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>Also, note that many drug offenders have a violent history, but the police were only able to make the drug charges stick. Also note that in many cases the drug

by phillmv 15y ago

>Also, note that many drug offenders have a violent history, but the police were only able to make the drug charges stick. Also note that in many cases the drug offenders were selling on street corners, playgrounds, and such, and residents were begging the police to move in and arrest the gang members. "In many cases" is disingenuously broad. That's not the case at all. Here is a great primer on the topic - http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/143/sentencing http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/143/s... When we talk about the War on Drugs driving incarceration rates, we do not speak solely of drug possession. It's economics. There is immense demand for narcotics because people love to get high. Since narcotics are illegal, engaging in their trade becomes a risky proposition, which in turn drives up prices. Since narcotics are such a lucrative endeavour, there is a lot of competition. Since competing groups lack the capacity to settle their differences through the judicial system, violence is often the answer they resort to. By making the trade legal you will remove all of these problems overnight. >America first and foremost has a crime problem. And it has a crime problem due to terrible law enforcement. Convicting and incarcerating people has little to do with law enforcement and more to do with the laws they were accused of breaking and the judicial system at large. Police officers round people up; they have no responsibility in determining whether they get locked up. > But if law enforcement is mostly lax, but is inconsistently and randomly harsh, then you get high crime and a very high total incarcerated population. So, you agree with me then: large amounts of people who are correctly locked up shouldn't be locked up.

tptacek 15y ago
You seem to be evading his point: "Even if every person in the U.S. incarcerated for drug possession was released tomorrow, the U.S. would still have the highest incareration rate in the world. If every drug trafficker was released, the U.S. would still have an incarceration rate triple that of every Western European country. If every non-violent offender was released, the incarceration rate would stll be double that of every western European country." This seems like a refutation of your comment.
- kbolino 15y ago
  If I kill you over a bad drug deal, but none of us has drugs on us at the time, what crime do I get charged with? The counterpoint offered by phillmv was that just because, on paper, the crime has nothing to do with drugs, doesn't mean that it wasn't motivated by the drug trade.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    (1) Murder. (2) It's likely that many crimes are caused by the black market for drugs; the black market for drugs can be suppressed by legalizing them. It's also likely that many crimes are caused by drugs; these crimes can't be suppressed by legalizing, and in fact may be exacerbated by them. Drug dependency is devastating to economic well-being and to family systems and both those failures also give rise to criminality. I'm pro-legalization, and if you read his blog Devin seems to be too, but if legalizing is a pipe-dream solution to the "incarceration problem", then pointing wildly to it during discussions of the incarceration problem does everyone a disservice.
    - chc 15y ago
      I wonder: From what I understand, cigarettes are more strongly addictive than many "hard drugs", so do they give rise to many criminal acts? If we're just looking at the dependency factor and not the direct effects of the drug (e.g. "that stuff makes you violent"), it seems like it ought to be a useful model.
      - tptacek 15y ago
        No. Intensive addiction to cigarettes doesn't destroy your career or your family --- at least, not until later in your life, when you contract lung cancer. In fact, from experience: smoking can improve your earning potential, by creating the additional networking opportunity of being a member of the community of smokers. The cost of smoking is mostly constant and manageable. Intensive addiction to heroin is virtually guaranteed to destroy both your family and your career, leaving you and your dependents with neither an income nor a support system.

by phillmv 15y ago

tptacek 15y ago

You seem to be evading his point: "Even if every person in the U.S. incarcerated for drug possession was released tomorrow, the U.S. would still have the highest incareration rate in the world. If every drug trafficker was released, the U.S. would still have an incarceration rate triple that of every Western European country. If every non-violent offender was released, the incarceration rate would stll be double that of every western European country." This seems like a refutation of your comment.

kbolino 15y ago
If I kill you over a bad drug deal, but none of us has drugs on us at the time, what crime do I get charged with? The counterpoint offered by phillmv was that just because, on paper, the crime has nothing to do with drugs, doesn't mean that it wasn't motivated by the drug trade.
- tptacek 15y ago
  (1) Murder. (2) It's likely that many crimes are caused by the black market for drugs; the black market for drugs can be suppressed by legalizing them. It's also likely that many crimes are caused by drugs; these crimes can't be suppressed by legalizing, and in fact may be exacerbated by them. Drug dependency is devastating to economic well-being and to family systems and both those failures also give rise to criminality. I'm pro-legalization, and if you read his blog Devin seems to be too, but if legalizing is a pipe-dream solution to the "incarceration problem", then pointing wildly to it during discussions of the incarceration problem does everyone a disservice.
  - chc 15y ago
    I wonder: From what I understand, cigarettes are more strongly addictive than many "hard drugs", so do they give rise to many criminal acts? If we're just looking at the dependency factor and not the direct effects of the drug (e.g. "that stuff makes you violent"), it seems like it ought to be a useful model.
    - tptacek 15y ago
      No. Intensive addiction to cigarettes doesn't destroy your career or your family --- at least, not until later in your life, when you contract lung cancer. In fact, from experience: smoking can improve your earning potential, by creating the additional networking opportunity of being a member of the community of smokers. The cost of smoking is mostly constant and manageable. Intensive addiction to heroin is virtually guaranteed to destroy both your family and your career, leaving you and your dependents with neither an income nor a support system.