10 ms·

This is a strange letter. It claims specific policies have a direct causal relationship with crime and gun prevalence, and therefore the entire state of Illinoi

This is a strange letter. It claims specific policies have a direct causal relationship with crime and gun prevalence, and therefore the entire state of Illinois is unsafe. Do we actually have evidence that proves this out? (Edited to add: I’m admitting ignorance here, not trying to say the above is false! I am very good faith behavior here.) I am immediately questioning this depiction that public defenders and prosecutors are on even footing. It’s been well known public defenders are forced to take up an unreasonable number of cases where the prosecution decides to hand over the evidence to be debated about— the prosecution is supposed to hand over everything, but there’s been multiple cases of prosecutors happenstancely not handing over evidence that would prove innocence and then not losing their jobs for doing so!

quickthrower2 3y ago
I agree on the causation. During the same time hasn't the US had a major drug crisis across the country? He might be right but he is not showing much evidence (ironically) of it. PS Very cute username!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- pookha 3y ago
  Here's a data point...Harris county TX let a capital murder suspect out on some ludicrously low bond (9K, which meant he only spent 900 dollars to get out). Here's a description of the suspects: "They killed two people, and they also put a gun to a young mother with a 2-month-old, they put a gun to her head as well," said Andy Kahan with Crime Stoppers. Here's a guy in Harris county that's committed multiple capital murders and bonded out each time: https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/capital-murder-suspect-out-on-bond/285-4b912e55-4254-43f2-a7fd-a095bb09398a https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/capital-murder-suspe... That is psychopathy in the justice system.
  - masklinn 3y ago
    This has nothing to do with bail though? The point of bail is to ensure the suspect shows up to court appearances. The use of bail as a way to force remanding is essentially a multi-pronged tax on poorer defendants (as they either need a loan to post bail, or have to suffer the loss of income and psychological damage from detention). If the prosecution believes the accused is a danger to society, they should argue for remanding on those grounds, not ask for bails which have no actual relation to the accused’s likelihood of showing up.
  - manquer 3y ago
    Your language assumes guilt first , He is a murder suspect and alleged to have committed murders[1] until is proven guilty that distinction is important . The prosecution should have asked for higher bail if he was further threat to society or a flight risk not because the crimes were heinous, if they failed to prove it, that is on them. Far too easily we judge people as a society quickly and usually with strong racial bias. 1% of America is incarcerated far higher than any other developed economy. I don’t think we are predisposed to crime more than others perhaps we need to think how we ended up here ? [1] he probably did I am not arguing the facts of the case, keep in mind unlike civil cases where balance of probabilities is the deciding factor in criminal cases beyond reasonable doubt
    - iudqnolq 3y ago
      > The prosecution should have asked for higher bail if he was further threat to society If he is a risk to society that won't change however much money he pays. A millionaire murderer isn't less dangerous than a minimum wage one. Judges are allowed to deny bail based on dangerousness. That's the appropriate tool here, not setting a high dollar number.
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
      > The prosecution should have asked for higher bail if he was further threat to society or No. Bail shouldn't ever be excessive... if it's purpose is to ensure that they show for trial, then it can only be so high that the defendant should work towards avoiding forfeit. By definition, it must be affordable to them, if only barely so. It shouldn't be used to keep someone detained. In such cases, prosecutors should have the balls to demand they not be offered bail, and judges the same to withhold it. Every time a judge sets some ridiculous bail (I think I've personally heard amounts approaching eight digits and this for non-billionaires), it further conditions everyone including the public that high amounts are justifiable, it normalizes it. Given our reliance on the parasitic bail bonding industry, it turns these amounts into either a pre-conviction fine, buying their way out of detainment, or judicial/prosecutorial incompetence masquerading as prudence.
dubcanada 3y ago
Taking a look at the data up till 2019 it appears to be a bell curve with a increase into the 1980s followed by a decrease into 2019. I do wonder if this is more of a being involved in it for 20 years has just mentally drained this person.
- cm2187 3y ago
  I think most of the rise is in the last few years. I don't know about the whole of Illinois but Chicago (in which county this prosecutor seemed to be based), crime rate seems to have risen back to 1980s level. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago https://www.chicagobusiness.com/crains-forum-safer-chicago/chicago-violence-problem-debate-safety-inequality https://www.chicagobusiness.com/crains-forum-safer-chicago/c...
  - thebooktocome 3y ago
    The Wikipedia numbers are reported by the CPD and are therefore skewed by their political objectives.
crumpusBaggins 3y ago
i think the obvious policy he the former attorney lists as causing more crime: "Bond reform so no one stays in jail" if every american suspected of shooting someone is held in jail rather than released, we have just removed the most likely population of people who cause future shootings. from the safety of the publics perspective, now the surviving victims/witnesses are more likely to be victims of more crimes because the suspected violent attackers are back on the street. i dont really think there is room for debate on the "truthyness" of his statement, as if we kept more people in jail, less people would be out in public able to commit crime. how much is a good question tho.
- boplicity 3y ago
  The bond reform statement really doesn't line up with the facts. They're no longer requesting pre-trial detention of those charged with low-level nonviolent offense. [1] That just doesn't line up with the claims being presented. [1] https://theappeal.org/bail-reform-embraced-by-cook-county-states-attorney-3b9f45839ee/ https://theappeal.org/bail-reform-embraced-by-cook-county-st...
  - sct202 3y ago
    So it's a little more complicated than that with the electronic monitoring program where people charged with violent crimes can be electronically monitored at home. For example early last year, ~100 people charged with murder in Cook Country (where the prosecutor in the letter worked) were at home monitored. https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/cook-county-sheriff-tom-dart-says-there-are-serious-flaws-in-system-with-murder-suspects-being-out-on-electronic-monitoring/ https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/cook-county-sheriff-tom...
    - crumpusBaggins 3y ago
      my understanding is most cities lack resources to actually monitor the electronic things, so usually its after a new crime is commited, the police stories read like: "X suspected of serious crime violated his electoronic home monitoring Y amount of times, we rearrested him during the act of a seperate crime"
fatnoah 3y ago
> I am immediately questioning this depiction that public defenders and prosecutors are on even footing. I've always assumed, rightly or wrongly, that "the state" has an overwhelming advantage in terms of resources and manpower. From the letter: > we live in a society with adversarial court and criminal justice processes I've also assumed that our system of government and burden of proof in criminal cases is also designed to make it harder for the prosecution than for the defendant. Perhaps this is another case where I'm wrong, but I alway assumed that this was by design. The prosecution has a much higher burden of than the defense.
- enkid 3y ago
  Yes, that's explicitly the purpose. It's intended to be much more likely a guilty person is released than an innocent is imprisoned.
  - DicIfTEx 3y ago
    This principle is known as Blackstone's ratio: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio
setgree 3y ago
So I'm not the OP, but I found this letter interesting because I think it's a nice illustration of ways in which so-called 'liberal' policies drive some people to become more conservative. Politics is about perception, and whether or not a well-identified paper finds a causal link from bond policies to crime is kind of neither here nor there. His anecdotal evidence (gunfire within earshot, drug-dealing behind his house) suffices for him. It's really hard to argue with that kind of reasoning by pointing to abstractions, i.e. a statistical model. Basically when I see even faint signs of folks' favoring more authoritarian policies (e.g. being "tough on crime,") I want us to notice those signs, and think hard about how to keep that instinct from getting a full head of steam.
- disantlor 3y ago
  aka squeaky wheel gets the grease
- bluescrn 3y ago
  We're stuck with a bad choice between authoritarian right and authoritarian left these days. One side is 'tough on crime', the other is 'tough on speech'. As a disillusioned lefty, and thankfully not in the US, one of these scares me more than the other.
- bradleyjg 3y ago
  Basically when I see even faint signs of folks' favoring more authoritarian policies (e.g. being "tough on crime,") I want us to notice those signs, and think hard about how to keep that instinct from getting a full head of steam. If there’s a workable progressive solution to degraded qualify of life due to crime, including nonviolent crime—where is it working? SF? Portland? Chicago? DC? NYC? It’s not like there are republicans in any of these places, so what’s the issue? The proof of the pudding is in the tasting.
  - user3939382 3y ago
    > If there’s a workable progressive solution to degraded qualify of life due to crime, including nonviolent crime Here's a workable solution: stop spending over 3x what China does on "defense" and maintaining military bases all over the world and spend that money on homelessness, education, infrastructure, and jobs programs to get our middle class back.
pxmpxm 3y ago
This may be relevant - stats for offenses while on electronic monitoring: https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/250436168_10223451479529741_4567789509159940265_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=825194&_nc_ohc=v7lJ-R3DopoAX8M6GL9&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-2.xx&oh=00_AfBE79Wejxjfzgatigq1ZsAsDm9stzVvsg_gwZch1_NS4w&oe=6463AEDB https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/250436168...
- tedivm 3y ago
  >stats for offenses while on electronic monitoring That wording implies that these were crimes committed while electronic monitoring was in place. However, you shared a graphic that shows that more people who already committed crimes were being given electronic monitoring. Nothing you posted supports the idea that people on monitoring are committing crimes.
  - pxmpxm 3y ago
    Apologies, that is indeed the distribution of offenses for people on electronic monitoring.
chefandy 3y ago
Crime is a complex problem. Blaming prosecutorial policy is an odd, and likely deliberate choice. Talking about cities, Chicago has a crime rate in between Jacksonville FL and Oklahoma City OK, which are both very conservative cities. Among the highest crime states, conservative ones are very well represented. To me, this sounds like the precursor for a planned political career wherever he's moving to. Chicago is the icon for terrible awful no-good very bad liberal crime policies in popular conservative politics and an Illinois prosecutor who's moving because they just can't take it anymore would be optimally positioned to capitalize on that. Ah, politics.
- dublinben 3y ago
  When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Of course a career prosecutor would see a ‘crime problem’ as a result of insufficient prosecution. Crime is complex, but largely related to poverty and economic opportunity. The interventions that are likely to matter most are so far outside this person’s perspective, that they are unable to see how modest judicial reform is merely the nearest corner of the iceberg.
  - chefandy 3y ago
    Or, someone looking to get into hammer manufacturing might try to convince everybody else that everything is a nail.
- kevviiinn 3y ago
  This is an important point. Conservatives seem to love ranting about how rampant crime is in blue cities but when you do per capita comparisons of violent crime, especially involving guns, you see that conservative areas are far more crime ridden
  - rufus_foreman 3y ago
    At the city level? No. You can look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b..., sort by the homicide rate and almost all of the top 50 voted Democrat in the 2020 election. Not Tulsa or Oklahoma City, not Mobile. Eyeballing it, I don't see any other cities that voted Republican. High homicide rates are a blue city thing, almost exclusively.
garbagecoder 3y ago
He's going to run for office or try to parlay his experience into a political role, that's obvious.
- nxm 3y ago
  Except it’s not. Maybe he just wants a safe place to raise his child.
  - garbagecoder 3y ago
    He doesn't "just" want that because he's telling the whole world this. At a minimum, he wants some kind of attention.
natural219 3y ago
I believe he is referencing the passage of a major, controversial Illinois state bill that passed just five months ago, eliminating cash bail among a host of other enforcement restrictions against known criminals. So we wouldn't see any solid empirical data from this policy for the next 1-2 years at minimum. https://www.city-journal.org/article/illinois-un-safe-t-act https://www.city-journal.org/article/illinois-un-safe-t-act

quickthrower2 3y ago

I agree on the causation. During the same time hasn't the US had a major drug crisis across the country? He might be right but he is not showing much evidence (ironically) of it. PS Very cute username!

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
pookha 3y ago
Here's a data point...Harris county TX let a capital murder suspect out on some ludicrously low bond (9K, which meant he only spent 900 dollars to get out). Here's a description of the suspects: "They killed two people, and they also put a gun to a young mother with a 2-month-old, they put a gun to her head as well," said Andy Kahan with Crime Stoppers. Here's a guy in Harris county that's committed multiple capital murders and bonded out each time: https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/capital-murder-suspect-out-on-bond/285-4b912e55-4254-43f2-a7fd-a095bb09398a https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/capital-murder-suspe... That is psychopathy in the justice system.
- masklinn 3y ago
  This has nothing to do with bail though? The point of bail is to ensure the suspect shows up to court appearances. The use of bail as a way to force remanding is essentially a multi-pronged tax on poorer defendants (as they either need a loan to post bail, or have to suffer the loss of income and psychological damage from detention). If the prosecution believes the accused is a danger to society, they should argue for remanding on those grounds, not ask for bails which have no actual relation to the accused’s likelihood of showing up.
- manquer 3y ago
  Your language assumes guilt first , He is a murder suspect and alleged to have committed murders[1] until is proven guilty that distinction is important . The prosecution should have asked for higher bail if he was further threat to society or a flight risk not because the crimes were heinous, if they failed to prove it, that is on them. Far too easily we judge people as a society quickly and usually with strong racial bias. 1% of America is incarcerated far higher than any other developed economy. I don’t think we are predisposed to crime more than others perhaps we need to think how we ended up here ? [1] he probably did I am not arguing the facts of the case, keep in mind unlike civil cases where balance of probabilities is the deciding factor in criminal cases beyond reasonable doubt
  - iudqnolq 3y ago
    > The prosecution should have asked for higher bail if he was further threat to society If he is a risk to society that won't change however much money he pays. A millionaire murderer isn't less dangerous than a minimum wage one. Judges are allowed to deny bail based on dangerousness. That's the appropriate tool here, not setting a high dollar number.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    > The prosecution should have asked for higher bail if he was further threat to society or No. Bail shouldn't ever be excessive... if it's purpose is to ensure that they show for trial, then it can only be so high that the defendant should work towards avoiding forfeit. By definition, it must be affordable to them, if only barely so. It shouldn't be used to keep someone detained. In such cases, prosecutors should have the balls to demand they not be offered bail, and judges the same to withhold it. Every time a judge sets some ridiculous bail (I think I've personally heard amounts approaching eight digits and this for non-billionaires), it further conditions everyone including the public that high amounts are justifiable, it normalizes it. Given our reliance on the parasitic bail bonding industry, it turns these amounts into either a pre-conviction fine, buying their way out of detainment, or judicial/prosecutorial incompetence masquerading as prudence.

dubcanada 3y ago

Taking a look at the data up till 2019 it appears to be a bell curve with a increase into the 1980s followed by a decrease into 2019. I do wonder if this is more of a being involved in it for 20 years has just mentally drained this person.

cm2187 3y ago
I think most of the rise is in the last few years. I don't know about the whole of Illinois but Chicago (in which county this prosecutor seemed to be based), crime rate seems to have risen back to 1980s level. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago https://www.chicagobusiness.com/crains-forum-safer-chicago/chicago-violence-problem-debate-safety-inequality https://www.chicagobusiness.com/crains-forum-safer-chicago/c...
- thebooktocome 3y ago
  The Wikipedia numbers are reported by the CPD and are therefore skewed by their political objectives.

crumpusBaggins 3y ago

i think the obvious policy he the former attorney lists as causing more crime: "Bond reform so no one stays in jail" if every american suspected of shooting someone is held in jail rather than released, we have just removed the most likely population of people who cause future shootings. from the safety of the publics perspective, now the surviving victims/witnesses are more likely to be victims of more crimes because the suspected violent attackers are back on the street. i dont really think there is room for debate on the "truthyness" of his statement, as if we kept more people in jail, less people would be out in public able to commit crime. how much is a good question tho.

boplicity 3y ago
The bond reform statement really doesn't line up with the facts. They're no longer requesting pre-trial detention of those charged with low-level nonviolent offense. [1] That just doesn't line up with the claims being presented. [1] https://theappeal.org/bail-reform-embraced-by-cook-county-states-attorney-3b9f45839ee/ https://theappeal.org/bail-reform-embraced-by-cook-county-st...
- sct202 3y ago
  So it's a little more complicated than that with the electronic monitoring program where people charged with violent crimes can be electronically monitored at home. For example early last year, ~100 people charged with murder in Cook Country (where the prosecutor in the letter worked) were at home monitored. https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/cook-county-sheriff-tom-dart-says-there-are-serious-flaws-in-system-with-murder-suspects-being-out-on-electronic-monitoring/ https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/cook-county-sheriff-tom...
  - crumpusBaggins 3y ago
    my understanding is most cities lack resources to actually monitor the electronic things, so usually its after a new crime is commited, the police stories read like: "X suspected of serious crime violated his electoronic home monitoring Y amount of times, we rearrested him during the act of a seperate crime"

fatnoah 3y ago

> I am immediately questioning this depiction that public defenders and prosecutors are on even footing. I've always assumed, rightly or wrongly, that "the state" has an overwhelming advantage in terms of resources and manpower. From the letter: > we live in a society with adversarial court and criminal justice processes I've also assumed that our system of government and burden of proof in criminal cases is also designed to make it harder for the prosecution than for the defendant. Perhaps this is another case where I'm wrong, but I alway assumed that this was by design. The prosecution has a much higher burden of than the defense.

enkid 3y ago
Yes, that's explicitly the purpose. It's intended to be much more likely a guilty person is released than an innocent is imprisoned.
- DicIfTEx 3y ago
  This principle is known as Blackstone's ratio: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio

setgree 3y ago

So I'm not the OP, but I found this letter interesting because I think it's a nice illustration of ways in which so-called 'liberal' policies drive some people to become more conservative. Politics is about perception, and whether or not a well-identified paper finds a causal link from bond policies to crime is kind of neither here nor there. His anecdotal evidence (gunfire within earshot, drug-dealing behind his house) suffices for him. It's really hard to argue with that kind of reasoning by pointing to abstractions, i.e. a statistical model. Basically when I see even faint signs of folks' favoring more authoritarian policies (e.g. being "tough on crime,") I want us to notice those signs, and think hard about how to keep that instinct from getting a full head of steam.

disantlor 3y ago
aka squeaky wheel gets the grease
bluescrn 3y ago
We're stuck with a bad choice between authoritarian right and authoritarian left these days. One side is 'tough on crime', the other is 'tough on speech'. As a disillusioned lefty, and thankfully not in the US, one of these scares me more than the other.
bradleyjg 3y ago
Basically when I see even faint signs of folks' favoring more authoritarian policies (e.g. being "tough on crime,") I want us to notice those signs, and think hard about how to keep that instinct from getting a full head of steam. If there’s a workable progressive solution to degraded qualify of life due to crime, including nonviolent crime—where is it working? SF? Portland? Chicago? DC? NYC? It’s not like there are republicans in any of these places, so what’s the issue? The proof of the pudding is in the tasting.
- user3939382 3y ago
  > If there’s a workable progressive solution to degraded qualify of life due to crime, including nonviolent crime Here's a workable solution: stop spending over 3x what China does on "defense" and maintaining military bases all over the world and spend that money on homelessness, education, infrastructure, and jobs programs to get our middle class back.

pxmpxm 3y ago

This may be relevant - stats for offenses while on electronic monitoring: https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/250436168_10223451479529741_4567789509159940265_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=825194&_nc_ohc=v7lJ-R3DopoAX8M6GL9&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-2.xx&oh=00_AfBE79Wejxjfzgatigq1ZsAsDm9stzVvsg_gwZch1_NS4w&oe=6463AEDB https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/250436168...

tedivm 3y ago
>stats for offenses while on electronic monitoring That wording implies that these were crimes committed while electronic monitoring was in place. However, you shared a graphic that shows that more people who already committed crimes were being given electronic monitoring. Nothing you posted supports the idea that people on monitoring are committing crimes.
- pxmpxm 3y ago
  Apologies, that is indeed the distribution of offenses for people on electronic monitoring.

chefandy 3y ago

Crime is a complex problem. Blaming prosecutorial policy is an odd, and likely deliberate choice. Talking about cities, Chicago has a crime rate in between Jacksonville FL and Oklahoma City OK, which are both very conservative cities. Among the highest crime states, conservative ones are very well represented. To me, this sounds like the precursor for a planned political career wherever he's moving to. Chicago is the icon for terrible awful no-good very bad liberal crime policies in popular conservative politics and an Illinois prosecutor who's moving because they just can't take it anymore would be optimally positioned to capitalize on that. Ah, politics.

dublinben 3y ago
When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Of course a career prosecutor would see a ‘crime problem’ as a result of insufficient prosecution. Crime is complex, but largely related to poverty and economic opportunity. The interventions that are likely to matter most are so far outside this person’s perspective, that they are unable to see how modest judicial reform is merely the nearest corner of the iceberg.
- chefandy 3y ago
  Or, someone looking to get into hammer manufacturing might try to convince everybody else that everything is a nail.
kevviiinn 3y ago
This is an important point. Conservatives seem to love ranting about how rampant crime is in blue cities but when you do per capita comparisons of violent crime, especially involving guns, you see that conservative areas are far more crime ridden
- rufus_foreman 3y ago
  At the city level? No. You can look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b..., sort by the homicide rate and almost all of the top 50 voted Democrat in the 2020 election. Not Tulsa or Oklahoma City, not Mobile. Eyeballing it, I don't see any other cities that voted Republican. High homicide rates are a blue city thing, almost exclusively.

garbagecoder 3y ago

He's going to run for office or try to parlay his experience into a political role, that's obvious.

nxm 3y ago
Except it’s not. Maybe he just wants a safe place to raise his child.
- garbagecoder 3y ago
  He doesn't "just" want that because he's telling the whole world this. At a minimum, he wants some kind of attention.

natural219 3y ago

I believe he is referencing the passage of a major, controversial Illinois state bill that passed just five months ago, eliminating cash bail among a host of other enforcement restrictions against known criminals. So we wouldn't see any solid empirical data from this policy for the next 1-2 years at minimum. https://www.city-journal.org/article/illinois-un-safe-t-act https://www.city-journal.org/article/illinois-un-safe-t-act