4 ms·

I think prison demographics have a lot more to do with inequalities in the justice system and how different communities are policed than it does who actually "c

I think prison demographics have a lot more to do with inequalities in the justice system and how different communities are policed than it does who actually "commits more crimes", especially when you start looking at things like fraud and non-violent drug offenses.

axiosgunnar 6y ago
So you are saying we have systematic misanthropy in the justice system?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mikepurvis 6y ago
  "So you are saying we have systematic misanthropy in the justice system?" I can't tell if you're arguing in bad faith or if you think you're actually being profound here with these socratic challenges. Men commit and are caught, charged, and imprisoned for many more crimes than women are. Black men probably commit somewhat more crimes than white men— a fact which can largely be understood in context by examining structural inequalities like not having access to the same schools, community supports, family stability, plus adding in layers of racism and generational trauma, etc etc. But their representation in the corrections system is significantly out of proportion even to this ratio due to factors like racist policing and courts, and compounded by things like the bail system, which pressures the innocent to plead guilty. These two situations are not really comparable.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - 8note 6y ago
    Racist policing and racist sentencing seem like they could easily make up for the proportion. Most white people don't get charged when they are caught commiting a crime, and the ones that do get light sentences that can keep them out of the correctional system
    - mikepurvis 6y ago
      To be honest, I haven't studied it in depth, but I think the point is that it's many factors or potential factors— it isn't a problem which is going to be solved by addressing just one aspect.
  - DevKoala 6y ago
    This was a counter argument that wouldn’t even cut it in high school.
  - ErikVandeWater 6y ago
    3 earnest questions: * Why is family stability a structural inequality? Families are a unit that largely makes up it's own structure, independent from society. * What does generational trauma mean? Is this an epigenetic thing? * "their representation in the corrections system is... compounded by things like the bail system, which pressures the innocent to plead guilty." - Why would black men be more affected by the the pressure to plead guilty when innocent than other races?
    - blix 6y ago
      Families aren't independent of society; family structures and society at large affect each other in many ways. It's hard to have a stable family unit when a large fraction of men are in jail. It's a feedback loop. Bail system pressure disproportionately affects people without access to financial resources (and through them legal resources), which are not equally distributed.
    - mikepurvis 6y ago
      > Why is family stability a structural inequality? Perhaps "structural" is sloppy here, but it is a way that past traumas echo forward across multiple generations. Like, look at the numbers— 64% of black kids in a single parent home in 2019 vs 24% for white kids: https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/107-children-in-single-parent-families-by-race https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/107-children-in... Obviously many single-parent families are wonderful and may well be better than an abusive two-parent family, but at a population level, these are kids who are going to grow up to themselves have higher divorce rates and their own kids repeating the pattern. Regarding the bail system and race, see: "The cash bail system disproportionately impacts people of color, fueling a pervasive problem of structural racism in our criminal justice system. The pretrial population is disproportionally Black and Hispanic and has more than doubled over the past 15 years.1 Black and Hispanic Americans are more likely to be stopped by the police and experience police violence at the time of arrest; they also are more likely to be poor and unable to raise bail funds. The cash bail system also compounds underlying health disparities in access to care that has led to worse outcomes for Blacks and Hispanics compared to white Americans." https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2020/how-cash-bail-system-endangers-health-black-americans https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2020/how-cash-bail-sys...

axiosgunnar 6y ago

So you are saying we have systematic misanthropy in the justice system?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mikepurvis 6y ago
"So you are saying we have systematic misanthropy in the justice system?" I can't tell if you're arguing in bad faith or if you think you're actually being profound here with these socratic challenges. Men commit and are caught, charged, and imprisoned for many more crimes than women are. Black men probably commit somewhat more crimes than white men— a fact which can largely be understood in context by examining structural inequalities like not having access to the same schools, community supports, family stability, plus adding in layers of racism and generational trauma, etc etc. But their representation in the corrections system is significantly out of proportion even to this ratio due to factors like racist policing and courts, and compounded by things like the bail system, which pressures the innocent to plead guilty. These two situations are not really comparable.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- 8note 6y ago
  Racist policing and racist sentencing seem like they could easily make up for the proportion. Most white people don't get charged when they are caught commiting a crime, and the ones that do get light sentences that can keep them out of the correctional system
  - mikepurvis 6y ago
    To be honest, I haven't studied it in depth, but I think the point is that it's many factors or potential factors— it isn't a problem which is going to be solved by addressing just one aspect.
- DevKoala 6y ago
  This was a counter argument that wouldn’t even cut it in high school.
- ErikVandeWater 6y ago
  3 earnest questions: * Why is family stability a structural inequality? Families are a unit that largely makes up it's own structure, independent from society. * What does generational trauma mean? Is this an epigenetic thing? * "their representation in the corrections system is... compounded by things like the bail system, which pressures the innocent to plead guilty." - Why would black men be more affected by the the pressure to plead guilty when innocent than other races?
  - blix 6y ago
    Families aren't independent of society; family structures and society at large affect each other in many ways. It's hard to have a stable family unit when a large fraction of men are in jail. It's a feedback loop. Bail system pressure disproportionately affects people without access to financial resources (and through them legal resources), which are not equally distributed.
  - mikepurvis 6y ago
    > Why is family stability a structural inequality? Perhaps "structural" is sloppy here, but it is a way that past traumas echo forward across multiple generations. Like, look at the numbers— 64% of black kids in a single parent home in 2019 vs 24% for white kids: https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/107-children-in-single-parent-families-by-race https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/107-children-in... Obviously many single-parent families are wonderful and may well be better than an abusive two-parent family, but at a population level, these are kids who are going to grow up to themselves have higher divorce rates and their own kids repeating the pattern. Regarding the bail system and race, see: "The cash bail system disproportionately impacts people of color, fueling a pervasive problem of structural racism in our criminal justice system. The pretrial population is disproportionally Black and Hispanic and has more than doubled over the past 15 years.1 Black and Hispanic Americans are more likely to be stopped by the police and experience police violence at the time of arrest; they also are more likely to be poor and unable to raise bail funds. The cash bail system also compounds underlying health disparities in access to care that has led to worse outcomes for Blacks and Hispanics compared to white Americans." https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2020/how-cash-bail-system-endangers-health-black-americans https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2020/how-cash-bail-sys...