If we put Andre in prison, Seattle's taxpayers would be paying $3,400/mo to keep him there[1]. I think that's a waste of money. You might say that putting Andr

If we put Andre in prison, Seattle's taxpayers would be paying $3,400/mo to keep him there[1]. I think that's a waste of money. You might say that putting Andre in prison is worth it, because it would discourage him from stealing in the future. Looking at the research around the topic, the US Sentencing Commission found that there is no statistically significant deterrent effect from sentences under 5 years [2]. Other studies have found no deterrent effect from any length of sentencing [3]. So now we're looking at a minimum 5 year sentence for an uncertain positive effect. If prison were a drug or a program that cost $3,400/mo and had to be taken for 5 years for an effect that may not even be real, we would call it a scam. I'm not saying Andre is in the right. I'm saying the carceral way of dealing with poor people who commit petty crimes is expensive and ineffective (maybe even more so than giving someone a free apartment and letting him loiter on the street corner), and we need to consider a different way forward. [1] https://www.doc.wa.gov/docs/publications/reports/200-AR001.pdf https://www.doc.wa.gov/docs/publications/reports/200-AR001.p... [2] https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/research-publications/2020/20200429_Recidivism-SentLength.pdf https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pu... [3] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0032885511415224?journalCode=tpjd https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/003288551141522...