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Having an insufficient deterrent is not the problem when other countries have 10%-20% the incarceration rate of the US without flogging while having generally l

Having an insufficient deterrent is not the problem when other countries have 10%-20% the incarceration rate of the US without flogging while having generally lower crime rates overall and violent crime rates in particular.

judk 13y ago
We can't time travel and not-import a huge swath of poor abused hated people. Do you propose we deport them to become more like other countries?
- rbehrends 13y ago
  The US does not have a particularly high proportion of first-generation immigrants compared to some European countries. There are also other countries that have more poverty (in the absolute sense at least), yet less crime and less incarceration. Poverty is also something that society can do something about; if you say that the problem is that America has created a large underclass, then that's the problem you want to solve. Flogging won't reduce the size of that underclass; it can only subdue it.
  - judk 13y ago
    Why did you stick "first generation immigrant" in there. Those aren't the people who were imported and abused.
    - rbehrends 13y ago
      Because your language was sufficiently imprecise so that it wasn't clear what you're talking about, and because, while being a first-generation immigrant may correlate with a higher crime rate, the same does not generally hold for future generations (when integration has happened). Note that life in the slums of Victorian London was not any better than for post-Civil War African Americans, for example. If you control for first-immigration immigrants along with socio-economic disadvantages, most of the difference in crime rates between minorities and the rest of population goes away. That minorities were/are imported and abused plays a role only insofar as existing racism and social stratification perpetuates the disadvantages they suffer. However, flogging will not eliminate racism or social stratification; if anything, it will do the opposite.

judk 13y ago

We can't time travel and not-import a huge swath of poor abused hated people. Do you propose we deport them to become more like other countries?

rbehrends 13y ago
The US does not have a particularly high proportion of first-generation immigrants compared to some European countries. There are also other countries that have more poverty (in the absolute sense at least), yet less crime and less incarceration. Poverty is also something that society can do something about; if you say that the problem is that America has created a large underclass, then that's the problem you want to solve. Flogging won't reduce the size of that underclass; it can only subdue it.
- judk 13y ago
  Why did you stick "first generation immigrant" in there. Those aren't the people who were imported and abused.
  - rbehrends 13y ago
    Because your language was sufficiently imprecise so that it wasn't clear what you're talking about, and because, while being a first-generation immigrant may correlate with a higher crime rate, the same does not generally hold for future generations (when integration has happened). Note that life in the slums of Victorian London was not any better than for post-Civil War African Americans, for example. If you control for first-immigration immigrants along with socio-economic disadvantages, most of the difference in crime rates between minorities and the rest of population goes away. That minorities were/are imported and abused plays a role only insofar as existing racism and social stratification perpetuates the disadvantages they suffer. However, flogging will not eliminate racism or social stratification; if anything, it will do the opposite.