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If they are committing crimes, they should be imprisoned for an appropriate period of time as a deterrent to crime, a punishment for their actions, and to facil

If they are committing crimes, they should be imprisoned for an appropriate period of time as a deterrent to crime, a punishment for their actions, and to facilitate rehabilitation (even though evidence shows this doesn't really happen). If they are mentally ill and unable to care for themselves or pose a threat to the community because of their mental illness, they should be institutionalized and treated. If they are able to be released into the community after a period of time, checks should be performed to ensure compliance with treatment/medication.

47635274172635 2mo ago
I think you need to fix the cause not treat the symptom. I mean you should treat the symptoms as well, while fixing the cause of the issue. Atm it seems everyone is trying to figure out how to treat the symptom, and they don't even know why, and they keep completely quiet about the cause of it all. Completely and utter mystery, or framed vague and unfixable enough that they do not have to really address it. What the Swiss did back in the 80's with the heroin program...that's misinterpreted by US and they're specifically trying to mess it up in application. The Swiss didn't just give lab grade heroin to junkies, they ran a serious mental care and social reintegration program and used the heroin as basically bait. You had access to it but you had to go to their facilities where specialized people could start working with you. What the US is doing is a mockery of that, they want it to fail so they can say it's not working and they shouldn't even try it in the future. And I think it's quite clear to basically anyone with two neurons what the cause of it is, but authorities there are going to pretend they do not understand it. That it's some mystical unexplainable cause.
- alex43578 2mo ago
  Right now, many places in the US aren’t even “treating the symptoms”. We can start there, then move to address the more structural, long-term problems that contribute to these issues. An action that reduces drug use by 5% a decade from now is fine, but taking a criminal off the street today yields far greater present value.
remarkEon 2mo ago
The most important part of incarceration is removing what is a quantifiable risk to the public from the public square. Everything else is secondary. The point of a state having police powers is to ensure for the common good, it is not to continually indulge those who wish to damage that common good. To the extent that the state is responsible for e.g. punishment and rehabilitation, these are ancillary responsibilities that are (or were) downstream from removing threats to the common good from the public square. Seems like, after all of these police and prosecutorial "reforms", we are back to deriving why many state powers exist from first principles. Fun to watch in real time.
- mmooss 2mo ago
  Lacking a house isn't a threat to others. I've rarely seen an unhoused people do harm. Annoying you isn't harm. Making rich people uncomfortable isn't a crime. > common good A term used to justify taking away liberty from people you don't like - 'it might take away their rights, but it's good for people in 'common''. The point of government, as Jefferson eloquently put it in the document that birthed the US, is to protect people's rights.
  - alex43578 2mo ago
    "I've rarely seen an unhoused people do harm" is an absurd statement. It's an old study, but Martell in Base-rate estimates of criminal behavior by homeless mentally ill persons in New York City found that "The rate of violent crimes was 40 times higher and the rate of nonviolent crimes 27 times higher in the homeless population". Most people don't like mentally ill homeless people who commit violent crime at a rate 40 times higher than average. Remind me what right in the Constitution enshrines your ability to crack the skull of a 70 year old nurse on the ground, then wander off and go to sleep? https://abcnews.com/US/70-year-nurse-killed-random-assault-bus-stop/story?id=82328499 https://abcnews.com/US/70-year-nurse-killed-random-assault-b...
    - mmooss 2mo ago
      > It's an old study, but Martell in Base-rate estimates of criminal behavior by homeless mentally ill persons in New York City found that "The rate of violent crimes was 40 times higher and the rate of nonviolent crimes 27 times higher in the homeless population". It is indeed old (1995 [0]) and that's not what the paper studied or concluded. First, the study did not gather data on the homeless population, but on mentally ill people already in the criminal justice system: * "The authors analyzed data from ... records of 77 homeless defendants and 107 domiciled defendants referred for psychiatric examination by the criminal and supreme courts ..." Second, the paper's goals were to gather needed data on homelessness among mentally ill people in the criminal justice system, and to examine the interactions between homelessness and crime among mentally ill people: * "The study aimed to estimate the prevalence of homelessness among mentally disordered offenders entering the criminal justice andforensic mentalhealth systems, to compare base rates of arrest for violent and nonviolent criminal charges among homeless and domiciled persons with mental illness, and to examine patterns in the categories of victims chosen ..." Third, the conclusion was that, among mentally ill people generally (not only those charged [1]) those homeless were ~35x more likely to be charged with crimes than those domiciled, and it was somwhat even more likely that those crimes would be violent or against strangers (there's more detail in the paper). The paper says nothing about crime among the homeless population generally. > absurd > crack the skull of a 70 year old nurse Do pejoratives and outrage make it more persuasive or less? More importantly, do they make it more likely or less likely that you find and express truth? I think much less likely, because it means 1) You are dismissing a lot of information, 2) You are not examining the matter thoughtfully (being outraged), and 3) You likely have little better argument. That also makes it less persuasive to people who are thinking critically. [0] When crime rates were much higher. The paper: Martell, D. A., Rosner, R., & Harmon, R. B. (1995). Base-rate estimates of criminal behavior by homeless mentally ill persons in New York City. Psychiatric Services, 46(6), 596–601. https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.46.6.596 https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.46.6.596 [1] Note that they gathered data only on mentally ill people charged with crimes and not on the general population of mentally ill people. The latter group's data they took from the same author's prior research.
peterfirefly 2mo ago
> hey should be imprisoned for an appropriate period of time as a deterrent to crime, a punishment for their actions, and to facilitate rehabilitation (even though evidence shows this doesn't really happen). And to prevent them from committing crime for some time. That might need to be a very, very long time. It is the most important reason to lock people up, sometimes.

47635274172635 2mo ago

I think you need to fix the cause not treat the symptom. I mean you should treat the symptoms as well, while fixing the cause of the issue. Atm it seems everyone is trying to figure out how to treat the symptom, and they don't even know why, and they keep completely quiet about the cause of it all. Completely and utter mystery, or framed vague and unfixable enough that they do not have to really address it. What the Swiss did back in the 80's with the heroin program...that's misinterpreted by US and they're specifically trying to mess it up in application. The Swiss didn't just give lab grade heroin to junkies, they ran a serious mental care and social reintegration program and used the heroin as basically bait. You had access to it but you had to go to their facilities where specialized people could start working with you. What the US is doing is a mockery of that, they want it to fail so they can say it's not working and they shouldn't even try it in the future. And I think it's quite clear to basically anyone with two neurons what the cause of it is, but authorities there are going to pretend they do not understand it. That it's some mystical unexplainable cause.

alex43578 2mo ago
Right now, many places in the US aren’t even “treating the symptoms”. We can start there, then move to address the more structural, long-term problems that contribute to these issues. An action that reduces drug use by 5% a decade from now is fine, but taking a criminal off the street today yields far greater present value.

remarkEon 2mo ago

The most important part of incarceration is removing what is a quantifiable risk to the public from the public square. Everything else is secondary. The point of a state having police powers is to ensure for the common good, it is not to continually indulge those who wish to damage that common good. To the extent that the state is responsible for e.g. punishment and rehabilitation, these are ancillary responsibilities that are (or were) downstream from removing threats to the common good from the public square. Seems like, after all of these police and prosecutorial "reforms", we are back to deriving why many state powers exist from first principles. Fun to watch in real time.

mmooss 2mo ago
Lacking a house isn't a threat to others. I've rarely seen an unhoused people do harm. Annoying you isn't harm. Making rich people uncomfortable isn't a crime. > common good A term used to justify taking away liberty from people you don't like - 'it might take away their rights, but it's good for people in 'common''. The point of government, as Jefferson eloquently put it in the document that birthed the US, is to protect people's rights.
- alex43578 2mo ago
  "I've rarely seen an unhoused people do harm" is an absurd statement. It's an old study, but Martell in Base-rate estimates of criminal behavior by homeless mentally ill persons in New York City found that "The rate of violent crimes was 40 times higher and the rate of nonviolent crimes 27 times higher in the homeless population". Most people don't like mentally ill homeless people who commit violent crime at a rate 40 times higher than average. Remind me what right in the Constitution enshrines your ability to crack the skull of a 70 year old nurse on the ground, then wander off and go to sleep? https://abcnews.com/US/70-year-nurse-killed-random-assault-bus-stop/story?id=82328499 https://abcnews.com/US/70-year-nurse-killed-random-assault-b...
  - mmooss 2mo ago
    > It's an old study, but Martell in Base-rate estimates of criminal behavior by homeless mentally ill persons in New York City found that "The rate of violent crimes was 40 times higher and the rate of nonviolent crimes 27 times higher in the homeless population". It is indeed old (1995 [0]) and that's not what the paper studied or concluded. First, the study did not gather data on the homeless population, but on mentally ill people already in the criminal justice system: * "The authors analyzed data from ... records of 77 homeless defendants and 107 domiciled defendants referred for psychiatric examination by the criminal and supreme courts ..." Second, the paper's goals were to gather needed data on homelessness among mentally ill people in the criminal justice system, and to examine the interactions between homelessness and crime among mentally ill people: * "The study aimed to estimate the prevalence of homelessness among mentally disordered offenders entering the criminal justice andforensic mentalhealth systems, to compare base rates of arrest for violent and nonviolent criminal charges among homeless and domiciled persons with mental illness, and to examine patterns in the categories of victims chosen ..." Third, the conclusion was that, among mentally ill people generally (not only those charged [1]) those homeless were ~35x more likely to be charged with crimes than those domiciled, and it was somwhat even more likely that those crimes would be violent or against strangers (there's more detail in the paper). The paper says nothing about crime among the homeless population generally. > absurd > crack the skull of a 70 year old nurse Do pejoratives and outrage make it more persuasive or less? More importantly, do they make it more likely or less likely that you find and express truth? I think much less likely, because it means 1) You are dismissing a lot of information, 2) You are not examining the matter thoughtfully (being outraged), and 3) You likely have little better argument. That also makes it less persuasive to people who are thinking critically. [0] When crime rates were much higher. The paper: Martell, D. A., Rosner, R., & Harmon, R. B. (1995). Base-rate estimates of criminal behavior by homeless mentally ill persons in New York City. Psychiatric Services, 46(6), 596–601. https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.46.6.596 https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.46.6.596 [1] Note that they gathered data only on mentally ill people charged with crimes and not on the general population of mentally ill people. The latter group's data they took from the same author's prior research.

peterfirefly 2mo ago

> hey should be imprisoned for an appropriate period of time as a deterrent to crime, a punishment for their actions, and to facilitate rehabilitation (even though evidence shows this doesn't really happen). And to prevent them from committing crime for some time. That might need to be a very, very long time. It is the most important reason to lock people up, sometimes.