3 ms·

Focusing on instances of discrimination makes perfect sense - there's a lot of those throughout history. I can't say incarceration rates are applied unevenly b

Focusing on instances of discrimination makes perfect sense - there's a lot of those throughout history. I can't say incarceration rates are applied unevenly because I don't know what the correct answer is, but I see people saying "x% discrepancy in outcome is evidence of discrimination", but I don't know what the correct %'s are, so I don't know how they arrived at that conclusion. How do you know that US rates are highly inflated compared to other countries? And, what is the correct breakdown of incarceration rates by race?

solosoyokaze 6y ago
> How do you know that US rates are highly inflated compared to other countries? You can see for yourself both in terms of rate per population and total(!) prison population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera... > And, what is the correct breakdown of incarceration rates by race? Even, otherwise it suggests something is wrong with society that needs to be fixed.
- rajin444 6y ago
  > You can see for yourself both in terms of rate per population and total(!) prison population: Right, but the US has many differences that could factor in to those numbers being different. How do you determine the signals from the noise? > Even, otherwise it suggests something is wrong with society that needs to be fixed. I agree with the idea that large discrepancies require investigation, but I don't see how you could expect extremely large, different groups (defining those groups being a massive challenge alone) of people to have the exact same outcomes. That seems statistically nearly impossible.
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    > I agree with the idea that large discrepancies require investigation, but I don't see how you could expect extremely large, different groups (defining those groups being a massive challenge alone) of people to have the exact same outcomes. Putting 2M people in prison is not an acceptable outcome to me. Hence my argument to proactively try to support groups that are currently most at risk.

solosoyokaze 6y ago

> How do you know that US rates are highly inflated compared to other countries? You can see for yourself both in terms of rate per population and total(!) prison population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera... > And, what is the correct breakdown of incarceration rates by race? Even, otherwise it suggests something is wrong with society that needs to be fixed.

rajin444 6y ago
> You can see for yourself both in terms of rate per population and total(!) prison population: Right, but the US has many differences that could factor in to those numbers being different. How do you determine the signals from the noise? > Even, otherwise it suggests something is wrong with society that needs to be fixed. I agree with the idea that large discrepancies require investigation, but I don't see how you could expect extremely large, different groups (defining those groups being a massive challenge alone) of people to have the exact same outcomes. That seems statistically nearly impossible.
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
  > I agree with the idea that large discrepancies require investigation, but I don't see how you could expect extremely large, different groups (defining those groups being a massive challenge alone) of people to have the exact same outcomes. Putting 2M people in prison is not an acceptable outcome to me. Hence my argument to proactively try to support groups that are currently most at risk.