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This was way more interesting than I thought it would be. (Assuming this is accurate) The answers offered are not what I expected. Well, roughly speaking, th

This was way more interesting than I thought it would be. (Assuming this is accurate) The answers offered are not what I expected. Well, roughly speaking, the prison population for a given crime is: Occurrence Per Year x Report Rate x Solve Rate x Conviction Rate x Prison Sentence Length. In all of those, American ranks either high or very high.

Consultant32452 5y ago
With regard to several of these I feel like a big component is the destruction of community. We used to deal with many petty crimes personally. If Jimmy stole your bike you used to just go to Jimmy’s house and get it back, maybe beat him up, and that was it. Bar fights and the like just resulted in a black eye and getting thrown out. Now we don’t even know our neighbors names and that lack of familiarity tends to lead to impersonal/state/police type responses. Now if Jimmy steals your bike and you go get it back and beat him up you’re the one going to jail instead of Jimmy.
- LeifCarrotson 5y ago
  I don't know what kind of community you're advocating, but I'd much prefer one where my neighbors don't play judge, jury, and torturer, attempting to enforce vigilante justice by physical assault against my person because they think I might have committed petty theft against their property.
  - Consultant32452 5y ago
    The current system is we send a Derek Chauvin to your house. Your choice whether you view that as an improvement over the old system.
- a4isms 5y ago
  We people of colour have a shorthand way to describe this system of yours: Lynching. Communities who think they "know who did it" will bypass the right to legal representation, will bypass courts, will bypass proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt, and will bypass the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The result, of course, is not justice, but horrific oppression. Encouraging communities to take matters into their own hands is encouraging injustice.
  - ryan93 5y ago
    Do people of color actually take matters into their own hands? There is an incredible amount of violent crime in black communities that other black people have done nothing to mitigate.
    - a4isms 5y ago
      Do people of color actually take matters into their own hands? Irrelevant, my comment is about white people taking matters into their own hands by torturing and murdering black people, which is a specific case of the comment about communities enforcing laws for themselves. Speak to that, or go elsewhere to ask about other forms of vigilante justice. There is an incredible amount of violent crime in black communities that other black people have done nothing to mitigate. I am not in the mood to rehash the “black-on-black violence, what are black people doing about it” trope. It is not my responsibility to pivot to discussing your pet topic given that I was talking about lynching. This is a blatant example of “whataboutism” rhetoric, and I’m not going to play along. * plonk *
      - maxerickson 5y ago
        There's some ambiguity in the second paragraph of your first comment. I believe you are describing lynching there, but it is also possible to read it as a description of present day communities.
        a4isms 5y ago
        Ok, I’ll adjust it. Thank you.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Do people of color actually take matters into their own hands? Probably more than others, distrust of government and especially the justice system tends to produce that result. > There is an incredible amount of violent crime in black communities “Taking matters into your own hands” is, itself, typically crime, often violent crime, and disputes about the correctness of the attribution or level of punishment in a community that does self-service law enforcement tend to be resolved by more self-service “justice”. So, yeah, that’s exactly what you’d expect with self-service justice, even if you ignore that the reason for that is itself selective criminalization, prosecution, remand, and punishment of blacks. All of which (because US penal facilities don’t just house criminals but help form and harden them) contributes to criminality in the black community.
- giantg2 5y ago
  Yep. I literally had someone from the next street over call the police about a dog being off leash instead of talking to the person about it. The law doesn't even require a leash, but that's the way the police interpret it. Dis you know my state allows you to be jailed for 90 days in addition to a $100-500 fine for not having a dog on a leash? Seems a little cruel to throw someone in jail over that. Yet the people in the system are too lazy to fix the law and the general population doesn't care because they don't know about it.
tinalumfoil 5y ago
This equation doesn't take into account, * false convictions * concurrent sentences * parole * time off for good behavior * remand (detention without conviction) and probably other factors I couldn't think of off the top of my head. Unless your just lumping all these factors "prison sentence length" in which case the equation doesn't seem useful.
- ARandomerDude 5y ago
  You should read the article for more context. As the author points out, reduced crime skews the overall statistical population of the prison system toward the more violent crimes due to prison length, which is the context of that formula.
- djoldman 5y ago
  The equation is just that, how to solve for the current # of people in prison, therefore it ignores false convictions. Prison generally denotes long-term custody of people convicted of a crime, therefore remand is ignored here (people are mostly remanded to jail, not prison, aka custody before trial). Concurrent sentences are tricky because it's almost always the case that sentences are served concurrently. This equation would probably be most accurate if only the most serious sentence were used for "Prison Sentence Length." Parole and good behavior definitely would affect prison pop. and so should be included.
  - tinalumfoil 5y ago
    > The equation is just that, how to solve for the current # of people in prison, therefore it ignores false convictions I don't follow this. If you're falsely convicted of murder and get 30 years, why would that show up in the statistics any different than your cell mate who was correctly convicted. > This equation would probably be most accurate if only the most serious sentence were used for "Prison Sentence Length." Not if the lesser crimes affect the total length of your sentence. > people are mostly remanded to jail, not prison, aka custody before trial I think the difference between prison and jail in this case is irrelevant. If you were held in jail awaiting trail for 1 year and acquitted vs. being sentenced to 1 year in prison on conviction, you're still held against your will for 1 year.

Consultant32452 5y ago

With regard to several of these I feel like a big component is the destruction of community. We used to deal with many petty crimes personally. If Jimmy stole your bike you used to just go to Jimmy’s house and get it back, maybe beat him up, and that was it. Bar fights and the like just resulted in a black eye and getting thrown out. Now we don’t even know our neighbors names and that lack of familiarity tends to lead to impersonal/state/police type responses. Now if Jimmy steals your bike and you go get it back and beat him up you’re the one going to jail instead of Jimmy.

LeifCarrotson 5y ago
I don't know what kind of community you're advocating, but I'd much prefer one where my neighbors don't play judge, jury, and torturer, attempting to enforce vigilante justice by physical assault against my person because they think I might have committed petty theft against their property.
- Consultant32452 5y ago
  The current system is we send a Derek Chauvin to your house. Your choice whether you view that as an improvement over the old system.
a4isms 5y ago
We people of colour have a shorthand way to describe this system of yours: Lynching. Communities who think they "know who did it" will bypass the right to legal representation, will bypass courts, will bypass proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt, and will bypass the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The result, of course, is not justice, but horrific oppression. Encouraging communities to take matters into their own hands is encouraging injustice.
- ryan93 5y ago
  Do people of color actually take matters into their own hands? There is an incredible amount of violent crime in black communities that other black people have done nothing to mitigate.
  - a4isms 5y ago
    Do people of color actually take matters into their own hands? Irrelevant, my comment is about white people taking matters into their own hands by torturing and murdering black people, which is a specific case of the comment about communities enforcing laws for themselves. Speak to that, or go elsewhere to ask about other forms of vigilante justice. There is an incredible amount of violent crime in black communities that other black people have done nothing to mitigate. I am not in the mood to rehash the “black-on-black violence, what are black people doing about it” trope. It is not my responsibility to pivot to discussing your pet topic given that I was talking about lynching. This is a blatant example of “whataboutism” rhetoric, and I’m not going to play along. * plonk *
    - maxerickson 5y ago
      There's some ambiguity in the second paragraph of your first comment. I believe you are describing lynching there, but it is also possible to read it as a description of present day communities.
      - a4isms 5y ago
        Ok, I’ll adjust it. Thank you.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Do people of color actually take matters into their own hands? Probably more than others, distrust of government and especially the justice system tends to produce that result. > There is an incredible amount of violent crime in black communities “Taking matters into your own hands” is, itself, typically crime, often violent crime, and disputes about the correctness of the attribution or level of punishment in a community that does self-service law enforcement tend to be resolved by more self-service “justice”. So, yeah, that’s exactly what you’d expect with self-service justice, even if you ignore that the reason for that is itself selective criminalization, prosecution, remand, and punishment of blacks. All of which (because US penal facilities don’t just house criminals but help form and harden them) contributes to criminality in the black community.
giantg2 5y ago
Yep. I literally had someone from the next street over call the police about a dog being off leash instead of talking to the person about it. The law doesn't even require a leash, but that's the way the police interpret it. Dis you know my state allows you to be jailed for 90 days in addition to a $100-500 fine for not having a dog on a leash? Seems a little cruel to throw someone in jail over that. Yet the people in the system are too lazy to fix the law and the general population doesn't care because they don't know about it.

tinalumfoil 5y ago

This equation doesn't take into account, * false convictions * concurrent sentences * parole * time off for good behavior * remand (detention without conviction) and probably other factors I couldn't think of off the top of my head. Unless your just lumping all these factors "prison sentence length" in which case the equation doesn't seem useful.

ARandomerDude 5y ago
You should read the article for more context. As the author points out, reduced crime skews the overall statistical population of the prison system toward the more violent crimes due to prison length, which is the context of that formula.
djoldman 5y ago
The equation is just that, how to solve for the current # of people in prison, therefore it ignores false convictions. Prison generally denotes long-term custody of people convicted of a crime, therefore remand is ignored here (people are mostly remanded to jail, not prison, aka custody before trial). Concurrent sentences are tricky because it's almost always the case that sentences are served concurrently. This equation would probably be most accurate if only the most serious sentence were used for "Prison Sentence Length." Parole and good behavior definitely would affect prison pop. and so should be included.
- tinalumfoil 5y ago
  > The equation is just that, how to solve for the current # of people in prison, therefore it ignores false convictions I don't follow this. If you're falsely convicted of murder and get 30 years, why would that show up in the statistics any different than your cell mate who was correctly convicted. > This equation would probably be most accurate if only the most serious sentence were used for "Prison Sentence Length." Not if the lesser crimes affect the total length of your sentence. > people are mostly remanded to jail, not prison, aka custody before trial I think the difference between prison and jail in this case is irrelevant. If you were held in jail awaiting trail for 1 year and acquitted vs. being sentenced to 1 year in prison on conviction, you're still held against your will for 1 year.