4 ms·

I would gladly support life sentences or even the death penalty for rapists and child molesters, but unfortunately a lot of people like to complain about “mass

I would gladly support life sentences or even the death penalty for rapists and child molesters, but unfortunately a lot of people like to complain about “mass incarceration” so most states don’t have the ability to fund the necessary prison facilities. If we’re going to let them out of prison, the least we can do is to try and keep these people away from children.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
"Mass incarceration" is from the war on drugs and general over-criminalization of society. Let out the non-violent drug offenders and there will be plenty of cells for the rapists and pedophiles.
- philwelch 3y ago
  That’s not true. Consider the following graph: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff72b8fb3-9ed9-46dc-a939-ec25926b687a_929x981.png https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr... (source: https://inquisitivebird.substack.com/p/crime-in-the-usa https://inquisitivebird.substack.com/p/crime-in-the-usa) 62.5% of sentenced prisoners committed violent crimes, which includes 15% for murder and 15.5% rape and sexual assault. All drug offenses put together make up only 12.6%.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    Sounds like your stats support the argument that if we let out the drug offenders there will be plenty of space, since it effectively doubles the amount of room currently taken by those convicted of rape and sexual assault. Also, you haven't considered length of terms. If 62.5% are serving for violent crimes, they are most likely serving longer sentences than those convicted only of drug offenses. This means over the time of one violent criminal's stay in prison, you have maybe 1.5 or 2 or even 3 or more drug offenders being taken in and released. This doesn't affect the amount of people in prison at one time, but it affects the amount of people who end up going to prison.
    - philwelch 3y ago
      By the same token, life sentences for rape are going to take up a lot more prison capacity than you’re accounting for. If you change a rape sentence from ten years to life (and a ten year sentence might mean you get out in six), you could end up 5xing or 10xing the number of prisoner-years the system needs to handle from the same population of offenders. Also by the same token, you’ve essentially made my case that “mass incarceration” is more a consequence of harsher sentences for serious violent crimes than it is a consequence of drug prohibition. If you favor even harsher sentences for serious violent crimes (I do too) then you need to accept that this will require significantly more prison capacity. Either that or we need to start talking about expanding the death penalty, and expediting the appeals process in capital cases so it can be applied at scale.
      - Eisenstein 3y ago
        I think your case is overly simplistic. My response was pointing out that quoting basic statistics is not going to explain anything, and diving beyond the surface will reveal complications. Move on to 'violent crime caused by drug prohibition' to see yet another aspect of this. I am not making any argument beyond this.
        philwelch 3y ago
        It doesn’t really add anything to the discussion to wave your hands around, say “it’s more complicated than that” if you’re not prepared to seriously explore the consequences of the complications you’re bringing up. For instance, you raised the complication that prison term length will have certain effects on the amount of prison capacity required for a class of crime. Fair enough, but once we actually explore that complication in depth, the conclusion is that lengthening prison terms for rape will consume significantly more prison capacity than you can free up by completely eliminating prison terms that are already relatively short. Likewise, unless you have some sort of data-backed argument as to how and why eliminating drug prohibition will change the conclusion that we will need more prison capacity to incarcerate all sex offenders for life, you’re not actually making any useful point.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

"Mass incarceration" is from the war on drugs and general over-criminalization of society. Let out the non-violent drug offenders and there will be plenty of cells for the rapists and pedophiles.

philwelch 3y ago
That’s not true. Consider the following graph: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff72b8fb3-9ed9-46dc-a939-ec25926b687a_929x981.png https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr... (source: https://inquisitivebird.substack.com/p/crime-in-the-usa https://inquisitivebird.substack.com/p/crime-in-the-usa) 62.5% of sentenced prisoners committed violent crimes, which includes 15% for murder and 15.5% rape and sexual assault. All drug offenses put together make up only 12.6%.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  Sounds like your stats support the argument that if we let out the drug offenders there will be plenty of space, since it effectively doubles the amount of room currently taken by those convicted of rape and sexual assault. Also, you haven't considered length of terms. If 62.5% are serving for violent crimes, they are most likely serving longer sentences than those convicted only of drug offenses. This means over the time of one violent criminal's stay in prison, you have maybe 1.5 or 2 or even 3 or more drug offenders being taken in and released. This doesn't affect the amount of people in prison at one time, but it affects the amount of people who end up going to prison.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    By the same token, life sentences for rape are going to take up a lot more prison capacity than you’re accounting for. If you change a rape sentence from ten years to life (and a ten year sentence might mean you get out in six), you could end up 5xing or 10xing the number of prisoner-years the system needs to handle from the same population of offenders. Also by the same token, you’ve essentially made my case that “mass incarceration” is more a consequence of harsher sentences for serious violent crimes than it is a consequence of drug prohibition. If you favor even harsher sentences for serious violent crimes (I do too) then you need to accept that this will require significantly more prison capacity. Either that or we need to start talking about expanding the death penalty, and expediting the appeals process in capital cases so it can be applied at scale.
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      I think your case is overly simplistic. My response was pointing out that quoting basic statistics is not going to explain anything, and diving beyond the surface will reveal complications. Move on to 'violent crime caused by drug prohibition' to see yet another aspect of this. I am not making any argument beyond this.
      - philwelch 3y ago
        It doesn’t really add anything to the discussion to wave your hands around, say “it’s more complicated than that” if you’re not prepared to seriously explore the consequences of the complications you’re bringing up. For instance, you raised the complication that prison term length will have certain effects on the amount of prison capacity required for a class of crime. Fair enough, but once we actually explore that complication in depth, the conclusion is that lengthening prison terms for rape will consume significantly more prison capacity than you can free up by completely eliminating prison terms that are already relatively short. Likewise, unless you have some sort of data-backed argument as to how and why eliminating drug prohibition will change the conclusion that we will need more prison capacity to incarcerate all sex offenders for life, you’re not actually making any useful point.