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Haven't we been doing "tough on crime" policy for decades now? We had the entire war on drugs, which we're really only just now collectively pulling back from a

Haven't we been doing "tough on crime" policy for decades now? We had the entire war on drugs, which we're really only just now collectively pulling back from and realizing was a mistake. We passed prohibition on alcohol. We did stop-and-frisk, all that crud. And our mental illness diagnoses and treatment processes are better today than they've ever been (even if the overall health care system is a mess). We know more about mental illness today than we did in the past, and we have more effective medication and psychological techniques for dealing with it. The overall reduction in violent crime over the long-term in America is a success story, we genuinely have made America safer and less violent. And yet, here we are. So my question to anyone who acts like there's a very simple causal link from violence/crime/illness to inequality is, "why isn't your strategy working then?" I think this kind of stuff is generally a lot more complicated than pointing to a single cause; I don't think that inequality is the single cause of every social problem. But if I am going to point to a single cause, it's probably not going to be based on the strategy that we aggressively targeted for multiple decades that didn't yield the results people are now promising. I get a little bit annoyed by people who keep saying, "no you don't understand, if we're even tougher on crime, then we'll see the results. We just haven't been tough enough yet." At some point, it starts to feel more like "tough on crime" is a philosophy rather than a data-driven, falsifiable theory.

WalterBright 5y ago
1. Crime causes stress in high crime neighborhoods. 2. Crime impoverishes neighborhoods by causing people to spend money to protect themselves, hiring security guards, armoring their businesses, and simply driving businesses away. 3. Crime impoverishes families when members get jailed. 4. Crime impoverishes criminals because a criminal record greatly restricts opportunities for productive employment 5. Crime prevents criminals from getting an education 6. Crime is a zero-sum, adversarial economic system. Cooperation in a free market is far, far more productive to those who participate in it A person committing crimes will impoverish himself, his family, and his community.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  P.S. I am in favor of legalizing drugs because it will eliminate the associated crime. P.P.S. An awful lot of people look at the obvious correlation between poverty and crime, and assume that therefore poverty causes crime. I strongly suspect it's the other way around - crime produces poverty. P.P.P.S. No, I am not an advocate of being "tough on crime". I think most prison sentences are excessive. But decriminalizing and ignoring crime is the wrong answer. NYC's classifying armed robbery as not a violent crime is the wrong answer. (I've been robbed at gunpoint. Putting a gun in someone's face and threatening to blow their head off is a violent crime. Period.)
- danShumway 5y ago
  Okay, that's an interesting theory. Violent crime rates have decreased dramatically across America over the past several decades. Has inequality gone up or down? Because if it's gone up, then decreasing crime rates didn't do what your theory says they should do. The theory doesn't really matter that much if we can point at two arrows going in opposite directions and say, "look, making one of the arrows go down didn't make the other one go down." I'm kind of picking on you here, but to be clear, we can ask the same question in the opposite direction -- inequality has gone up by many metrics even though crime has gone down by many metrics, so clearly inequality doesn't have as much of a direct effect on crime rates as people say it does, or else crime rates wouldn't have gone down. But no matter what way you're looking at it, these really simplistic models just don't hold up to even surface-level scrutiny like, "are they playing out in the real world?" There has to be more complicated stuff going on or else the numbers would be different. And so it's just frustrating to hear people say, "the correct answer is to keep doing the exact same things we've been doing, and to hope that the results are different." There has been ample opportunity for policies focused on crime to prove that they solve these social issues, and they haven't solved them.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Would you start a business in a high crime neighborhood, or in a low crime one? If your dad was put in prison while you were growing up, would your standard of living go up or down? Other things drive inequality. For example, if you would be paid $12,000 for a job, and $10,000 for not working, which would you select? Would your standard of living be higher or lower?
WalterBright 5y ago
> it starts to feel more like "tough on crime" is a philosophy rather than a data-driven, falsifiable theory. Just recently it was reported that after the cops were not allowed to chase car thiefs, car thefts went up 50%. https://mynorthwest.com/3327635/dramatic-rise-in-car-thefts-blamed-on-new-washington-state-law/ https://mynorthwest.com/3327635/dramatic-rise-in-car-thefts-... The recent decriminalization of looting has also resulted in a surge of stealing and crime in cities. Businesses have to spend a lot to armor their stores, hire security guards, and cover the losses. Many just close up shop and flee. This will increase poverty and inequality.
- danShumway 5y ago
  Eh, and this is always the response. The problem is that we saw crime increases before police protests and defunding movements, including in cities that aren't in California, so it really doesn't make sense to blame the recent "defund the police" movement for all of that increase. When you actually sit down and do the math, there is no strong correlation between police defunding/reforms and the recent crime wave -- cities that didn't alter their policing strategy also saw increases in crime. The other thing that's worth bringing up once again is that people don't just claim that decreasing crime... decreases crime. They claim it decreases inequality, they claim it's responsible for decreasing other ills. But the only stats that they're ever interested in are crime stats, at which point they just kind of jump to the conclusion that "of course businesses will have to spend more money to armor stores." There's not good data to support this -- the most convincing example is San Francisco, which when you dig into, also doesn't really hold up. Store closings in San Francisco aren't that much higher than the rest of the country. > This will increase poverty and inequality. And again... opposed to before? What's frustrating about this is that we have a strategy we're trying -- tough on crime -- that is not reducing inequality. And whenever anyone suggests alternative strategies, the response is, "that will make inequality worse." But the existing approach is not working right now. It's all based on fear of what's about to happen. It's not based on looking back at historical data and saying, "we implemented stop and frisk and then people got better jobs." Because that didn't happen. It's always based around this idea that society is about to fall apart, not tangible data that crime rates are causal for the other harms.

WalterBright 5y ago

1. Crime causes stress in high crime neighborhoods. 2. Crime impoverishes neighborhoods by causing people to spend money to protect themselves, hiring security guards, armoring their businesses, and simply driving businesses away. 3. Crime impoverishes families when members get jailed. 4. Crime impoverishes criminals because a criminal record greatly restricts opportunities for productive employment 5. Crime prevents criminals from getting an education 6. Crime is a zero-sum, adversarial economic system. Cooperation in a free market is far, far more productive to those who participate in it A person committing crimes will impoverish himself, his family, and his community.

WalterBright 5y ago
P.S. I am in favor of legalizing drugs because it will eliminate the associated crime. P.P.S. An awful lot of people look at the obvious correlation between poverty and crime, and assume that therefore poverty causes crime. I strongly suspect it's the other way around - crime produces poverty. P.P.P.S. No, I am not an advocate of being "tough on crime". I think most prison sentences are excessive. But decriminalizing and ignoring crime is the wrong answer. NYC's classifying armed robbery as not a violent crime is the wrong answer. (I've been robbed at gunpoint. Putting a gun in someone's face and threatening to blow their head off is a violent crime. Period.)
danShumway 5y ago
Okay, that's an interesting theory. Violent crime rates have decreased dramatically across America over the past several decades. Has inequality gone up or down? Because if it's gone up, then decreasing crime rates didn't do what your theory says they should do. The theory doesn't really matter that much if we can point at two arrows going in opposite directions and say, "look, making one of the arrows go down didn't make the other one go down." I'm kind of picking on you here, but to be clear, we can ask the same question in the opposite direction -- inequality has gone up by many metrics even though crime has gone down by many metrics, so clearly inequality doesn't have as much of a direct effect on crime rates as people say it does, or else crime rates wouldn't have gone down. But no matter what way you're looking at it, these really simplistic models just don't hold up to even surface-level scrutiny like, "are they playing out in the real world?" There has to be more complicated stuff going on or else the numbers would be different. And so it's just frustrating to hear people say, "the correct answer is to keep doing the exact same things we've been doing, and to hope that the results are different." There has been ample opportunity for policies focused on crime to prove that they solve these social issues, and they haven't solved them.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Would you start a business in a high crime neighborhood, or in a low crime one? If your dad was put in prison while you were growing up, would your standard of living go up or down? Other things drive inequality. For example, if you would be paid $12,000 for a job, and $10,000 for not working, which would you select? Would your standard of living be higher or lower?

WalterBright 5y ago

> it starts to feel more like "tough on crime" is a philosophy rather than a data-driven, falsifiable theory. Just recently it was reported that after the cops were not allowed to chase car thiefs, car thefts went up 50%. https://mynorthwest.com/3327635/dramatic-rise-in-car-thefts-blamed-on-new-washington-state-law/ https://mynorthwest.com/3327635/dramatic-rise-in-car-thefts-... The recent decriminalization of looting has also resulted in a surge of stealing and crime in cities. Businesses have to spend a lot to armor their stores, hire security guards, and cover the losses. Many just close up shop and flee. This will increase poverty and inequality.

danShumway 5y ago
Eh, and this is always the response. The problem is that we saw crime increases before police protests and defunding movements, including in cities that aren't in California, so it really doesn't make sense to blame the recent "defund the police" movement for all of that increase. When you actually sit down and do the math, there is no strong correlation between police defunding/reforms and the recent crime wave -- cities that didn't alter their policing strategy also saw increases in crime. The other thing that's worth bringing up once again is that people don't just claim that decreasing crime... decreases crime. They claim it decreases inequality, they claim it's responsible for decreasing other ills. But the only stats that they're ever interested in are crime stats, at which point they just kind of jump to the conclusion that "of course businesses will have to spend more money to armor stores." There's not good data to support this -- the most convincing example is San Francisco, which when you dig into, also doesn't really hold up. Store closings in San Francisco aren't that much higher than the rest of the country. > This will increase poverty and inequality. And again... opposed to before? What's frustrating about this is that we have a strategy we're trying -- tough on crime -- that is not reducing inequality. And whenever anyone suggests alternative strategies, the response is, "that will make inequality worse." But the existing approach is not working right now. It's all based on fear of what's about to happen. It's not based on looking back at historical data and saying, "we implemented stop and frisk and then people got better jobs." Because that didn't happen. It's always based around this idea that society is about to fall apart, not tangible data that crime rates are causal for the other harms.