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The problem with "throwing the book" at gang members is that it doesn't work. Nobody joining a gang is making a rational reckoning of the risk/reward of gettin

by akerl_ 1y ago

The problem with "throwing the book" at gang members is that it doesn't work. Nobody joining a gang is making a rational reckoning of the risk/reward of getting caught by the police, partly because they don't plan to get caught and partly because the much larger risk is getting killed. And the people getting arrested and prosecuted are primarily not the people calling the shots or driving recruitment of new members. The best way to put a dent in gang violence is to disrupt gang recruiting, and one of the better ways to do that is to improve societal safety nets so joining a gang is less attractive.

chermi 1y ago
Citation needed. Sure, throwing the book doesn't get you 100%. But am I supposed to believe that increasing the penalty for doing the wrong thing doesn't decrease the frequency of the wrong thing? Having everyone you know in your crime circle being in jail vs. roaming free certainly has an effect on your decisions to join/stay.
- jakelazaroff 1y ago
  > But am I supposed to believe that increasing the penalty for doing the wrong thing doesn't decrease the frequency of the wrong thing? Yes. There is substantial evidence that increasing the severity of punishment does not reduce crime rates.
  - akerl_ 1y ago
    It turns out that when your big worries are "not being able to afford rent and food" and then "getting shot", the difference between 5 years and 20 years in jail, or the difference between a 10% likelihood or 50% likelihood that you get caught don't really factor into the decision-making process.
  - lotsofpulp 1y ago
    Surely, 3 strikes type laws that lock people away for longer who exhibit violent tendencies reduces crime experienced in society.
- k2enemy 1y ago
  Probability of punishment seems to matter more than severity of punishment. This follows from economic and game theoretic models and is backed up by empirical studies. For example: https://www.academia.edu/download/55552845/the_economics_of_criminal_behaviours.pdf https://www.academia.edu/download/55552845/the_economics_of_...
somenameforme 1y ago
> "The problem with "throwing the book" at gang members is that it doesn't work." Then how would you explain El-Salvador? They went from the homicide capital of the world in 2015 to the 8th safest place in the world [1] in less than a decade. And "all" that they did was dramatically bumped up the penalties for gang membership, round up gang members, and threw them in militarized prisons as opposed to the typical gang reinforcement retreats. Crime dramatically plummeted and you ended up with a president with an approval rating upwards of 90%. From my perspective in modern times we've trialed both soft and hard systems on crime. The soft systems in general have had very poor results except in places that already had no issues with crime (e.g. Norway), whereas the hard systems have demonstrated phenomenally positive outcomes. Places like the US have a major problem with things like privatized prisons that create a commercial incentive for incarceration, but I think these are tangential to the topic. [1] - https://news.gallup.com/poll/650516/global-safety-starts-slip.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/650516/global-safety-starts-sli...
- akerl_ 1y ago
  That entire article is about whether people "feel" safe. It doesn't seem to have any stats on whether or not they are actually safe. But back to the actual thread: the majority of gang violence is against other gangs. This is unlike other high-crime areas (for example, places with high rates of carjacking) where criminals are targeting people just moving through the area.
  - somenameforme 1y ago
    Here [1] is their homicide rate. Overall criminality has declined proportionally as well. The numbers continue to decline as well. In 2025 it looks like they're looking at an overall homicide rate of ~1.3. I think perceptions of criminality is a very important metric because it controls for the possibility of numbers being juked. If everybody thinks crime is going up, but the numbers say it's going down, then it's possible there's some sort of collective delusion. But it's also possible that the numbers are being juked, or that various biases (like declines in rates of reporting) are driving a numeric decline in crime even as crime rates climb. [1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/696152/homicide-rate-in-el-salvador/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/696152/homicide-rate-in-...

by akerl_ 1y ago

chermi 1y ago

Citation needed. Sure, throwing the book doesn't get you 100%. But am I supposed to believe that increasing the penalty for doing the wrong thing doesn't decrease the frequency of the wrong thing? Having everyone you know in your crime circle being in jail vs. roaming free certainly has an effect on your decisions to join/stay.

jakelazaroff 1y ago
> But am I supposed to believe that increasing the penalty for doing the wrong thing doesn't decrease the frequency of the wrong thing? Yes. There is substantial evidence that increasing the severity of punishment does not reduce crime rates.
- akerl_ 1y ago
  It turns out that when your big worries are "not being able to afford rent and food" and then "getting shot", the difference between 5 years and 20 years in jail, or the difference between a 10% likelihood or 50% likelihood that you get caught don't really factor into the decision-making process.
- lotsofpulp 1y ago
  Surely, 3 strikes type laws that lock people away for longer who exhibit violent tendencies reduces crime experienced in society.
k2enemy 1y ago
Probability of punishment seems to matter more than severity of punishment. This follows from economic and game theoretic models and is backed up by empirical studies. For example: https://www.academia.edu/download/55552845/the_economics_of_criminal_behaviours.pdf https://www.academia.edu/download/55552845/the_economics_of_...

somenameforme 1y ago

> "The problem with "throwing the book" at gang members is that it doesn't work." Then how would you explain El-Salvador? They went from the homicide capital of the world in 2015 to the 8th safest place in the world [1] in less than a decade. And "all" that they did was dramatically bumped up the penalties for gang membership, round up gang members, and threw them in militarized prisons as opposed to the typical gang reinforcement retreats. Crime dramatically plummeted and you ended up with a president with an approval rating upwards of 90%. From my perspective in modern times we've trialed both soft and hard systems on crime. The soft systems in general have had very poor results except in places that already had no issues with crime (e.g. Norway), whereas the hard systems have demonstrated phenomenally positive outcomes. Places like the US have a major problem with things like privatized prisons that create a commercial incentive for incarceration, but I think these are tangential to the topic. [1] - https://news.gallup.com/poll/650516/global-safety-starts-slip.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/650516/global-safety-starts-sli...

akerl_ 1y ago
That entire article is about whether people "feel" safe. It doesn't seem to have any stats on whether or not they are actually safe. But back to the actual thread: the majority of gang violence is against other gangs. This is unlike other high-crime areas (for example, places with high rates of carjacking) where criminals are targeting people just moving through the area.
- somenameforme 1y ago
  Here [1] is their homicide rate. Overall criminality has declined proportionally as well. The numbers continue to decline as well. In 2025 it looks like they're looking at an overall homicide rate of ~1.3. I think perceptions of criminality is a very important metric because it controls for the possibility of numbers being juked. If everybody thinks crime is going up, but the numbers say it's going down, then it's possible there's some sort of collective delusion. But it's also possible that the numbers are being juked, or that various biases (like declines in rates of reporting) are driving a numeric decline in crime even as crime rates climb. [1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/696152/homicide-rate-in-el-salvador/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/696152/homicide-rate-in-...