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Penalties in Japan and China are often worse despite no tradition of fire and brimstone. Feels like you’re just taking your own personal biases and stretching t

by jquery 5y ago

Penalties in Japan and China are often worse despite no tradition of fire and brimstone. Feels like you’re just taking your own personal biases and stretching them to explain complex phenomena.

bobthepanda 5y ago
Neither incarcerates anywhere near as large a proportion of their population. The US jails 631 per 100,000 compared to 121 in China and 38 in Japan. There are certainly other factors, like the presence of a large group of “othered” people with less opportunity, but there is no doubt a vengeance streak running through the American conversation on criminal punishment. > According to official ballot materials promoting the original Three Strikes law, the sentencing scheme was intended to “keep murderers, rapists, and child molesters behind bars, where they belong.” However, today, more than half of inmates sentenced under the law are serving sentences for nonviolent crimes. https://law.stanford.edu/three-strikes-project/three-strikes-basics/ https://law.stanford.edu/three-strikes-project/three-strikes...
- jquery 5y ago
  Americans commit crime at vastly higher rates than Japanese, so it makes sense that the number of Americans in jail is higher. Or is there some ideal number of people in jail we should be aiming for, regardless of crime?
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    The US has the highest rate of incarceration globally, with about 21% of prisoners in 2015 despite having only 4.4% of world population. 639 per 100k is a pretty high rate. The 2nd ranked OECD country for incarceration rate, Turkey, has 335 per 100k. Despite the high incarceration rate, the US is ranked third in the OECD for homicide, fourth in rape, eighth in robbery, sixteenth in assault, thirteenth in burglary and tenth in vehicle theft in the OECD. The US generally also jails people longer than most other countries; the ratio of people in prison to people who get convicted per year is much higher than in other countries, and those weren't the first "tough-on-crime" laws by any means. And so for the highest imprisonment rate in the world, amongst the OECD the United States is still amongst the top half of the 32 OECD countries for every category of violent crime. It's not like these are short-term effects either, we've been jailing people under three-strikes for a generation going on two. It's pretty clear evidence that a high rate of imprisonment is not actually reducing crime. https://www.civitas.org.uk/content/files/crime_stats_oecdjan2012.pdf https://www.civitas.org.uk/content/files/crime_stats_oecdjan...

by jquery 5y ago

Penalties in Japan and China are often worse despite no tradition of fire and brimstone. Feels like you’re just taking your own personal biases and stretching them to explain complex phenomena.

bobthepanda 5y ago

Neither incarcerates anywhere near as large a proportion of their population. The US jails 631 per 100,000 compared to 121 in China and 38 in Japan. There are certainly other factors, like the presence of a large group of “othered” people with less opportunity, but there is no doubt a vengeance streak running through the American conversation on criminal punishment. > According to official ballot materials promoting the original Three Strikes law, the sentencing scheme was intended to “keep murderers, rapists, and child molesters behind bars, where they belong.” However, today, more than half of inmates sentenced under the law are serving sentences for nonviolent crimes. https://law.stanford.edu/three-strikes-project/three-strikes-basics/ https://law.stanford.edu/three-strikes-project/three-strikes...

jquery 5y ago
Americans commit crime at vastly higher rates than Japanese, so it makes sense that the number of Americans in jail is higher. Or is there some ideal number of people in jail we should be aiming for, regardless of crime?
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  The US has the highest rate of incarceration globally, with about 21% of prisoners in 2015 despite having only 4.4% of world population. 639 per 100k is a pretty high rate. The 2nd ranked OECD country for incarceration rate, Turkey, has 335 per 100k. Despite the high incarceration rate, the US is ranked third in the OECD for homicide, fourth in rape, eighth in robbery, sixteenth in assault, thirteenth in burglary and tenth in vehicle theft in the OECD. The US generally also jails people longer than most other countries; the ratio of people in prison to people who get convicted per year is much higher than in other countries, and those weren't the first "tough-on-crime" laws by any means. And so for the highest imprisonment rate in the world, amongst the OECD the United States is still amongst the top half of the 32 OECD countries for every category of violent crime. It's not like these are short-term effects either, we've been jailing people under three-strikes for a generation going on two. It's pretty clear evidence that a high rate of imprisonment is not actually reducing crime. https://www.civitas.org.uk/content/files/crime_stats_oecdjan2012.pdf https://www.civitas.org.uk/content/files/crime_stats_oecdjan...