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> We tend to have punishments that are large multiples of the benefits of committing the crime This is another fantasy. It's only true for certain types of peo

by xtian 6y ago

> We tend to have punishments that are large multiples of the benefits of committing the crime This is another fantasy. It's only true for certain types of people. Are the punishments for crimes committed by police officers scaled based on the likelihood of punishment? > NNT's tend to be pretty high for most medical interventions. e.g. statins. I would not pay 30% of my salary for statins. > We pay a small percentage of our income to what becomes city budgets All of the money that cities use to purchase police service comes from taxes. The question is not what percentage of an individual's income goes to police, but whether, from the perspective of the city, the overall allocation is an effective use of public funds.

mlyle 6y ago
> Are the punishments for crimes committed by police officers scaled based on the likelihood of punishment? No, but they should be. > I would not pay 30% of my salary for statins. Do you pay 30% of your salary for policing? > The question is not what percentage of an individual's income goes to police, but whether, from the perspective of the city, the overall allocation is an effective use of public funds. That's an.. ahem.. interesting way to look at it. So if the city wastes twice as much money elsewhere, policing becomes a better deal? Or if the city gets 30 pennies, and uses 33% of it to stop a fraction of crime, that's a bad deal? It might be better to look at the services that residents receive in exchange for the amount they pay in taxes, instead of using some ridiculous metric based on fraction of one political entity's tax income. Otherwise we come up with ridiculous silly comparisons. The sheriff is a tiny proportion of my county's expenditures, and police are a big proportion of my city's expenditures... by your metric, the sheriff is more cost effective, despite costing nearly the exact same amount per capita for the people they're first responders for. (Because the county gets a much bigger share of tax income and spends a bunch on other services that my city doesn't have to pay for). Or if we're going with the health analogy-- we spend the overwhelming majority of our public health "income" on things with very high NNTs.
- xtian 6y ago
  > That's an.. ahem.. interesting way to look at it. So if the city wastes twice as much money elsewhere, policing becomes a better deal? "Effective" to me means "achieves desired outcome". You seem to be using a different definition. If a city represents the interests of its residents and the residents share an interest in material safety, then the question becomes: which strategies provide the residents as a whole with the most safety for the least expenditure? And which strategies are the most in harmony with the resident's other interests (e.g., equality, human dignity)?
  - mlyle 6y ago
    I really want to talk about the percentage thing. For a given outcome: it's the same deal whether the city spends 33% on policing and it's 100x dollars, or if it spends 33% on policing and it's 1x dollars? Surely the proportion of residents' money spent on policing is what matters. > "Effective" to me means "achieves desired outcome". You seem to be using a different definition. Basically nothing achieves desired outcome. Case clearance rates are hardly a figure of merit for policing: I think it's likely that you believe as such, too. Or do you think the system would be better if it threw more people in jail? Argue in good faith. There's plenty of an argument for different police policy without going through ridiculous gymnastics ("percentage of income", arguing low case clearance rates makes policing ineffective, etc). Otherwise, you end up losing the people who might mostly agree with you-- maybe on purpose, are you just trolling?
thayne 6y ago
> This is another fantasy. It's only true for certain types of people. Are the punishments for crimes committed by police officers scaled based on the likelihood of punishment? Similarly, most fines don't scale with wealth. So a speeding ticket might be a terrible blow for an impoverished individual, but completely inconsequential for the super rich.

by xtian 6y ago

mlyle 6y ago

> Are the punishments for crimes committed by police officers scaled based on the likelihood of punishment? No, but they should be. > I would not pay 30% of my salary for statins. Do you pay 30% of your salary for policing? > The question is not what percentage of an individual's income goes to police, but whether, from the perspective of the city, the overall allocation is an effective use of public funds. That's an.. ahem.. interesting way to look at it. So if the city wastes twice as much money elsewhere, policing becomes a better deal? Or if the city gets 30 pennies, and uses 33% of it to stop a fraction of crime, that's a bad deal? It might be better to look at the services that residents receive in exchange for the amount they pay in taxes, instead of using some ridiculous metric based on fraction of one political entity's tax income. Otherwise we come up with ridiculous silly comparisons. The sheriff is a tiny proportion of my county's expenditures, and police are a big proportion of my city's expenditures... by your metric, the sheriff is more cost effective, despite costing nearly the exact same amount per capita for the people they're first responders for. (Because the county gets a much bigger share of tax income and spends a bunch on other services that my city doesn't have to pay for). Or if we're going with the health analogy-- we spend the overwhelming majority of our public health "income" on things with very high NNTs.

xtian 6y ago
> That's an.. ahem.. interesting way to look at it. So if the city wastes twice as much money elsewhere, policing becomes a better deal? "Effective" to me means "achieves desired outcome". You seem to be using a different definition. If a city represents the interests of its residents and the residents share an interest in material safety, then the question becomes: which strategies provide the residents as a whole with the most safety for the least expenditure? And which strategies are the most in harmony with the resident's other interests (e.g., equality, human dignity)?
- mlyle 6y ago
  I really want to talk about the percentage thing. For a given outcome: it's the same deal whether the city spends 33% on policing and it's 100x dollars, or if it spends 33% on policing and it's 1x dollars? Surely the proportion of residents' money spent on policing is what matters. > "Effective" to me means "achieves desired outcome". You seem to be using a different definition. Basically nothing achieves desired outcome. Case clearance rates are hardly a figure of merit for policing: I think it's likely that you believe as such, too. Or do you think the system would be better if it threw more people in jail? Argue in good faith. There's plenty of an argument for different police policy without going through ridiculous gymnastics ("percentage of income", arguing low case clearance rates makes policing ineffective, etc). Otherwise, you end up losing the people who might mostly agree with you-- maybe on purpose, are you just trolling?

thayne 6y ago

> This is another fantasy. It's only true for certain types of people. Are the punishments for crimes committed by police officers scaled based on the likelihood of punishment? Similarly, most fines don't scale with wealth. So a speeding ticket might be a terrible blow for an impoverished individual, but completely inconsequential for the super rich.