10 ms·

See Norway and Denmark's prison system and much of Europe in general.

by Zariel 13y ago

rayiner 13y ago
Homogenous countries with low levels of social dysfunction and high social cohesion have an easier time dealing with prisoners: news at 11.
- kybernetikos 13y ago
  That sounds like a cop out. Not least because the problems mentioned here aren't so much with the prisoners but with the political system that criminalises common behaviour, the legal system that puts non dangerous offenders in prison and the cultural attitude that abuse is warranted. Even if it isn't a cop out, it might be better taken as a suggestion for areas to target for improvement (social dysfunction, social cohesion) than as an excuse for complacency.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    It's an explanation not an excuse. Go to the south side of Chicago and try to see what sorts of cultural ties exist between the people there and the people in the rest of the city. There is a profound disconnect, and a profound lack of any sense of connection to a common community. Obviously Denmark or Norway have poor people. But the sense that one group of people are not even party to the same social contract is not one that is common in Europe, though you see it among Muslim immigrants in the UK and France. Lack of faith in social institutions breeds crime. If you're a poor teenager in Chicago deciding whether to join a gang, you do it because the gang can protect you. The police won't protect you--the police are there to protect the rest of the city from you. And it's not just a matter of decriminalizing common behavior. The young people in Chicago joining gangs aren't non-violent offenders being out away for innocuous crimes. That's what makes the problem so deeply intractable. Even when you take away the overly long sentences and the convictions for innocuous things like mere drug possession, the US has far more crime than Denmark or Norway. Europe is going to see it too, soon. Below replacement fertility has meant increasing immigration, faster than those people can be integrated. And then Europe too will have to deal with the "us versus them" mentality that arises in such populations.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > Obviously Denmark or Norway have poor people. Not really the way the US does: Most recent available Gini Coefficients [1]: Denmark 24.8 Norway 25 Germany 27 E.U. 30.7 India 36.8 World 39 Nigeria 43.7 United States 45 Mozambique 45.6 The biggest underlying problem with the US prison (educational, healthcare, etc.) system is that the US economic system is actively maintained to increase the concentration of wealth and the degree to which Americans don't share a common set of interests. But, still, such broader social problems aren't the only big problems in the prison or other systems, and even though they need to be fixed, there are big steps that can be taken short of fixing them to deal with other real problems in each of those systems. > And it's not just a matter of decriminalizing common behavior. Ending drug prohibition would do quite a lot of to mitigate the problem with prisons, even though it wouldn't deal with the biggest underlying problem. > The young people in Chicago joining gangs aren't non-violent offenders being out away for innocuous crimes. No, but there'd be a lot less broken homes for them to come from if it weren't lots of resources being poored into non-violent offenders being put away for victimless crimes, and there'd be a lot more resources for the kinds of interventions that would stop people from ending up in gangs in the first places. > That's what makes the problem so deeply intractable. What makes the problem deeply intractable is people throwing up their hands and saying that the problem is too hard to deal with. (And, mostly, people seeing their own short-term self-interest being in not dealing with the problem.) [1] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2172.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
    - briandear 13y ago
      "Go to the south side of Chicago"... That makes me laugh, I now live near Guadalajara, Mexico and it's safer here, even with cartel violence, than in Chicago. Have a look at the majority of these addresses for the 2013 murders in Chicago: https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0Ak3IIavLYTovdHYxbDItQ255eWh1NzBiQXp5cmxRdmc&output=html https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0Ak3IIavLYTovdHYxbDI... Here's a map for the 52 murders in Chicago in just July 2013: http://homicides.redeyechicago.com/date/2013/7/ http://homicides.redeyechicago.com/date/2013/7/ I'd love to increase cultural ties, however from a risk-assessment standpoint, Chicago is less safe than being a soldier in Afghanistan: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/16/chicago-homicide-rate-wor_n_1602692.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/16/chicago-homicide-ra...
- rbehrends 13y ago
  That's not really the underlying cause. The US has a much higher (as in: an order of magnitude higher) incarceration rate than the Nordic (or some Central European) countries. But the same cannot be said of crime rates. Crime rates in the US tend to be higher, but not nearly that much higher and not across the board. What sets the US apart that leads to high incarceration rates is primarily harsh sentencing (longer sentences, fewer suspended sentences, high minimum sentences, a general focus on retribution over rehabilitation, the "felonization" [1] of everything under the sun). [1] http://www.harveysilverglate.com/Books/ThreeFeloniesaDay.aspx http://www.harveysilverglate.com/Books/ThreeFeloniesaDay.asp... [2] [2] Yes, the book is a bit sensationalist, but there's plenty of truth to it. See, e.g. the Kiera Wilmot case [3]: What she did wouldn't have even risen to the level of a misdemeanor in most Western European countries. [3] http://www.businessinsider.com/kiera-wilmot-lawyer-hoping-to-prevent-felony-charges-from-being-filed-2013-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/kiera-wilmot-lawyer-hoping-to...
  - rayiner 13y ago
    The murder rate in the U.S. is 16x that of Iceland, 8x that of Norway, 6x that of Germany, and 4-5x that of the Netherlands or France or the UK.
    - xyzzyz 13y ago
      Well, if you're on the third strike, you might as well kill the witness instead let him go, as it does not increase your sentence, but decreases your chance of being caught. Of course, it's not the law that's solely responsible for crazy high crime rates compared to other civilized countries, nevertheless some practices used in US legal system can give a lot of incentive to minor offenders to do things they otherwise wouldn't.
    - rbehrends 13y ago
      Yes, but the US robbery rate is lower than in England, and the crime rates in many other categories are comparable [1] to what you find in the EU. Intentional homicides make up only a small fraction of all crime. Crime tends to be more lethal in the US, not (that much) more frequent. [1] http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/statistics/data.html http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/statistics/d...
- GFischer 13y ago
  Aren't there homogeneous states in the U.S.? I believe it has been shown that for similar cities, the U.S. system is worse - I think I saw an example of an U.S. and a Canadian city across the border, similar demographics, the U.S. one had 10 times the crime rate, etc..

See Norway and Denmark's prison system and much of Europe in general.

by Zariel 13y ago

See Norway and Denmark's prison system and much of Europe in general.

Homogenous countries with low levels of social dysfunction and high social cohesion have an easier time dealing with prisoners: news at 11.

kybernetikos 13y ago
That sounds like a cop out. Not least because the problems mentioned here aren't so much with the prisoners but with the political system that criminalises common behaviour, the legal system that puts non dangerous offenders in prison and the cultural attitude that abuse is warranted. Even if it isn't a cop out, it might be better taken as a suggestion for areas to target for improvement (social dysfunction, social cohesion) than as an excuse for complacency.
- rayiner 13y ago
  It's an explanation not an excuse. Go to the south side of Chicago and try to see what sorts of cultural ties exist between the people there and the people in the rest of the city. There is a profound disconnect, and a profound lack of any sense of connection to a common community. Obviously Denmark or Norway have poor people. But the sense that one group of people are not even party to the same social contract is not one that is common in Europe, though you see it among Muslim immigrants in the UK and France. Lack of faith in social institutions breeds crime. If you're a poor teenager in Chicago deciding whether to join a gang, you do it because the gang can protect you. The police won't protect you--the police are there to protect the rest of the city from you. And it's not just a matter of decriminalizing common behavior. The young people in Chicago joining gangs aren't non-violent offenders being out away for innocuous crimes. That's what makes the problem so deeply intractable. Even when you take away the overly long sentences and the convictions for innocuous things like mere drug possession, the US has far more crime than Denmark or Norway. Europe is going to see it too, soon. Below replacement fertility has meant increasing immigration, faster than those people can be integrated. And then Europe too will have to deal with the "us versus them" mentality that arises in such populations.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > Obviously Denmark or Norway have poor people. Not really the way the US does: Most recent available Gini Coefficients [1]: Denmark 24.8 Norway 25 Germany 27 E.U. 30.7 India 36.8 World 39 Nigeria 43.7 United States 45 Mozambique 45.6 The biggest underlying problem with the US prison (educational, healthcare, etc.) system is that the US economic system is actively maintained to increase the concentration of wealth and the degree to which Americans don't share a common set of interests. But, still, such broader social problems aren't the only big problems in the prison or other systems, and even though they need to be fixed, there are big steps that can be taken short of fixing them to deal with other real problems in each of those systems. > And it's not just a matter of decriminalizing common behavior. Ending drug prohibition would do quite a lot of to mitigate the problem with prisons, even though it wouldn't deal with the biggest underlying problem. > The young people in Chicago joining gangs aren't non-violent offenders being out away for innocuous crimes. No, but there'd be a lot less broken homes for them to come from if it weren't lots of resources being poored into non-violent offenders being put away for victimless crimes, and there'd be a lot more resources for the kinds of interventions that would stop people from ending up in gangs in the first places. > That's what makes the problem so deeply intractable. What makes the problem deeply intractable is people throwing up their hands and saying that the problem is too hard to deal with. (And, mostly, people seeing their own short-term self-interest being in not dealing with the problem.) [1] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2172.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
  - briandear 13y ago
    "Go to the south side of Chicago"... That makes me laugh, I now live near Guadalajara, Mexico and it's safer here, even with cartel violence, than in Chicago. Have a look at the majority of these addresses for the 2013 murders in Chicago: https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0Ak3IIavLYTovdHYxbDItQ255eWh1NzBiQXp5cmxRdmc&output=html https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0Ak3IIavLYTovdHYxbDI... Here's a map for the 52 murders in Chicago in just July 2013: http://homicides.redeyechicago.com/date/2013/7/ http://homicides.redeyechicago.com/date/2013/7/ I'd love to increase cultural ties, however from a risk-assessment standpoint, Chicago is less safe than being a soldier in Afghanistan: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/16/chicago-homicide-rate-wor_n_1602692.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/16/chicago-homicide-ra...
rbehrends 13y ago
That's not really the underlying cause. The US has a much higher (as in: an order of magnitude higher) incarceration rate than the Nordic (or some Central European) countries. But the same cannot be said of crime rates. Crime rates in the US tend to be higher, but not nearly that much higher and not across the board. What sets the US apart that leads to high incarceration rates is primarily harsh sentencing (longer sentences, fewer suspended sentences, high minimum sentences, a general focus on retribution over rehabilitation, the "felonization" [1] of everything under the sun). [1] http://www.harveysilverglate.com/Books/ThreeFeloniesaDay.aspx http://www.harveysilverglate.com/Books/ThreeFeloniesaDay.asp... [2] [2] Yes, the book is a bit sensationalist, but there's plenty of truth to it. See, e.g. the Kiera Wilmot case [3]: What she did wouldn't have even risen to the level of a misdemeanor in most Western European countries. [3] http://www.businessinsider.com/kiera-wilmot-lawyer-hoping-to-prevent-felony-charges-from-being-filed-2013-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/kiera-wilmot-lawyer-hoping-to...
- rayiner 13y ago
  The murder rate in the U.S. is 16x that of Iceland, 8x that of Norway, 6x that of Germany, and 4-5x that of the Netherlands or France or the UK.
  - xyzzyz 13y ago
    Well, if you're on the third strike, you might as well kill the witness instead let him go, as it does not increase your sentence, but decreases your chance of being caught. Of course, it's not the law that's solely responsible for crazy high crime rates compared to other civilized countries, nevertheless some practices used in US legal system can give a lot of incentive to minor offenders to do things they otherwise wouldn't.
  - rbehrends 13y ago
    Yes, but the US robbery rate is lower than in England, and the crime rates in many other categories are comparable [1] to what you find in the EU. Intentional homicides make up only a small fraction of all crime. Crime tends to be more lethal in the US, not (that much) more frequent. [1] http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/statistics/data.html http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/statistics/d...
GFischer 13y ago
Aren't there homogeneous states in the U.S.? I believe it has been shown that for similar cities, the U.S. system is worse - I think I saw an example of an U.S. and a Canadian city across the border, similar demographics, the U.S. one had 10 times the crime rate, etc..