problem areas are as bad as ever. Let's see if you change your tune after being the victim of serious crime
  - godelski 6y ago
    It is a strawman because the response made suppositions that the gp did not imply. That is not a good faith argument. Forcing positions upon people is not a productive means of discussion.
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      I felt that the post was just interjecting with a fact and did not explain how it relates to or modifies the parent post. It is hard to respond without supposition if they fail to put forth an argument. I read the interchange as follows. >mabbo: states that we should focus on crime reduction, not enforcement >ticmasta: questions if crime prevention is economically or practically viable. They propose that increased expenses have not and will not result in a reduction of "serious crimes". > Camgunz: points out that incarceration is expensive and this could support a lot of social services. > Natsu: questions again how social programs will stop violent crimes like rape when existing programs have failed. > Camgunz: Dont strawman me, Nonviolent incarceration is expensive. Camgunz seems to be talking past the question of if social programs can work and reiterating that incarceration is expensive.
      - godelski 6y ago
        I think the crux comes down to this section of the exchange. > Camgunz: points out that incarceration is expensive and this could support a lot of social services. > Natsu: questions again how social programs will stop violent crimes like rape when existing programs have failed. How __I__ read this (and I'm guessing Camgunz) is that camgunz provides context to ticmasta's questions about being economically viability by noting how much we spend within the prison system. Implying that this is the metric that we are working with. There was an assumption made here, which is extremely common, that policy just adds cost and does not reduce it somewhere else. What Camgunz is suggesting is that by spending money elsewhere we can reduce the costs mentioned. IMO a net even would be a gain in the sense that we are being more humane and maximizing individual freedom (considering being in jail means pretty low individual freedom as well as potential long term consequences like being unable to vote in the future). Natsu then made a non-sequitor argument that is commonly associated with dog whistling (it may not have been intended this way, but that is part of the power of dog whistling. By definition it is coded language). The supposition that Natsu implied was that rapists are going to rape and this cannot be prevented, therefore we should just contain them. The data does not support this nor is it effective because we can only prosecute those who have already committed an action or are in the act (this isn't Minority Report, we don't do pre-crime and I think we'd all agree that is highly immoral). Further Natsu said that prisons already do not solve the problem, therefore we should just contain them. The context of the discussion was about reform, which acknowledges the fact that prisons do not accomplish this. Starting with mabbo we get a claim that we should be focusing on crime prevention, which would include (presumably) changing how prisons work. With a focus on reformation as opposed to punishment. Additionally, Natsu's statement is associated with an "all or nothing" approach, which is not what anyone here is suggesting and is a common technique used to derail a conversation, because there will always be outliers in data (i.e. letting perfection get in the way of improvements). Simply, the discussion is about reduction not abolition. Lastly, the jump to rape is one to extreme cases. A drive to an emotional appeal above everything else. Simply, the response was not in good faith and had a high potential to be intended to derail the conversation. It exhibits many of the tactics that people use to perform such a task (again, it resembles dog whistling enough that it is reasonable to be taken that way). I will also direct you to my response to Natsu where I link evidence of a negative cost policy (legalizing and taxing prostitution) that fulfills said objectives. I also stress the focus on reduction over abolition. There are many other policies similar to what I mentioned, including reform around marijuana laws (referencing back to Camgunz, which would you rather have? Spending 80k/yr for a non-violent pot dealer (max punishment is several years) or taxing pot, regulating to increase safety, de-stigmatizing and allowing people to seek professional help if it is negatively impacting their lives, and reducing funds that go to cartels that also contribute to migrants fleeing their countries and heading to America? The former costs a significant amount of money while the latter distributes money through the economy and allows taxes to be taken off the top). Not all policies will end up working like this, but again, this isn't an "all or nothing" situation, it is about improvement through iteration and utilizing the data that we have to make better policy. These two are low hanging fruit but do illustrate the point being discussed here.
- Natsu 6y ago
  That's just one example of an offender who is unlikely to be reformed. There are many others. It's interesting, though, that down thread, the one program given as an example of this is legalizing prostitution, which many women have been and are forced into both by economic and violent means. Let me just say that that's not the best example to give if you're arguing that you're not advocating that. I'll agree that rehab is good--if and when it works. There's a lot to be said for helping people obey the law rather than punishing them for disobeying it, especially with laws like mask wearing during a pandemic. But I think that, even there, you'll find some level of compulsion needed and it's odd that this specific example is one where I find other people, though hopefully not you, ready to flip-flop. Finally, I was more interested in bringing up containment as a reason for incarceration and the choice of criminal example was not something I gave any real thought to. Containment is somehow consistently absent from these discussions about the purpose of prison, even in some scholarly works, despite being rather important. Nobody would write about infectious disease without mentioning quarantines, yet containment is widely ignored as if everyone is cribbing from some list and no purposes that are not on the list even exist.
  - camgunz 6y ago
    Yeah, agree about legal prostitution—it’s in practice highly abusive and exploitative. I wouldn’t advocate it as a remedy. But the point there was that there are policies besides incarceration that are super effective at curbing violent crime, and I think it serves well as such an example. I think the occurrence of incorrigible violent offenders is far lower than most people think. It’s certainly not .7%. We couldn’t get through high school or even a basketball game if that were true. There’s also a lot of evidence that violence is learned, not born, and therefore can be treated. But I also know there are people out there that are incorrigibly violent, and that state resources are finite and we don’t have the means to fix everyone’s problems. I’m not saying abolish prisons. I am saying legalize soft drugs, put money into education, therapy, rehab, and other social programs, stop imprisoning people for inability to pay fines and other oppressive garbage, don’t give people felonies for nonviolent offenses (unless we’re talking white collar crime), and clean up prisons so they’re not gulags of abuse.
    - 6y ago
godelski 6y ago
The point is that there are policies that can reduce crimes. Pareto is an important factor to consider. The idea is that policy captures that 90%-98% of crimes that are easy to prevent and police are there to deal with that small portion that slips through. There's also a bunch of counterintuitive policy that the biggest hurdle seems to be moral and religious (ironic how we talk about how America's laws aren't supposed to be religious based). One example of this is how decriminalizing (not legalizing) drops rape and sexual abuse by >30%[0]. Basically what people want to do is say "Hey, we've had studies where x action caused a reduction in y crime. If we implement x (and tax it!) we can reduce y crime and thus don't need to spend as many resources for policing those actions." People often look at black markets because the big idea is "Hey, we're not getting rid of it, so why not change it from an unregulated market to a regulated one where we can at least generate tax revenue and increase safety?" (i.e. drugs winning the war on drugs, so let's make sure people have clean needles so they don't spread diseases. Or legalizing prostitution means you can better track trafficking, especially under aged.) It is about using data that we've measured and making policy around that. This should not be controversial. [0] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/legal-prostitution-zones-reduce-incidents-of-rape-and_b_58c83be1e4b01d0d473bce8a https://www.huffpost.com/entry/legal-prostitution-zones-redu...

by Natsu 6y ago

camgunz 6y ago

Please don't strawman me by implying that I'm advocating for freeing rapists. That's not productive, nor is it discussing in good faith. Let me give you some stats from the Wikipedia article I linked, which I encourage you to read: "tough-on-crime" laws adopted since the 1980s have filled US prisons with mostly nonviolent offenders. 46% of state prisoners serving > 1 year are serving time for a nonviolent offense. (I flipped this around from "54% of state prisoners serving > 1 year are serving time for a violent offense). 15% of state prisoners have been convicted of a drug offense as their most serious infraction. And here's the source the Wikipedia article links called "Why Texas is closing prisons in favour of rehab" [1]. That's hundreds of thousands of people serving harsh sentences for nonviolent and drug offenses. It's pretty well known at this point that the US criminal justice system has serious problems and is--again--extremely expensive. I encourage you to google around and read up on it. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30275026 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30275026

s1artibartfast 6y ago
For what it is worth, Your position cant be strawmanned if you don't explain it. If your core position is that money can be saved by avoiding incarceration, you would probably get a more productive response by stating it explicitly as well as how it relates to the post you respnded to: >What does that even mean? Have you costed out your helping program to show this is true. We have more social programs, care agencies and food banks than ever before, yet the problems and problem areas are as bad as ever. Let's see if you change your tune after being the victim of serious crime
- godelski 6y ago
  It is a strawman because the response made suppositions that the gp did not imply. That is not a good faith argument. Forcing positions upon people is not a productive means of discussion.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    I felt that the post was just interjecting with a fact and did not explain how it relates to or modifies the parent post. It is hard to respond without supposition if they fail to put forth an argument. I read the interchange as follows. >mabbo: states that we should focus on crime reduction, not enforcement >ticmasta: questions if crime prevention is economically or practically viable. They propose that increased expenses have not and will not result in a reduction of "serious crimes". > Camgunz: points out that incarceration is expensive and this could support a lot of social services. > Natsu: questions again how social programs will stop violent crimes like rape when existing programs have failed. > Camgunz: Dont strawman me, Nonviolent incarceration is expensive. Camgunz seems to be talking past the question of if social programs can work and reiterating that incarceration is expensive.
    - godelski 6y ago
      I think the crux comes down to this section of the exchange. > Camgunz: points out that incarceration is expensive and this could support a lot of social services. > Natsu: questions again how social programs will stop violent crimes like rape when existing programs have failed. How __I__ read this (and I'm guessing Camgunz) is that camgunz provides context to ticmasta's questions about being economically viability by noting how much we spend within the prison system. Implying that this is the metric that we are working with. There was an assumption made here, which is extremely common, that policy just adds cost and does not reduce it somewhere else. What Camgunz is suggesting is that by spending money elsewhere we can reduce the costs mentioned. IMO a net even would be a gain in the sense that we are being more humane and maximizing individual freedom (considering being in jail means pretty low individual freedom as well as potential long term consequences like being unable to vote in the future). Natsu then made a non-sequitor argument that is commonly associated with dog whistling (it may not have been intended this way, but that is part of the power of dog whistling. By definition it is coded language). The supposition that Natsu implied was that rapists are going to rape and this cannot be prevented, therefore we should just contain them. The data does not support this nor is it effective because we can only prosecute those who have already committed an action or are in the act (this isn't Minority Report, we don't do pre-crime and I think we'd all agree that is highly immoral). Further Natsu said that prisons already do not solve the problem, therefore we should just contain them. The context of the discussion was about reform, which acknowledges the fact that prisons do not accomplish this. Starting with mabbo we get a claim that we should be focusing on crime prevention, which would include (presumably) changing how prisons work. With a focus on reformation as opposed to punishment. Additionally, Natsu's statement is associated with an "all or nothing" approach, which is not what anyone here is suggesting and is a common technique used to derail a conversation, because there will always be outliers in data (i.e. letting perfection get in the way of improvements). Simply, the discussion is about reduction not abolition. Lastly, the jump to rape is one to extreme cases. A drive to an emotional appeal above everything else. Simply, the response was not in good faith and had a high potential to be intended to derail the conversation. It exhibits many of the tactics that people use to perform such a task (again, it resembles dog whistling enough that it is reasonable to be taken that way). I will also direct you to my response to Natsu where I link evidence of a negative cost policy (legalizing and taxing prostitution) that fulfills said objectives. I also stress the focus on reduction over abolition. There are many other policies similar to what I mentioned, including reform around marijuana laws (referencing back to Camgunz, which would you rather have? Spending 80k/yr for a non-violent pot dealer (max punishment is several years) or taxing pot, regulating to increase safety, de-stigmatizing and allowing people to seek professional help if it is negatively impacting their lives, and reducing funds that go to cartels that also contribute to migrants fleeing their countries and heading to America? The former costs a significant amount of money while the latter distributes money through the economy and allows taxes to be taken off the top). Not all policies will end up working like this, but again, this isn't an "all or nothing" situation, it is about improvement through iteration and utilizing the data that we have to make better policy. These two are low hanging fruit but do illustrate the point being discussed here.
Natsu 6y ago
That's just one example of an offender who is unlikely to be reformed. There are many others. It's interesting, though, that down thread, the one program given as an example of this is legalizing prostitution, which many women have been and are forced into both by economic and violent means. Let me just say that that's not the best example to give if you're arguing that you're not advocating that. I'll agree that rehab is good--if and when it works. There's a lot to be said for helping people obey the law rather than punishing them for disobeying it, especially with laws like mask wearing during a pandemic. But I think that, even there, you'll find some level of compulsion needed and it's odd that this specific example is one where I find other people, though hopefully not you, ready to flip-flop. Finally, I was more interested in bringing up containment as a reason for incarceration and the choice of criminal example was not something I gave any real thought to. Containment is somehow consistently absent from these discussions about the purpose of prison, even in some scholarly works, despite being rather important. Nobody would write about infectious disease without mentioning quarantines, yet containment is widely ignored as if everyone is cribbing from some list and no purposes that are not on the list even exist.
- camgunz 6y ago
  Yeah, agree about legal prostitution—it’s in practice highly abusive and exploitative. I wouldn’t advocate it as a remedy. But the point there was that there are policies besides incarceration that are super effective at curbing violent crime, and I think it serves well as such an example. I think the occurrence of incorrigible violent offenders is far lower than most people think. It’s certainly not .7%. We couldn’t get through high school or even a basketball game if that were true. There’s also a lot of evidence that violence is learned, not born, and therefore can be treated. But I also know there are people out there that are incorrigibly violent, and that state resources are finite and we don’t have the means to fix everyone’s problems. I’m not saying abolish prisons. I am saying legalize soft drugs, put money into education, therapy, rehab, and other social programs, stop imprisoning people for inability to pay fines and other oppressive garbage, don’t give people felonies for nonviolent offenses (unless we’re talking white collar crime), and clean up prisons so they’re not gulags of abuse.
  - 6y ago

godelski 6y ago

The point is that there are policies that can reduce crimes. Pareto is an important factor to consider. The idea is that policy captures that 90%-98% of crimes that are easy to prevent and police are there to deal with that small portion that slips through. There's also a bunch of counterintuitive policy that the biggest hurdle seems to be moral and religious (ironic how we talk about how America's laws aren't supposed to be religious based). One example of this is how decriminalizing (not legalizing) drops rape and sexual abuse by >30%[0]. Basically what people want to do is say "Hey, we've had studies where x action caused a reduction in y crime. If we implement x (and tax it!) we can reduce y crime and thus don't need to spend as many resources for policing those actions." People often look at black markets because the big idea is "Hey, we're not getting rid of it, so why not change it from an unregulated market to a regulated one where we can at least generate tax revenue and increase safety?" (i.e. drugs winning the war on drugs, so let's make sure people have clean needles so they don't spread diseases. Or legalizing prostitution means you can better track trafficking, especially under aged.) It is about using data that we've measured and making policy around that. This should not be controversial. [0] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/legal-prostitution-zones-reduce-incidents-of-rape-and_b_58c83be1e4b01d0d473bce8a https://www.huffpost.com/entry/legal-prostitution-zones-redu...