6 ms·

The vast majority of crimes are committed by a small percentage of people. The real issue is prosecutors who refuse to incarcerate repeat offenders. But having

The vast majority of crimes are committed by a small percentage of people. The real issue is prosecutors who refuse to incarcerate repeat offenders. But having video evidence is a powerful tool for a motivated prosecutor to actually take criminals off the streets

loeg 8mo ago
> The real issue is prosecutors who refuse to incarcerate repeat offenders. Sometimes judges contribute as well.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 8mo ago
  The real problem with prosecutors is that they don't want to prosecute. When I was on the grand jury in my city a couple of years ago, there was a slow morning and the assistant DA said that there were about 4000 cases per year and that they brought 30 of those to trial. He didn't think anything of it, for him it was a story about how they loved trials because "they were so much fun". But if they were so much fun, why are less than 1% of cases going to trial? Plea deals. Plea deals subvert justice for both those innocent who are bullied into pleading out, and for those who are wickedly guilty and get a big discount on the penalty exacted. Plea deals give the system extra capacity for prosecution, encouraging the justice system to fill the excess capacity, while simultaneously giving an underfunded system that doesn't have enough capacity the appearance of being able to handle the load. Bad all around.
thrance 8mo ago
Any evidence of what you're saying about prosecutors and video surveillance?
- Aeglaecia 8mo ago
  there exists evidence proving that a fraction of individuals commit the majority of violent crime. thus, incarcerating those particular individuals would inherently reduce the majority of violent crime. is something missing from this equation?
  - datsci_est_2015 8mo ago
    > is something missing from this equation? Decades of historical evidence to the contrary. If you’d like to have an informed opinion, at least engage with the academic material. Otherwise you come off sounding naïve, insisting that complex problems have simple solutions. Edit: maybe my ears are a bit sensitive, but I can’t help but hear a faint whistle in the wind, maybe only at a frequency a dog could hear. But no, surely not here in gentlemanly company.
    - Manuel_D 8mo ago
      What evidence to the contrary? 1% of the US population does commit over 60% of violent crime: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3969807/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3969807/
      - datsci_est_2015 8mo ago
        That’s not what I’m disputing, of course. I’m disputing that the grandparent’s assertion that if we (by your stats) simply lock up 1% of the population that violent crime would drop by 60%. I mean, trivially, using our brains for a nanosecond, what if that 1% of the population is almost always 16-18 year olds when they commit those violent crimes. The 16-18 demographic is roughly 4% of the US population (Google). That would mean locking up 1 in 4 high school students for 6-20 of their most formative years, and thrusting them back into society with a “Mission Accomplished” banner hanging behind you. Play with the numbers a bit (maybe it’s 1 in 20), but the point stands. Using imprisonment to try to quarantine a demographic that is perceived as irreparably violent is a barbaric, sophomoric idea that has very little evidence of success in the modern era.
        toxik 8mo ago
        Don't jail criminals because maybe they're young, that's your argument? Sounds like a something that's already part of the sentencing policy, leniency of first time offenders.
FpUser 8mo ago
>"The real issue is prosecutors who refuse to incarcerate repeat offenders" Sure. US prosecutors are so lenient that the US is the capital of incarceration
- bpodgursky 8mo ago
  This is literally true and you think you are being snarky but just look ignorant.
  - FpUser 8mo ago
    Ignorant of what may I ask? Also I do not "think".
    - tovlier 8mo ago
      [dead]
  - laksjhdlka 8mo ago
    I can't tell which element(s) of the previous post you are criticizing.
- Izikiel43 8mo ago
  Depends a lot on the city/state. Check super blue cities like Seattle or San Francisco, and the people there complain that the justice system doesn't work as repeat offenders are let go, for one reason or another. The big incarceration states are most likely deep red states.
  - FpUser 8mo ago
    I live in Canada, to me the US is a whole. I am pretty sure one can find close to crimeless areas there along with something totally opposite. does not matter from the outside.
  - Mordisquitos 8mo ago
    The incarceration rate of every single US state is higher than that of every country in the European continent except Belarus, Russia and Turkey. Each state's incarceration rate is also higher than that of every country in the OECD (a club of mostly rich countries) except Chile, Costa Rica and Turkey. Of the exceptions I have listed, Turkey has the highest incarceration rate of 366 per 100k. Even so, it is still lower than that of 41 states, falling between Hawaii (367) and Connecticut (326). Source: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2024.html https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2024.html
odie5533 8mo ago
We spend $80 billion a year on incarceration in the US, and have the highest incarceration rate in the world. Your plan increases both. Do you honestly think that if we spend $160 billion or $240 billion a year and double or triple our incarcerated population that we'd solve crime? Look at places and countries with low crime. They don't have the most Flock cameras, the most prisoners, or the most powerful surveillance evidence because while those may solve a crime, they don't solve crime as a whole.
- foxglacier 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - defrost 8mo ago
    > Can you name such a place with low crime, low incarceration rate, low surveillance, and importantly, low black population? Andorra and Finland both meet your four criteria.
    - eudamoniac 8mo ago
      He meant to say high black population
      - odie5533 8mo ago
        Ghana has a murder rate of 1.84 and incarceration rate of 133 per 100k. It didn't get this stable by buying Flock cameras. They have nowhere near the surveillance of the U.S. And they have far fewer murders, far less violent crime, and far fewer incarcerations. If only the prosecutors had more evidence then it could be more like the U.S.!? Woodmore, Maryland is 82% black. Chance of being a victim of a violent crime is 1 in 904. That's three times safer than the national average. It's an extremely safe community with an overwhelming majority of residents being black.
        eudamoniac 8mo ago
culi 8mo ago
It's wild that you think the problem with the US is too low of an incarceration rate. 25% of all prisoners in the world are in the US
- co_king_5 8mo ago
  [dead]
  - monero-xmr 8mo ago
    Why would you want someone who commits a violent crime to avoid prison?
    - nullocator 8mo ago
      Most offenders in the U.S. prison system that U.S. citizens tax dollars are paying for are not violent offenders, at least not until they've been in and out of the prison system at least once, then their chances of committing additional crimes sky rocket. So to answer your sneakily worded question (throwing in the word violent like some kind of gotcha for the first time): I personally don't want more people in prison because I think it is wasteful both in terms of capital and in terms of human experience, there are proven better alternatives like rehabilitation that work for most people and have significantly better outcomes, and finally because the united states prison system is effectively captured by corporate interests which is antithetical to a society that should be against cruel punishments.
      - monero-xmr 8mo ago
        Sure but as long as we are on the same page about aggressively pursuing and incarcerating violent criminals
    - co_king_5 8mo ago
      [dead]
      - 8mo ago
dyauspitr 8mo ago
I agree. There needs to be a non racist president that just sweeps in and does a El Salvador type cleanup of the streets. I bet the 80%+ of normal black people in crime ridden cities like Baltimore, St. Louis, Memphis, Detroit, New Orleans would be in full support. Let’s be honest, young black gangsters are the main criminal element in these places. Trump can’t do this because he is a piece of shit with no integrity.
- bean469 8mo ago
  > There needs to be a non racist president that just sweeps in and does a El Salvador type cleanup of the streets. Sounds like a certain, controversial federal law enforcement agency in the US
  - dyauspitr 8mo ago
    Except ICE has hired poorly trained far right good for nothings.
- gamblor956 8mo ago
  El Salvador doesn't have the type of Constitutional rights that America has. That type of sweep would not be legal. And that doesn't even get into jurisdictional issues. The federal government doesn't have jurisdiction over local crimes that do not cross interstate boundaries.
tencentshill 7mo ago
You can get video evidence without sending it to a massive, opaque national database of non-suspects.

loeg 8mo ago

> The real issue is prosecutors who refuse to incarcerate repeat offenders. Sometimes judges contribute as well.

NoMoreNicksLeft 8mo ago
The real problem with prosecutors is that they don't want to prosecute. When I was on the grand jury in my city a couple of years ago, there was a slow morning and the assistant DA said that there were about 4000 cases per year and that they brought 30 of those to trial. He didn't think anything of it, for him it was a story about how they loved trials because "they were so much fun". But if they were so much fun, why are less than 1% of cases going to trial? Plea deals. Plea deals subvert justice for both those innocent who are bullied into pleading out, and for those who are wickedly guilty and get a big discount on the penalty exacted. Plea deals give the system extra capacity for prosecution, encouraging the justice system to fill the excess capacity, while simultaneously giving an underfunded system that doesn't have enough capacity the appearance of being able to handle the load. Bad all around.

thrance 8mo ago

Any evidence of what you're saying about prosecutors and video surveillance?

Aeglaecia 8mo ago
there exists evidence proving that a fraction of individuals commit the majority of violent crime. thus, incarcerating those particular individuals would inherently reduce the majority of violent crime. is something missing from this equation?
- datsci_est_2015 8mo ago
  > is something missing from this equation? Decades of historical evidence to the contrary. If you’d like to have an informed opinion, at least engage with the academic material. Otherwise you come off sounding naïve, insisting that complex problems have simple solutions. Edit: maybe my ears are a bit sensitive, but I can’t help but hear a faint whistle in the wind, maybe only at a frequency a dog could hear. But no, surely not here in gentlemanly company.
  - Manuel_D 8mo ago
    What evidence to the contrary? 1% of the US population does commit over 60% of violent crime: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3969807/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3969807/
    - datsci_est_2015 8mo ago
      That’s not what I’m disputing, of course. I’m disputing that the grandparent’s assertion that if we (by your stats) simply lock up 1% of the population that violent crime would drop by 60%. I mean, trivially, using our brains for a nanosecond, what if that 1% of the population is almost always 16-18 year olds when they commit those violent crimes. The 16-18 demographic is roughly 4% of the US population (Google). That would mean locking up 1 in 4 high school students for 6-20 of their most formative years, and thrusting them back into society with a “Mission Accomplished” banner hanging behind you. Play with the numbers a bit (maybe it’s 1 in 20), but the point stands. Using imprisonment to try to quarantine a demographic that is perceived as irreparably violent is a barbaric, sophomoric idea that has very little evidence of success in the modern era.
      - toxik 8mo ago
        Don't jail criminals because maybe they're young, that's your argument? Sounds like a something that's already part of the sentencing policy, leniency of first time offenders.

FpUser 8mo ago

>"The real issue is prosecutors who refuse to incarcerate repeat offenders" Sure. US prosecutors are so lenient that the US is the capital of incarceration

bpodgursky 8mo ago
This is literally true and you think you are being snarky but just look ignorant.
- FpUser 8mo ago
  Ignorant of what may I ask? Also I do not "think".
  - tovlier 8mo ago
    [dead]
- laksjhdlka 8mo ago
  I can't tell which element(s) of the previous post you are criticizing.
Izikiel43 8mo ago
Depends a lot on the city/state. Check super blue cities like Seattle or San Francisco, and the people there complain that the justice system doesn't work as repeat offenders are let go, for one reason or another. The big incarceration states are most likely deep red states.
- FpUser 8mo ago
  I live in Canada, to me the US is a whole. I am pretty sure one can find close to crimeless areas there along with something totally opposite. does not matter from the outside.
- Mordisquitos 8mo ago
  The incarceration rate of every single US state is higher than that of every country in the European continent except Belarus, Russia and Turkey. Each state's incarceration rate is also higher than that of every country in the OECD (a club of mostly rich countries) except Chile, Costa Rica and Turkey. Of the exceptions I have listed, Turkey has the highest incarceration rate of 366 per 100k. Even so, it is still lower than that of 41 states, falling between Hawaii (367) and Connecticut (326). Source: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2024.html https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2024.html

odie5533 8mo ago

We spend $80 billion a year on incarceration in the US, and have the highest incarceration rate in the world. Your plan increases both. Do you honestly think that if we spend $160 billion or $240 billion a year and double or triple our incarcerated population that we'd solve crime? Look at places and countries with low crime. They don't have the most Flock cameras, the most prisoners, or the most powerful surveillance evidence because while those may solve a crime, they don't solve crime as a whole.

foxglacier 8mo ago
[flagged]
- defrost 8mo ago
  > Can you name such a place with low crime, low incarceration rate, low surveillance, and importantly, low black population? Andorra and Finland both meet your four criteria.
  - eudamoniac 8mo ago
    He meant to say high black population
    - odie5533 8mo ago
      Ghana has a murder rate of 1.84 and incarceration rate of 133 per 100k. It didn't get this stable by buying Flock cameras. They have nowhere near the surveillance of the U.S. And they have far fewer murders, far less violent crime, and far fewer incarcerations. If only the prosecutors had more evidence then it could be more like the U.S.!? Woodmore, Maryland is 82% black. Chance of being a victim of a violent crime is 1 in 904. That's three times safer than the national average. It's an extremely safe community with an overwhelming majority of residents being black.
      - eudamoniac 8mo ago

culi 8mo ago

It's wild that you think the problem with the US is too low of an incarceration rate. 25% of all prisoners in the world are in the US

co_king_5 8mo ago
[dead]
- monero-xmr 8mo ago
  Why would you want someone who commits a violent crime to avoid prison?
  - nullocator 8mo ago
    Most offenders in the U.S. prison system that U.S. citizens tax dollars are paying for are not violent offenders, at least not until they've been in and out of the prison system at least once, then their chances of committing additional crimes sky rocket. So to answer your sneakily worded question (throwing in the word violent like some kind of gotcha for the first time): I personally don't want more people in prison because I think it is wasteful both in terms of capital and in terms of human experience, there are proven better alternatives like rehabilitation that work for most people and have significantly better outcomes, and finally because the united states prison system is effectively captured by corporate interests which is antithetical to a society that should be against cruel punishments.
    - monero-xmr 8mo ago
      Sure but as long as we are on the same page about aggressively pursuing and incarcerating violent criminals
  - co_king_5 8mo ago
    [dead]
    - 8mo ago

dyauspitr 8mo ago

I agree. There needs to be a non racist president that just sweeps in and does a El Salvador type cleanup of the streets. I bet the 80%+ of normal black people in crime ridden cities like Baltimore, St. Louis, Memphis, Detroit, New Orleans would be in full support. Let’s be honest, young black gangsters are the main criminal element in these places. Trump can’t do this because he is a piece of shit with no integrity.

bean469 8mo ago
> There needs to be a non racist president that just sweeps in and does a El Salvador type cleanup of the streets. Sounds like a certain, controversial federal law enforcement agency in the US
- dyauspitr 8mo ago
  Except ICE has hired poorly trained far right good for nothings.
gamblor956 8mo ago
El Salvador doesn't have the type of Constitutional rights that America has. That type of sweep would not be legal. And that doesn't even get into jurisdictional issues. The federal government doesn't have jurisdiction over local crimes that do not cross interstate boundaries.

tencentshill 7mo ago

You can get video evidence without sending it to a massive, opaque national database of non-suspects.