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I see this cited very often, but what exactly should we take away from this? Just some general idea that "too many" people are in prison? I think most people a

I see this cited very often, but what exactly should we take away from this? Just some general idea that "too many" people are in prison? I think most people agree that low-level drug offenders shouldn't be filling our prisons. But most people who live/work/frequent urban areas will have a steady stream of anecdotes about someone being mugged or otherwise experiencing violence, serious property crime, open drug, etc. How can we reconcile the fact that we still encounter too many dangerous, antisocial people with the fact that we have high incarceration rates?

pessimizer 4y ago
> what exactly should we take away from this? Just some general idea that "too many" people are in prison? Yes. Same as when we compare what proportion of GDP we spend on health care and compare it to other countries with longer lifespans. We're supposed to take away the general idea that we are spending too much on too little healthcare. When we look at how much murder we have per capita and compare it to our number of prisoners per capita, we should take away the fact that we're getting too little murder reduction for too much imprisoning of people. > How can we reconcile the fact that we still encounter too many dangerous, antisocial people with the fact that we have high incarceration rates? We don't bother. If one's attempted solution of incarcerating poor people makes violence worse, the answer is obviously to incarcerate even more people.
saila 4y ago
I've lived in an urban area for the last ~25 years and I certainly don't have a "steady stream" of anecdotes of the type of crime you're describing. On the other hand, there is a steady stream of news articles about street crime, which often seems to portray the situation as worse than it is. People that comment under news headlines on Twitter, for example, sometimes seem completely detached from reality, thinking they'll be murdered in a Mad Max hellscape if they cross some imagined urban boundary (but many of these people have an ideological agenda, so it's not clear whether they actually believe this). Of course, there are issues in the city, just like there is everywhere, including distracted drivers (my worst fear), domestic abuse, and so on. Street crime certainly does exist, and is worse in some areas for sure, but is it really the biggest threat to our everyday safety? It's kind of like how my mom gets caught up worrying about gangs, and I always ask her if she's ever had an interaction with a gang member (the answer is always no). Sure, gangs exist and sometimes do bad things to uninvolved people, but if you compare, for example, domestic abuse or negligent car crashes, those are far more of a threat to most of us commenting here than gangs ever will be. EDIT: And to the extent that the U.S. does have more crime/incarceration than other countries, I'd ask what we're doing wrong, or more neutrally, what's different about our approach? One major issue is that our prison system seems particularly ineffective at rehabilitation and reintegrating people into society, so recidivism is high.
- bequanna 4y ago
  > And to the extent that the U.S. does have more crime/incarceration than other countries, I'd ask what we're doing wrong, or more neutrally, what's different about our approach? Why are you only considering our approach and not the differences in our citizens? Approaches don’t commit crimes, people do. What makes our _citizens_ different?

pessimizer 4y ago

> what exactly should we take away from this? Just some general idea that "too many" people are in prison? Yes. Same as when we compare what proportion of GDP we spend on health care and compare it to other countries with longer lifespans. We're supposed to take away the general idea that we are spending too much on too little healthcare. When we look at how much murder we have per capita and compare it to our number of prisoners per capita, we should take away the fact that we're getting too little murder reduction for too much imprisoning of people. > How can we reconcile the fact that we still encounter too many dangerous, antisocial people with the fact that we have high incarceration rates? We don't bother. If one's attempted solution of incarcerating poor people makes violence worse, the answer is obviously to incarcerate even more people.

saila 4y ago

I've lived in an urban area for the last ~25 years and I certainly don't have a "steady stream" of anecdotes of the type of crime you're describing. On the other hand, there is a steady stream of news articles about street crime, which often seems to portray the situation as worse than it is. People that comment under news headlines on Twitter, for example, sometimes seem completely detached from reality, thinking they'll be murdered in a Mad Max hellscape if they cross some imagined urban boundary (but many of these people have an ideological agenda, so it's not clear whether they actually believe this). Of course, there are issues in the city, just like there is everywhere, including distracted drivers (my worst fear), domestic abuse, and so on. Street crime certainly does exist, and is worse in some areas for sure, but is it really the biggest threat to our everyday safety? It's kind of like how my mom gets caught up worrying about gangs, and I always ask her if she's ever had an interaction with a gang member (the answer is always no). Sure, gangs exist and sometimes do bad things to uninvolved people, but if you compare, for example, domestic abuse or negligent car crashes, those are far more of a threat to most of us commenting here than gangs ever will be. EDIT: And to the extent that the U.S. does have more crime/incarceration than other countries, I'd ask what we're doing wrong, or more neutrally, what's different about our approach? One major issue is that our prison system seems particularly ineffective at rehabilitation and reintegrating people into society, so recidivism is high.

bequanna 4y ago
> And to the extent that the U.S. does have more crime/incarceration than other countries, I'd ask what we're doing wrong, or more neutrally, what's different about our approach? Why are you only considering our approach and not the differences in our citizens? Approaches don’t commit crimes, people do. What makes our _citizens_ different?