5 ms·

Aren’t the US waayyy ahead of other developed countries in term of incarcerating its population? How is that working so far? Mass incarceration doesn’t seem t

Aren’t the US waayyy ahead of other developed countries in term of incarcerating its population? How is that working so far? Mass incarceration doesn’t seem to be working well so far. Maybe it would be time to stop treating the symptoms and try a different approach?

mrguyorama 4y ago
Only if your crime is smoking weed. There's a huge amount of "we won't do anything about it" for property crimes among police departments now. It's hard work, and not flashy, so cops don't do it. They have largely not been punished in any way for this.
- lliamander 4y ago
  Most people in prisons are there for violent crimes (partly because they tend to have longer sentences). Property crimes are definitely under-policed.
  - rom-antics 4y ago
    According to this page, drug offenses are by far the highest category. https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen...
    - lliamander 4y ago
      That is true for federal prisons. For state prisons, where the majority of criminals are incarcerated, 62% of prisoners are there for violent crimes. https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2021-statistical-tables https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2021-stat...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    Is it possible the US has an unusually violent population? Perhaps due to greater car usage during the leaded petrol era?
    - lliamander 4y ago
      The rates of violence are highly region dependent. Much of the US has quite low rates of violence, with a few localities that have quite high levels. Lead may well be a contributing factor, but there are probably a number of other causal factors at play in those populations.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  > They have largely not been punished in any way for this. Of course not, the lack of policing isn't because police abruptly became lazy, it's because of intense public pressure on cities to reduce the amount of policing. Since 2014, municipalities have been desperately trying to avoid becoming the next Ferguson by pressuring their officers to minimize discretionary policing (and the incumbent potential for "bad optics"). Many municipalities have passed laws which restrict police (e.g., "no pursuit" laws), some have made the job so unpleasant that their police departments have massive attrition (e.g., Chicago), and some others have passed formal policies to reduce the amount of police/policing (e.g., Minneapolis). Some cities elected soft-on-crime prosecutors who release or minimally-sentence anyone the police apprehend, further eroding the incentive of officers to make arrests. It's not like police need to be punished for not policing, we just need to take away the negative incentives for policing. Of course, police accountability remains an issue, but the answer isn't a naive, blanket reduction in policing (instead, repeal qualified immunity, weaken police unions, raise the bar for qualification, mandate mental health evals, etc).
lliamander 4y ago
Comparisons of policies between different countries is notoriously error prone because often there are so many differences between the populations. If you look at the US compared to itself over time, increased policing and encarceration (such as during the 90's) does in fact lead to lower crime. The relative absence of policing and prosecution since 2020 have resulted in a sharp increase in crime. I'm certainly open to the idea that sentences should be shorter, but I think that would need to come with a corresponding increase in the number of police - and in their willingness to enforce laws. This would be under the theory that increasing the odds that you will be punished is more of a deterrent than increasing the severity of the punishment.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  > The relative absence of policing and prosecution since 2020 have resulted in a sharp increase in crime. This has been going on since ~2014, and you're absolutely spot-on that it absolutely correlates with reductions in the amount of policing. Roland Fryer (famed Harvard economist) and Tanaya Devi wrote a paper about this a couple years ago (but many other papers have similar findings): https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27324/w27324.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27324/w273...
throwaway894345 4y ago
Crime is complex, but we know with certainty that one of its causes is crime. If you grow up in a high-crime neighborhood, crime is a normal part of your daily life, and you are much more likely to engage in crime yourself (thus perpetuating the cycle) than someone from a low-crime community. As such, incarceration is addressing a root cause. Further, virtually no one in American politics is arguing that incarceration is sufficient, but rather the debate is about whether or not it is necessary or if we can (for example) replace police with social workers and call it a day.
dheera 4y ago
> Mass incarceration doesn’t seem to be working well so far. No, they're not incarcerating the right people. They're incarcerating some financial idiots like SBF and Holmes and some weed users who don't threaten my physical safety at all and I frankly don't give a damn about, while the people running around punching Asian grandmothers in SF and smashing local Asian businesses are running free.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  I mean, I'm glad that white collar crime is prosecuted, and I don't think the majority of people in prisons are "like SBF and Holmes". I just want to roll back policing to pre-BLM levels.
  - dheera 4y ago
    I mean, I'm selfish. SBF didn't cause me to lose money. He isn't even remotely on my radar. You know who did? The fucker who broke into my car last year and stole $5000 worth of stuff. What's that guy doing? Roaming the streets breaking and smashing more cars, probably, considering the police dropped the case.
    - throwaway894345 4y ago
      I get it, but (1) we don't have to choose and (2) if we don't prosecute white collar crime you will eventually lose money to it.
    - it_citizen 4y ago
      White collar damages are more indirect but they hurt society just as much if not more. Imagine how much better US cities would be if the white collars that pushed oxicontin and fentanyls by corrupting doctors, officials and insurance companies had been more scared of consequences. But no, most of them still roam free.
      - throwaway894345 4y ago
TreeRingCounter 4y ago
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mrguyorama 4y ago

Only if your crime is smoking weed. There's a huge amount of "we won't do anything about it" for property crimes among police departments now. It's hard work, and not flashy, so cops don't do it. They have largely not been punished in any way for this.

lliamander 4y ago
Most people in prisons are there for violent crimes (partly because they tend to have longer sentences). Property crimes are definitely under-policed.
- rom-antics 4y ago
  According to this page, drug offenses are by far the highest category. https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen...
  - lliamander 4y ago
    That is true for federal prisons. For state prisons, where the majority of criminals are incarcerated, 62% of prisoners are there for violent crimes. https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2021-statistical-tables https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2021-stat...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Is it possible the US has an unusually violent population? Perhaps due to greater car usage during the leaded petrol era?
  - lliamander 4y ago
    The rates of violence are highly region dependent. Much of the US has quite low rates of violence, with a few localities that have quite high levels. Lead may well be a contributing factor, but there are probably a number of other causal factors at play in those populations.
throwaway894345 4y ago
> They have largely not been punished in any way for this. Of course not, the lack of policing isn't because police abruptly became lazy, it's because of intense public pressure on cities to reduce the amount of policing. Since 2014, municipalities have been desperately trying to avoid becoming the next Ferguson by pressuring their officers to minimize discretionary policing (and the incumbent potential for "bad optics"). Many municipalities have passed laws which restrict police (e.g., "no pursuit" laws), some have made the job so unpleasant that their police departments have massive attrition (e.g., Chicago), and some others have passed formal policies to reduce the amount of police/policing (e.g., Minneapolis). Some cities elected soft-on-crime prosecutors who release or minimally-sentence anyone the police apprehend, further eroding the incentive of officers to make arrests. It's not like police need to be punished for not policing, we just need to take away the negative incentives for policing. Of course, police accountability remains an issue, but the answer isn't a naive, blanket reduction in policing (instead, repeal qualified immunity, weaken police unions, raise the bar for qualification, mandate mental health evals, etc).

lliamander 4y ago

Comparisons of policies between different countries is notoriously error prone because often there are so many differences between the populations. If you look at the US compared to itself over time, increased policing and encarceration (such as during the 90's) does in fact lead to lower crime. The relative absence of policing and prosecution since 2020 have resulted in a sharp increase in crime. I'm certainly open to the idea that sentences should be shorter, but I think that would need to come with a corresponding increase in the number of police - and in their willingness to enforce laws. This would be under the theory that increasing the odds that you will be punished is more of a deterrent than increasing the severity of the punishment.

throwaway894345 4y ago
> The relative absence of policing and prosecution since 2020 have resulted in a sharp increase in crime. This has been going on since ~2014, and you're absolutely spot-on that it absolutely correlates with reductions in the amount of policing. Roland Fryer (famed Harvard economist) and Tanaya Devi wrote a paper about this a couple years ago (but many other papers have similar findings): https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27324/w27324.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27324/w273...

throwaway894345 4y ago

Crime is complex, but we know with certainty that one of its causes is crime. If you grow up in a high-crime neighborhood, crime is a normal part of your daily life, and you are much more likely to engage in crime yourself (thus perpetuating the cycle) than someone from a low-crime community. As such, incarceration is addressing a root cause. Further, virtually no one in American politics is arguing that incarceration is sufficient, but rather the debate is about whether or not it is necessary or if we can (for example) replace police with social workers and call it a day.

dheera 4y ago

> Mass incarceration doesn’t seem to be working well so far. No, they're not incarcerating the right people. They're incarcerating some financial idiots like SBF and Holmes and some weed users who don't threaten my physical safety at all and I frankly don't give a damn about, while the people running around punching Asian grandmothers in SF and smashing local Asian businesses are running free.

throwaway894345 4y ago
I mean, I'm glad that white collar crime is prosecuted, and I don't think the majority of people in prisons are "like SBF and Holmes". I just want to roll back policing to pre-BLM levels.
- dheera 4y ago
  I mean, I'm selfish. SBF didn't cause me to lose money. He isn't even remotely on my radar. You know who did? The fucker who broke into my car last year and stole $5000 worth of stuff. What's that guy doing? Roaming the streets breaking and smashing more cars, probably, considering the police dropped the case.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    I get it, but (1) we don't have to choose and (2) if we don't prosecute white collar crime you will eventually lose money to it.
  - it_citizen 4y ago
    White collar damages are more indirect but they hurt society just as much if not more. Imagine how much better US cities would be if the white collars that pushed oxicontin and fentanyls by corrupting doctors, officials and insurance companies had been more scared of consequences. But no, most of them still roam free.
    - throwaway894345 4y ago

TreeRingCounter 4y ago

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