14 ms·

But what if our system is actually erring in the other direction? There are undoubtedly quite a few Americans who are in correctional supervision but shouldn't

by moldbug 15y ago

But what if our system is actually erring in the other direction? There are undoubtedly quite a few Americans who are in correctional supervision but shouldn't be. There are also quite a few Americans who should be in correctional supervision, but aren't. (For a bare start, suppose we believe the commonly quoted meme that there are 1 million gang members in America.) In either case, I think the most basic question is: why are there so many criminals? What about the present-day American system of government is so amazingly criminogenic? For instance, one commonly quoted "root cause" is our proverbial callousness to important issues of social justice. Is an absence of social justice the problem? Let's consider some evidence. Robbery is a pretty good "index crime." For instance, in 1900, there was about 1 robbery per day in all of England (source: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/rp99/rp99-111.pdf http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/rp99...). This is roughly a factor of 35 lower than current reported crime rates (same source) in the ol' Sceptered Island - assuming you trust HMG's statistics. And all crime statistics in all countries everywhere are generally admitted by all informed observers to be utterly buggered to hell. (example: http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-05-04/news/the-nypd-tapes-inside-bed-stuy-s-81st-precinct/ http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-05-04/news/the-nypd-tapes-i...) In any case, you may compare the public concern for social justice in England, in 1900 and 2000, and note precisely the reverse of the correlation predicted by the hypothesis. Japan has extremely low crime as well, and is probably the least Americanized of all First World nations today. Clearly, it is physically possible for the State to eradicate crime. Clearly, the American system of government, at home or abroad, seems to carry with it unusually high levels of crime and disorder, at least by historical First World standards. But why? If what we need isn't more social justice, what is it? (edit: I just checked and this parliament.co.uk link isn't the right one for my robbery numbers - I'll have to look. Still, money graf - "The number of indictable offences per thousand population in 1900 was 2.4 and in 1997 the figure was 89.1." Two orders of magnitude any way you slice it.)

moldbug 15y ago
Sometimes I think the way HN should work is not that you can't both downvote and comment, but that you can't downvote and not comment.
- Retric 15y ago
  Violent crime in the US and around the industrialized world has been on a long downward trend for literally thousands of years. Trying to analyze any current system without at least looking at how much things have improved over the last 20, 200, AND 2000 years completely misses why things are the way they are. PS: There are far more laws to break now than in the past which again shifts the picture greatly. Also, Island nations have less drug crime because it's harder to bring the stuff in.
  - moldbug 15y ago
    Has the industrialized world existed for "literally thousands of years"? I'm not sure any statistical trends are consistent in this timeframe. How do you separate crime and war, for instance? Actually, law enforcement in the Edwardian period was much more strict. At that point in history the "broken windows" theory of crime is not a theory - it is a piece of everyday common sense which it has never occurred to anyone to question. Juridical punishment in the Anglo-American era decreases more or less monotonically since (at least) the Elizabethan age. America is in all eras notorious for endemic crime. In general, by the end of the 19th century there is no significant criminal underclass in Protestant Europe. Of course, in Naples you can get knifed in an alley at any time since the 5th century BC, so everything is relative. This book (1921) is a pretty good look at American and European police systems in the prewar era: http://books.google.com/books?id=Q90qAAAAMAAJ http://books.google.com/books?id=Q90qAAAAMAAJ. Fosdick was later head of the Rockefeller Foundation so you know he's legit. (Edit: book link was wrong.)
    - moldbug 15y ago
      From Fosdick's book (p. 14): "The chief constable for Edinburgh in his annual report for 1915 wrote as follows: 'I regret to state that while crimes against the person have considerably decreased, a number of serious crimes under the heading of homicide were reported during the year, namely one murder, one attempted murder, and five cases of culpable homicide. The one murder was an abortion case; two of the culpable homicides were cases in which infants had died from neglect; a third was a vehicular accident case; and two others, after full investigation by the Crown Authorities, were not proceeded with.' Edinburgh is a city in excess of 300,000 population. Surely a chief of police in an American city of equal size would have reasons for pride rather than regret if he could point to such a record." In 2012, said American chief of police wouldn't have reasons for pride - he'd probably be committed to an insane asylum. But even a century ago, American crime is an order of magnitude above British crime. Yes. New York 30 years ago was insane. Giuliani cleaned it up. This is a case of mistaking the exception for the trend. Moreover, all chic New Yorker-reading New Yorkers are now free to think like Gopnik, as they stroll around Central Park at midnight or whatever - a blatant invitation for the trend to resume. Remember, it took the Dinkins era to get these people to elect a Republican in the first place. But if you asked their great-grandfathers of Fosdick's era, they'd have been quite astonished to learn that Central Park could ever become a predator's den, day or night - and would associate such an outcome with the complete collapse of American civilization. Which obviously hasn't happened, so nobody's perfect.
JamesNelson 15y ago
> Japan has extremely low crime as well, and is probably the least Americanized of all First World nations today. Clearly, it is physically possible for the State to eradicate crime. It is possible that the fact that Japan is the least Americanized of First World countries is the reason behind it's low crime rates. I wonder if it is their culture, not their government, which keeps the crime low.
- moldbug 15y ago
  That would certainly seem the null hypothesis. But how do you separate culture and government? Our culture would never tolerate the Japanese criminal justice system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Japan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Japan) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Japan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Japa...). From the first page: "In 1989 Japan experienced 1.3 robberies per 100,000 population, compared with 48.6 for West Germany, 65.8 for Great Britain, and 233.0 for the United States." There's that two orders of magnitude again. Suppose crime in America has halved since 1989. (It hasn't.) From the Japanese perspective, wouldn't a writer still seem a little odd in exulting over the conquest of crime? When there are still two orders of magnitude more robberies?
- bokonist 15y ago
  If you believe the autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa, it is the police that are responsible. Fukuzawa lived in Japan during the mid to late 1800's, before and after the time of the Meiji restoration. At that time Japan had quite a lot of crime, the roads were not safe, and if you passed another person along the roads you would both clutch your sword and maintain a wary eye. His description sounds a lot like walking in certain neighborhoods of Philadelphia. But later in his life, that was no longer the case, and he credits the creation of a professional police force. Read this article about the police and law enforcement in Japan: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2011/03/stop_thief_thank_you.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2011/0... Notice how very, very different it is than the policing of say, Baltimore.
phillmv 15y ago
This is why you are being downvoted: You ask two unrelated question to which you provide no proof. >But what if our system is actually erring in the other direction? Okay. How? Every other nation on earth has lower incarceration rates, and a fair number of them are safer than the US. So given that that are still criminals on the outside, the answer is that you need to become more efficient at apprehending the right people - not increase incarceration rates. >I think the most basic question is: why are there so many criminals? What about the present-day American system of government is so amazingly criminogenic? Criminals break laws; laws are often injust. The War on Drugs, and mandatory sentencing. >If what we need isn't more social justice, what is it? This is entirely unsubstantiated by anything you wrote preceding this sentence. Frankly, it's kind of confused.
- moldbug 15y ago
  Perhaps someone else can parse this better than me. I can make sense of one of these lines: "Criminals break laws; laws are often injust. The War on Drugs, and mandatory sentencing." I think behind this line is lurking the belief that America's prisons are full of Humboldt County potheads, or something like that. The typical American in jail for drug offenses isn't a system administrator who made the mistake of toking up one night. It's a gang member whose real offense is being a worthless thug. The prosecutors and LEOs who busted him are experts in the technical details of putting worthless thugs in jail, to the extent that this remains possible. Nonetheless, all major American cities retain a very substantial population of worthless thugs. If you're unaware of this reality, I strongly recommend this Chicago cop blog: http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/ http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/. Or you could watch "The Wire" - I hear it's available on DVD. Last month, my wife and daughter were leaving a child's birthday party in the outer Mission, SF, when bullets flew down the street past them, followed by a worthless thug who ran past them gun in hand. You can argue that Bayshore Blvd. is a lousy place to put a space that hosts children's birthday parties, and I'd agree. Still, it's my country - why shouldn't I feel safe in it, anywhere, day or night?
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    Being a "worthless thug" is not a crime in itself. Running down a street while firing a gun and endangering bystanders is (or, at the very least, should be).
nitrogen 15y ago
Robbery is a pretty good "index crime." For instance, in 1900, there was about 1 robbery per day in all of England (source: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/rp99... http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/rp99...). This is roughly a factor of 35 lower than current reported crime rates (same source) in the ol' Sceptered Island - assuming you trust HMG's statistics. And all crime statistics in all countries everywhere are generally admitted by all informed observers to be utterly buggered to hell. (example: http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-05-04/news/the-nypd-tapes-i... http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-05-04/news/the-nypd-tapes-i...) But what is it an index of? What hidden variable influences robbery numbers? Our understanding of crime is incomplete without considering the reasons why crimes are committed (without resorting to the fundamental attribution error by branding those who commit crimes as "criminals" by nature). Some questions to ask about the given example of robbery: Why do the people committing robberies feel the need to commit them? What makes robbery more rewarding than other potential sources of money or thrills? Have robberies increased because the average person now has a lot more of value to take? How many robberies are indirectly caused by the criminalization of lesser offenses? (e.g. criminalization of drug M -> price of drug goes up + M user loses job -> M user has to resort to robbery to survive)
- harshreality 15y ago
  Your links are broken. However, if the first one says what you claim, it seems to be a lie: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7922755/England-has-worse-crime-rate-than-the-US-says-Civitas-study.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7922755... I don't care to be able to say that England has a worse crime rate than the U.S. I think given the sociological makeup, [lack of] urban planning, poorly run social services, and an overarching cultural dislike of some forms of authority, it would be surprising if any developed country had crime rates as bad as we do. While not ultimate causes, there are some not so hidden variables: Population density. There's some idea that it increases stress, which increases propensity to commit crimes. Sale of contraband, particularly drugs, fuels competition for territory and customers which, in an illegal market, is primarily dealt with through violence. Brainstorming about gang violence, it seems to me to be mostly about a culture that demands unrealistic levels of respect, and demands taking advantage of any perceived weakness. If someone disrespects a gang member, it's my understanding that they have to retaliate with violence. If they don't, or if they're seen as weak for some other reason, that's an invitation for an opposing gang to put the weak out of their misery. You can't have a stable crime-free area with factions like that running around.

by moldbug 15y ago

moldbug 15y ago

Sometimes I think the way HN should work is not that you can't both downvote and comment, but that you can't downvote and not comment.

Retric 15y ago
Violent crime in the US and around the industrialized world has been on a long downward trend for literally thousands of years. Trying to analyze any current system without at least looking at how much things have improved over the last 20, 200, AND 2000 years completely misses why things are the way they are. PS: There are far more laws to break now than in the past which again shifts the picture greatly. Also, Island nations have less drug crime because it's harder to bring the stuff in.
- moldbug 15y ago
  Has the industrialized world existed for "literally thousands of years"? I'm not sure any statistical trends are consistent in this timeframe. How do you separate crime and war, for instance? Actually, law enforcement in the Edwardian period was much more strict. At that point in history the "broken windows" theory of crime is not a theory - it is a piece of everyday common sense which it has never occurred to anyone to question. Juridical punishment in the Anglo-American era decreases more or less monotonically since (at least) the Elizabethan age. America is in all eras notorious for endemic crime. In general, by the end of the 19th century there is no significant criminal underclass in Protestant Europe. Of course, in Naples you can get knifed in an alley at any time since the 5th century BC, so everything is relative. This book (1921) is a pretty good look at American and European police systems in the prewar era: http://books.google.com/books?id=Q90qAAAAMAAJ http://books.google.com/books?id=Q90qAAAAMAAJ. Fosdick was later head of the Rockefeller Foundation so you know he's legit. (Edit: book link was wrong.)
  - moldbug 15y ago
    From Fosdick's book (p. 14): "The chief constable for Edinburgh in his annual report for 1915 wrote as follows: 'I regret to state that while crimes against the person have considerably decreased, a number of serious crimes under the heading of homicide were reported during the year, namely one murder, one attempted murder, and five cases of culpable homicide. The one murder was an abortion case; two of the culpable homicides were cases in which infants had died from neglect; a third was a vehicular accident case; and two others, after full investigation by the Crown Authorities, were not proceeded with.' Edinburgh is a city in excess of 300,000 population. Surely a chief of police in an American city of equal size would have reasons for pride rather than regret if he could point to such a record." In 2012, said American chief of police wouldn't have reasons for pride - he'd probably be committed to an insane asylum. But even a century ago, American crime is an order of magnitude above British crime. Yes. New York 30 years ago was insane. Giuliani cleaned it up. This is a case of mistaking the exception for the trend. Moreover, all chic New Yorker-reading New Yorkers are now free to think like Gopnik, as they stroll around Central Park at midnight or whatever - a blatant invitation for the trend to resume. Remember, it took the Dinkins era to get these people to elect a Republican in the first place. But if you asked their great-grandfathers of Fosdick's era, they'd have been quite astonished to learn that Central Park could ever become a predator's den, day or night - and would associate such an outcome with the complete collapse of American civilization. Which obviously hasn't happened, so nobody's perfect.

JamesNelson 15y ago

> Japan has extremely low crime as well, and is probably the least Americanized of all First World nations today. Clearly, it is physically possible for the State to eradicate crime. It is possible that the fact that Japan is the least Americanized of First World countries is the reason behind it's low crime rates. I wonder if it is their culture, not their government, which keeps the crime low.

moldbug 15y ago
That would certainly seem the null hypothesis. But how do you separate culture and government? Our culture would never tolerate the Japanese criminal justice system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Japan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Japan) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Japan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Japa...). From the first page: "In 1989 Japan experienced 1.3 robberies per 100,000 population, compared with 48.6 for West Germany, 65.8 for Great Britain, and 233.0 for the United States." There's that two orders of magnitude again. Suppose crime in America has halved since 1989. (It hasn't.) From the Japanese perspective, wouldn't a writer still seem a little odd in exulting over the conquest of crime? When there are still two orders of magnitude more robberies?
bokonist 15y ago
If you believe the autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa, it is the police that are responsible. Fukuzawa lived in Japan during the mid to late 1800's, before and after the time of the Meiji restoration. At that time Japan had quite a lot of crime, the roads were not safe, and if you passed another person along the roads you would both clutch your sword and maintain a wary eye. His description sounds a lot like walking in certain neighborhoods of Philadelphia. But later in his life, that was no longer the case, and he credits the creation of a professional police force. Read this article about the police and law enforcement in Japan: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2011/03/stop_thief_thank_you.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2011/0... Notice how very, very different it is than the policing of say, Baltimore.

phillmv 15y ago

This is why you are being downvoted: You ask two unrelated question to which you provide no proof. >But what if our system is actually erring in the other direction? Okay. How? Every other nation on earth has lower incarceration rates, and a fair number of them are safer than the US. So given that that are still criminals on the outside, the answer is that you need to become more efficient at apprehending the right people - not increase incarceration rates. >I think the most basic question is: why are there so many criminals? What about the present-day American system of government is so amazingly criminogenic? Criminals break laws; laws are often injust. The War on Drugs, and mandatory sentencing. >If what we need isn't more social justice, what is it? This is entirely unsubstantiated by anything you wrote preceding this sentence. Frankly, it's kind of confused.

moldbug 15y ago
Perhaps someone else can parse this better than me. I can make sense of one of these lines: "Criminals break laws; laws are often injust. The War on Drugs, and mandatory sentencing." I think behind this line is lurking the belief that America's prisons are full of Humboldt County potheads, or something like that. The typical American in jail for drug offenses isn't a system administrator who made the mistake of toking up one night. It's a gang member whose real offense is being a worthless thug. The prosecutors and LEOs who busted him are experts in the technical details of putting worthless thugs in jail, to the extent that this remains possible. Nonetheless, all major American cities retain a very substantial population of worthless thugs. If you're unaware of this reality, I strongly recommend this Chicago cop blog: http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/ http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/. Or you could watch "The Wire" - I hear it's available on DVD. Last month, my wife and daughter were leaving a child's birthday party in the outer Mission, SF, when bullets flew down the street past them, followed by a worthless thug who ran past them gun in hand. You can argue that Bayshore Blvd. is a lousy place to put a space that hosts children's birthday parties, and I'd agree. Still, it's my country - why shouldn't I feel safe in it, anywhere, day or night?
- rbanffy 15y ago
  Being a "worthless thug" is not a crime in itself. Running down a street while firing a gun and endangering bystanders is (or, at the very least, should be).

nitrogen 15y ago

Robbery is a pretty good "index crime." For instance, in 1900, there was about 1 robbery per day in all of England (source: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/rp99... http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/rp99...). This is roughly a factor of 35 lower than current reported crime rates (same source) in the ol' Sceptered Island - assuming you trust HMG's statistics. And all crime statistics in all countries everywhere are generally admitted by all informed observers to be utterly buggered to hell. (example: http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-05-04/news/the-nypd-tapes-i... http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-05-04/news/the-nypd-tapes-i...) But what is it an index of? What hidden variable influences robbery numbers? Our understanding of crime is incomplete without considering the reasons why crimes are committed (without resorting to the fundamental attribution error by branding those who commit crimes as "criminals" by nature). Some questions to ask about the given example of robbery: Why do the people committing robberies feel the need to commit them? What makes robbery more rewarding than other potential sources of money or thrills? Have robberies increased because the average person now has a lot more of value to take? How many robberies are indirectly caused by the criminalization of lesser offenses? (e.g. criminalization of drug M -> price of drug goes up + M user loses job -> M user has to resort to robbery to survive)

harshreality 15y ago
Your links are broken. However, if the first one says what you claim, it seems to be a lie: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7922755/England-has-worse-crime-rate-than-the-US-says-Civitas-study.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7922755... I don't care to be able to say that England has a worse crime rate than the U.S. I think given the sociological makeup, [lack of] urban planning, poorly run social services, and an overarching cultural dislike of some forms of authority, it would be surprising if any developed country had crime rates as bad as we do. While not ultimate causes, there are some not so hidden variables: Population density. There's some idea that it increases stress, which increases propensity to commit crimes. Sale of contraband, particularly drugs, fuels competition for territory and customers which, in an illegal market, is primarily dealt with through violence. Brainstorming about gang violence, it seems to me to be mostly about a culture that demands unrealistic levels of respect, and demands taking advantage of any perceived weakness. If someone disrespects a gang member, it's my understanding that they have to retaliate with violence. If they don't, or if they're seen as weak for some other reason, that's an invitation for an opposing gang to put the weak out of their misery. You can't have a stable crime-free area with factions like that running around.