5 ms·

Not the OP, but it is interesting that the US criminal law is so state dependent. Out of curiosity: do you have reason to believe that the sentencing disparity

Not the OP, but it is interesting that the US criminal law is so state dependent. Out of curiosity: do you have reason to believe that the sentencing disparity is better when considering states?

mywittyname 6y ago
Hypothetical reasons why this may be the case: 1. The most egregiously racist judges probably work in districts which they rarely encounter minorities. 2. Regions with large minority populations have to deal with much more crime in general, so may have lighter sentences for equally severe crimes. 3. Minorities are more likely to plead out and never go to trial, skewing sample size. To be clear, I doubt that state judges are better than federal ones. After all, criminal justice corruption in smaller towns in America is staggering. Not too long ago, a judge was indicted for being bribed by the owners of a jail to hand down severe sentences to minority offenders.
samatman 6y ago
I have reason to believe that the sentencing disparity is like the gender pay gap: easy to prove, if that helps your political goals, and also easy to disprove, if that suits you better. Statistics is hard, and the entire reason there's leeway in sentencing is to account for situations which are resistant to statistical regularity. There is, or was, a pretty obvious source of disparity in US law: freebase cocaine was a felony at much smaller quantities than cocaine salt, and the former was more likely to be used and dealt by black Americans. Would that show up in such an analysis? They were different convictions, after all. So the only answer can be "yes or no", and so on ad infinitum.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  I'm fairly convinced that the fact that marijuana is illegal (federally) and alcohol/tobacco are legal without a prescription has more to do with the populations who typically used them than with any medical or scientific basis on dangerousness. https://www.businessinsider.com/racist-origins-marijuana-prohibition-legalization-2018-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/racist-origins-marijuana-pro...
  - samatman 6y ago
    Sure, and that's another thing that wouldn't show up in statistics directly. Although it's important to note that alcohol was illegal, and tobacco is becoming increasingly low-status and accordingly restricted. The end of Prohibition meant that the enforcement apparatus for it needed something new to do. I believe this was another contributing factor to continuing the broken logic of Prohibition with new substances.
    - 737maxtw 6y ago
      That's... actually pretty interesting concept to consider. Sometimes I do wonder how much better we could all get along if some substances had relaxed or dropped restrictions. When you think about it, there's the mental toll on users about public disapproval amplified by the legal status. On top of that, the divide on the non user side about someone being a "lawbreaker". Just seems to cause a lot of division. On top of the illegality of harder drugs leading to the rise of cartels and gangs. Just thinking out loud. What if the US said 'screw it', try making everything legal for 5-10 years, produce what it can locally, and just see what happens. The hope with this idea is that one could starve out the cartels while perhaps providing a path to rehabilitation. All of that said, I am still a believer in the Rat Park experiment. If we solved some of our more real problems people perhaps wouldn't need to turn to such substances, as examples by the reports of drug use increasing under lockdown conditions. Reality seems to match the experiment. The thing about that experiment, they found if the rat's other needs were met (food, shelter, socialization) they actually would start to prefer normal water to drugged water again. Hmmmmm
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        I worry that we have raised a bunch of people in the mindset of "if the government allows it, it's safe" and rather than thinking critically about it may assume that they just figured out it was safe. The more drug-tolerant cultures (such as the Netherlands and Portugal) have "evolved" an understanding of drugs culturally such that you don't see a bunch of locals stoned out of their gourds in the coffeeshops all day. I hate the "war on drugs" and the terrible costs it has imposed, but I think that flipping the switch to anything goes is unlikely to end well.

Not the OP, but it is interesting that the US criminal law is so state dependent. Out of curiosity: do you have reason to believe that the sentencing disparity is better when considering states?

mywittyname 6y ago

Hypothetical reasons why this may be the case: 1. The most egregiously racist judges probably work in districts which they rarely encounter minorities. 2. Regions with large minority populations have to deal with much more crime in general, so may have lighter sentences for equally severe crimes. 3. Minorities are more likely to plead out and never go to trial, skewing sample size. To be clear, I doubt that state judges are better than federal ones. After all, criminal justice corruption in smaller towns in America is staggering. Not too long ago, a judge was indicted for being bribed by the owners of a jail to hand down severe sentences to minority offenders.

samatman 6y ago

I have reason to believe that the sentencing disparity is like the gender pay gap: easy to prove, if that helps your political goals, and also easy to disprove, if that suits you better. Statistics is hard, and the entire reason there's leeway in sentencing is to account for situations which are resistant to statistical regularity. There is, or was, a pretty obvious source of disparity in US law: freebase cocaine was a felony at much smaller quantities than cocaine salt, and the former was more likely to be used and dealt by black Americans. Would that show up in such an analysis? They were different convictions, after all. So the only answer can be "yes or no", and so on ad infinitum.

sokoloff 6y ago
I'm fairly convinced that the fact that marijuana is illegal (federally) and alcohol/tobacco are legal without a prescription has more to do with the populations who typically used them than with any medical or scientific basis on dangerousness. https://www.businessinsider.com/racist-origins-marijuana-prohibition-legalization-2018-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/racist-origins-marijuana-pro...
- samatman 6y ago
  Sure, and that's another thing that wouldn't show up in statistics directly. Although it's important to note that alcohol was illegal, and tobacco is becoming increasingly low-status and accordingly restricted. The end of Prohibition meant that the enforcement apparatus for it needed something new to do. I believe this was another contributing factor to continuing the broken logic of Prohibition with new substances.
  - 737maxtw 6y ago
    That's... actually pretty interesting concept to consider. Sometimes I do wonder how much better we could all get along if some substances had relaxed or dropped restrictions. When you think about it, there's the mental toll on users about public disapproval amplified by the legal status. On top of that, the divide on the non user side about someone being a "lawbreaker". Just seems to cause a lot of division. On top of the illegality of harder drugs leading to the rise of cartels and gangs. Just thinking out loud. What if the US said 'screw it', try making everything legal for 5-10 years, produce what it can locally, and just see what happens. The hope with this idea is that one could starve out the cartels while perhaps providing a path to rehabilitation. All of that said, I am still a believer in the Rat Park experiment. If we solved some of our more real problems people perhaps wouldn't need to turn to such substances, as examples by the reports of drug use increasing under lockdown conditions. Reality seems to match the experiment. The thing about that experiment, they found if the rat's other needs were met (food, shelter, socialization) they actually would start to prefer normal water to drugged water again. Hmmmmm
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      I worry that we have raised a bunch of people in the mindset of "if the government allows it, it's safe" and rather than thinking critically about it may assume that they just figured out it was safe. The more drug-tolerant cultures (such as the Netherlands and Portugal) have "evolved" an understanding of drugs culturally such that you don't see a bunch of locals stoned out of their gourds in the coffeeshops all day. I hate the "war on drugs" and the terrible costs it has imposed, but I think that flipping the switch to anything goes is unlikely to end well.