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> a friendly reminder that violent and property crimes in the US have been on an overall downward trend for half a century This is a generic argument against p

> a friendly reminder that violent and property crimes in the US have been on an overall downward trend for half a century This is a generic argument against progress. Imagine if we shrugged off vaccines because "the pathogen-derived death rate is trending down over the last 200 years" or if we rebutted #metoo with "a friendly reminder that women's rights are trending up over the last 100 years". Just because something was worse 50 years ago doesn't mean we should content ourselves with a worsening trend now. > Also, people generally do crime because of lack of opportunity or options, which is why many countries treat the criminal justice system as an opportunity to rehabilitate people. If the premise were true, crime should have gone down in the face of the red-hot labor market we had been experiencing over the last few years. Even still, if you can find a way to reliably rehabilitate violent offenders, I doubt you'd face any serious objection. In the meanwhile though, the soft-on-crime approach to violent crime (both with respect to reducing the amount of discretionary policing and catch-and-release approach to prosecution) appears to be (predictably) devastating communities and (predictably) further perpetuating the cycle of violent crime.

KennyBlanken 4y ago
> If the premise were true, crime should have gone down in the face of the red-hot labor market we had been experiencing over the last few years. The rising-tide "red-hot labor market" didn't lift all boats, the pandemic severely impacted service industry workers, inflation / cost of living impacts low income people far more than anyone else, wealth consolidated at an extremely accelerated pace during the pandemic... > Even still, if you can find a way to reliably rehabilitate violent offenders, I doubt you'd face any serious objection. Which part of "the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world" did you not understand? The nordic countries are particularly successful at this. Turns out that universal healthcare (including proper mental health services), social safety support systems, and a detention systems working to help people before putting them back into society, work better than just shoving people into a concrete cube and tossing them out on the street into a society heavily stacked against them with a parole officer breathing down their neck. Gee, I wonder why they return to crime here?
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  > Which part of "the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world" did you not understand? Suggesting that "the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world" implies that some significant number of Americans would reject rehabilitation demonstrates a complete and obvious failure to reason, and personally I find it weird that you would broadcast that publicly but carry on... > Turns out that universal healthcare (including proper mental health services), social safety support systems, and a detention systems working to help people before putting them back into society, work better than just shoving people into a concrete cube and tossing them out on the street into a society heavily stacked against them with a parole officer breathing down their neck. Gee, I wonder why they return to crime here? Right, and like most Americans, I agree with those things, the difference is that I don't believe we should throw our most vulnerable communities to the wolves by sharply reducing policing without first establishing those other crime-deterring alternatives. I don't think it's sufficient to say "we'll definitely address the root causes one day in the future, so it's totally fine to reduce policing now". And indeed, that's what was demanded: BLM was an anti-policing movement first and foremost and "defund the police" and "abolish the police" were not euphemisms for "establish a stronger social safety net before reducing policing".

KennyBlanken 4y ago

> If the premise were true, crime should have gone down in the face of the red-hot labor market we had been experiencing over the last few years. The rising-tide "red-hot labor market" didn't lift all boats, the pandemic severely impacted service industry workers, inflation / cost of living impacts low income people far more than anyone else, wealth consolidated at an extremely accelerated pace during the pandemic... > Even still, if you can find a way to reliably rehabilitate violent offenders, I doubt you'd face any serious objection. Which part of "the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world" did you not understand? The nordic countries are particularly successful at this. Turns out that universal healthcare (including proper mental health services), social safety support systems, and a detention systems working to help people before putting them back into society, work better than just shoving people into a concrete cube and tossing them out on the street into a society heavily stacked against them with a parole officer breathing down their neck. Gee, I wonder why they return to crime here?

throwaway894345 4y ago
> Which part of "the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world" did you not understand? Suggesting that "the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world" implies that some significant number of Americans would reject rehabilitation demonstrates a complete and obvious failure to reason, and personally I find it weird that you would broadcast that publicly but carry on... > Turns out that universal healthcare (including proper mental health services), social safety support systems, and a detention systems working to help people before putting them back into society, work better than just shoving people into a concrete cube and tossing them out on the street into a society heavily stacked against them with a parole officer breathing down their neck. Gee, I wonder why they return to crime here? Right, and like most Americans, I agree with those things, the difference is that I don't believe we should throw our most vulnerable communities to the wolves by sharply reducing policing without first establishing those other crime-deterring alternatives. I don't think it's sufficient to say "we'll definitely address the root causes one day in the future, so it's totally fine to reduce policing now". And indeed, that's what was demanded: BLM was an anti-policing movement first and foremost and "defund the police" and "abolish the police" were not euphemisms for "establish a stronger social safety net before reducing policing".