5 ms·

There's a lot of implicit circular reasoning in this post. 1. The neighborhood is bad therefore everyone in it deserves to be treated harshly. 2. Look how man

There's a lot of implicit circular reasoning in this post. 1. The neighborhood is bad therefore everyone in it deserves to be treated harshly. 2. Look how many heavy sentences are handed out in the neighborhod. It's must be a bad one. (goto 1) The other circular problem that exists is this: 1. People who have "done" bad things (as evidenced by heavy sentences on record) are probably going to do them again. 2. We don't want to give bad people any real jobs or opportunities they are bad. 3. There aren't a lot of options or opportunities left but to do bad things. (goto 1)

rayiner 13y ago
Nothing circular: > 1. The neighborhood is bad therefore everyone in it deserves to be treated harshly. How people deserve to be treated isn't the sole consideration. It's also relevant how people must be treated in order to maintain a certain level of order. > 2. Look how many heavy sentences are handed out in the neighborhod. It's must be a bad one. (goto 1) Did I say anything about sentences? My evidence was murders and shootings (on a per capita basis). > 1. People who have "done" bad things (as evidenced by heavy sentences on record) are probably going to do them again. Yes, it's called "recidivism" and is an empirically measurable phenomenon. > 2. We don't want to give bad people any real jobs or opportunities they are bad. I'd be happy to pay more taxes to support those things. But people like me who have the money to pay taxes aren't going to continue to live in a city if they feel like it's unsafe for their wives to walk home from work at night. It's a sad truth of life, but if you cater too much to the concerns of the poor, you'll drive out the people with the resources to implement the programs to alleviate those problems. See, e.g., Detroit or Wilmington or Camden, etc.
- jbooth 13y ago
  Yeah, but this all makes sense as long as it's someone else. "I don't care if there's gross miscarriage of justice for hundreds or thousands of other people as long as I feel safe" is what you're saying.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    Not just me, but everyone who wants to live in the city and feel safe doing so. I.e. the hundreds of thousands or millions of other people. Life is messy, and human interactions are messy, and all that comes to a head in cities where people live in such close proximity. Creating sufficient order to let the majority feel safe is an important consideration that deserves its due weight. Ideally, that's achieved without trampling on anyone's rights, but a slavish focus on rights to the exclusion of security will just cause people to "opt out." To put it another way, I grew up in a lily-white upper middle class suburb surrounding by morally righteous people who believed it was better to let 10,000 guilty go free than to send one innocent person to jail. That was easy to believe in a town where political assassination was more likely than gang-related crossfire.
    - jbooth 13y ago
      I don't think you're the majority in your neighborhood, from what you described. I lived in the hood for a few years once, I knew what I was doing, minded my own business, and I didn't want police to crack other people's heads for me to feel safe. I get that it's different if you have a family, I don't live there anymore. But perpetuating the system through more hopelessness isn't going to work in the long term.
      - rayiner 13y ago
        > I don't think you're the majority in your neighborhood, from what you described. The majority of people in Wilmington are hard-working folks who deserve to live in a safe neighborhood as much as any suburban family. They aren't involved in gangs, and steer clear of the kind of activity that might get them hassled by the police. > But perpetuating the system through more hopelessness isn't going to work in the long term. You know what won't help the situation? Focusing so much on the rights of the people committing crimes that you ignore the mass exodus of middle class people looking for safer surroundings. Chicago has lost 200,000 black people in the last decade, and I guarantee you they didn't leave because of police profiling. They left because the police have utterly failed to get a hold of the gang activity pervading the south side. And of course these were the kind of people you didn't want leaving: the ones that can afford to.

rayiner 13y ago

Nothing circular: > 1. The neighborhood is bad therefore everyone in it deserves to be treated harshly. How people deserve to be treated isn't the sole consideration. It's also relevant how people must be treated in order to maintain a certain level of order. > 2. Look how many heavy sentences are handed out in the neighborhod. It's must be a bad one. (goto 1) Did I say anything about sentences? My evidence was murders and shootings (on a per capita basis). > 1. People who have "done" bad things (as evidenced by heavy sentences on record) are probably going to do them again. Yes, it's called "recidivism" and is an empirically measurable phenomenon. > 2. We don't want to give bad people any real jobs or opportunities they are bad. I'd be happy to pay more taxes to support those things. But people like me who have the money to pay taxes aren't going to continue to live in a city if they feel like it's unsafe for their wives to walk home from work at night. It's a sad truth of life, but if you cater too much to the concerns of the poor, you'll drive out the people with the resources to implement the programs to alleviate those problems. See, e.g., Detroit or Wilmington or Camden, etc.

jbooth 13y ago
Yeah, but this all makes sense as long as it's someone else. "I don't care if there's gross miscarriage of justice for hundreds or thousands of other people as long as I feel safe" is what you're saying.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Not just me, but everyone who wants to live in the city and feel safe doing so. I.e. the hundreds of thousands or millions of other people. Life is messy, and human interactions are messy, and all that comes to a head in cities where people live in such close proximity. Creating sufficient order to let the majority feel safe is an important consideration that deserves its due weight. Ideally, that's achieved without trampling on anyone's rights, but a slavish focus on rights to the exclusion of security will just cause people to "opt out." To put it another way, I grew up in a lily-white upper middle class suburb surrounding by morally righteous people who believed it was better to let 10,000 guilty go free than to send one innocent person to jail. That was easy to believe in a town where political assassination was more likely than gang-related crossfire.
  - jbooth 13y ago
    I don't think you're the majority in your neighborhood, from what you described. I lived in the hood for a few years once, I knew what I was doing, minded my own business, and I didn't want police to crack other people's heads for me to feel safe. I get that it's different if you have a family, I don't live there anymore. But perpetuating the system through more hopelessness isn't going to work in the long term.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      > I don't think you're the majority in your neighborhood, from what you described. The majority of people in Wilmington are hard-working folks who deserve to live in a safe neighborhood as much as any suburban family. They aren't involved in gangs, and steer clear of the kind of activity that might get them hassled by the police. > But perpetuating the system through more hopelessness isn't going to work in the long term. You know what won't help the situation? Focusing so much on the rights of the people committing crimes that you ignore the mass exodus of middle class people looking for safer surroundings. Chicago has lost 200,000 black people in the last decade, and I guarantee you they didn't leave because of police profiling. They left because the police have utterly failed to get a hold of the gang activity pervading the south side. And of course these were the kind of people you didn't want leaving: the ones that can afford to.