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I grew up in communist Czechoslovakia. Maybe people will disagree my account, because I was quite young, but it's interesting. We didn't have gangs and certainl

I grew up in communist Czechoslovakia. Maybe people will disagree my account, because I was quite young, but it's interesting. We didn't have gangs and certainly didn't have bad neighbourhoods (maybe 1 exception). It was a totalitarian state, and people were very afraid of police, but the surveillance was nowhere as pervasive as it is now in the U.S. (all the surveillance was done by people, not much technology). After the Velvet revolution, it was always argued that the rise in the crime that followed was because it's now less surveillance and less totalitarian. Fair enough. Later I visited Western countries and saw they have bad neighbourhoods and gangs, and a lot of surveillance. I have trouble believing that argument now. The point is, you don't need all this, and I want to get this out. History shows, there is probably a way how to structure society (I mean getting rid of gangs and bad neighbourhoods) without resorting to too much surveillance. I think for a justice system to work, people need to have options. If they have option to have a good life, then they are less likely to commit a crime. I don't buy this will reduce crime or gangs or bad neighbourhoods, because these people don't have good options to begin with.

ericd 13y ago
I think you're exactly right about the options. If you see blatant criminals living much more comfortably than you, you don't see any of your peers succeeding via other routes, and jail doesn't seem that much worse than your normal existence, then it actually seems pretty rational to try your hand at crime.
- hnriot 13y ago
  it's just a matter of defining what crime means.
wozniacki 13y ago
It always perplexed me as to why economies - even prosperous ones with plenty of resources and manpower - always under-prosecuted hyper-violent mafias, drug cartels, international arms dealers and other crime rings that ran up body counts by the hundreds and thousands, each year. Is it because, if ghastly criminals don't hit the headlines frequently enough and at regular intervals, the ruse for tighter criminal enforcement in the form of improved convict-prosecution machinery and technology[1], bigger police forces and larger prisons would go away? In general, the case for a very vast and well-lobbied-for penal industrial complex would go away? Is that why? The people making fortunes out of these things, really can't be that base and venal. Can they? [1] The armored vehicles used in the post-bombing manhunt of the Tsarnaev brothers is but a trivial example. Surely there local law enforcement forces across the nation have more substantial technological wares at their disposal. http://radioboston.wbur.org/2013/04/29/manhunt-2 http://radioboston.wbur.org/2013/04/29/manhunt-2 http://media.wbur.org/wordpress/9/files/2013/04/AP128055520115.jpg http://media.wbur.org/wordpress/9/files/2013/04/AP1280555201... [IMAGE]
w_t_payne 13y ago
Thinking more of white-collar crime than working-class crime, I feel that my parents were pretty careful to set my moral compass in the right direction when I was growing up, but that exposure to the financial industry, the advertising industry and (especially) the diplomatic community has made me a lot more cynical about the prevalence of self-serving amoral behaviour amongst the "professional" classes. I am saddened to witness a creeping corruption in my own sense of right and wrong, as I see that success and wealth seem to be more highly correlated with cynical manipulation and self-promotion than humility and careful moral decision-making.
unclebucknasty 13y ago
>I think for a justice system to work, people need to have options. This. One million times this. At a time when wealth disparity is accelerating and the top 85 people in the world have as much wealth as the bottom 2.5 billion, we need to invest in creating opportunity--this instead of implementing a surveillance state to supposedly hunt down those who have been marginalized and, thus, turned to crime. And, here we are battling over increasing the minimum wage to allow full-time workers a chance to lift themselves out of poverty. At the same time, corporate profits are at a record high. And let's not forget that our prison system is now largely for-profit. Spend more to catch them. Spend more to keep them. It really is insane from society's point of view. But, for a few people, it's insanely profitable.

ericd 13y ago

I think you're exactly right about the options. If you see blatant criminals living much more comfortably than you, you don't see any of your peers succeeding via other routes, and jail doesn't seem that much worse than your normal existence, then it actually seems pretty rational to try your hand at crime.

hnriot 13y ago
it's just a matter of defining what crime means.

wozniacki 13y ago

It always perplexed me as to why economies - even prosperous ones with plenty of resources and manpower - always under-prosecuted hyper-violent mafias, drug cartels, international arms dealers and other crime rings that ran up body counts by the hundreds and thousands, each year. Is it because, if ghastly criminals don't hit the headlines frequently enough and at regular intervals, the ruse for tighter criminal enforcement in the form of improved convict-prosecution machinery and technology[1], bigger police forces and larger prisons would go away? In general, the case for a very vast and well-lobbied-for penal industrial complex would go away? Is that why? The people making fortunes out of these things, really can't be that base and venal. Can they? [1] The armored vehicles used in the post-bombing manhunt of the Tsarnaev brothers is but a trivial example. Surely there local law enforcement forces across the nation have more substantial technological wares at their disposal. http://radioboston.wbur.org/2013/04/29/manhunt-2 http://radioboston.wbur.org/2013/04/29/manhunt-2 http://media.wbur.org/wordpress/9/files/2013/04/AP128055520115.jpg http://media.wbur.org/wordpress/9/files/2013/04/AP1280555201... [IMAGE]

w_t_payne 13y ago

Thinking more of white-collar crime than working-class crime, I feel that my parents were pretty careful to set my moral compass in the right direction when I was growing up, but that exposure to the financial industry, the advertising industry and (especially) the diplomatic community has made me a lot more cynical about the prevalence of self-serving amoral behaviour amongst the "professional" classes. I am saddened to witness a creeping corruption in my own sense of right and wrong, as I see that success and wealth seem to be more highly correlated with cynical manipulation and self-promotion than humility and careful moral decision-making.

unclebucknasty 13y ago

>I think for a justice system to work, people need to have options. This. One million times this. At a time when wealth disparity is accelerating and the top 85 people in the world have as much wealth as the bottom 2.5 billion, we need to invest in creating opportunity--this instead of implementing a surveillance state to supposedly hunt down those who have been marginalized and, thus, turned to crime. And, here we are battling over increasing the minimum wage to allow full-time workers a chance to lift themselves out of poverty. At the same time, corporate profits are at a record high. And let's not forget that our prison system is now largely for-profit. Spend more to catch them. Spend more to keep them. It really is insane from society's point of view. But, for a few people, it's insanely profitable.