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Just ask yourself one question: what did all the bootleggers do after alcohol prohibition was dropped? Exactly. There's a sort of twinge of classism (or even ra

Just ask yourself one question: what did all the bootleggers do after alcohol prohibition was dropped? Exactly. There's a sort of twinge of classism (or even racism) in your comment, by the way. The assumption that people who participate in a normal capitalist marketplace are inherently criminals is just silly. They do what they do because it's a bustling marketplace. Period.

aianus 12y ago
I don't know, what did the low level bootleggers and enforcers do after prohibition ended? If I was one, I'd have moved on to similar work in narcotics and prostitution. People choose to risk jail time and physical harm to make mediocre money as a street dealer because they have no better options. Most of them don't even have high school diplomas, what else are they going to do? If we don't do anything other than eliminate the black market for drugs their next best option is still going to be some sort of crime.
- joel_perl_prog 12y ago
  Sure. But you assume there's a permanent class of criminals whose only interest is crime. The principle interest in the drug game is money. It's a business. What I'm saying is, there's not a "fixed amount of crime," which you imply; you basically say it's like squeezing a balloon. The amount of air doesn't change, it just gets displaced a little bit. What we need is a sociologist (or someone who has otherwise done the reading) to come in with studies and numbers. I'm sort of working outward from my reference, Pinker's The Better Angels Of Our Nature, and suggesting that crime, too, overall crime, is dropping. And would drop even more if the laws were written correctly. In other words, there's not a fixed number of criminals, nor a fixed amount of crime.
  - dinkumthinkum 12y ago
    You can talk about studies and all that and that's fine but I think this is horribly naive. The world is not a pop sociology book.
    - joel_perl_prog 12y ago
      That's exactly why it's so important to decriminalize (or outright legalize). Because the theory behind criminalization simply doesn't work. It is you who are naive, sir. Please see my other comments above. I explain this. I hope I explain this. What didn't I convey?
      - dinkumthinkum 12y ago
        Oh, no I'm not naive. You think some Pinker book shows that complete legalization would result in people involved in the drug becoming upstanding members of society. You talk of "criminals" as some kind of theoretical agent.
        joel_perl_prog 12y ago
        I can see that were not going to connect here. And I shouldn't have called you naive. I should have said your position is naive. But is it really such a stretch to expect alignment between swiftly declining rates of violence and declining rates of all anti-social behavior. Keep in mind, doing drugs, just recreationally doing drugs, minding ones own business IS NOT A CRIME (or shouldn't be) and isn't anti-social (or doesn't have to be, and isn't for most casual users). Think: casual alcohol drinkers. As most are. Are there alcoholics? Of course. But that does nothing to diminish my case. It was never expected that all crime would vanish (or perhaps...you expect that?).
- joel_perl_prog 12y ago
  Sure, but even if some number of drug dealers moved on to other crime, would there not necessarily be less crime, overall, if a major aspect of normal human life were to suddenly be decriminalized? In other words, when everything is a crime, we are all criminals. That's my basic position on the war on drugs, and so many other things. Edit: whoops, meant to reply thecabinet.
- dobbsbob 12y ago
  Most gangs are not directly involved in the sale of narcotics, instead they are involved in extortion "taxing" those who are selling drugs in their area. If drugs disappear they will find another black market to tax like gambling, fencing stolen goods or selling weapons. However the difference is they won't make a million dollars per month taxing somebody running an illegal gambling operation unlike jacking cocaine drivers. It will be a much smaller criminal enterprise, they won't be able to afford a small army of thugs to terrorize an entire city like they currently do here now with all their windfall narco profits. As for non violent street peddlers I imagine they will go into exports, shipping narcotics to countries where it's still illegal. After Marijuana was symbolically decriminalized by police here refusing to arrest people for possession, and the black market was swamped with declining prices, many former dealers and growers instead decided to operate unlicensed tourist operations selling weed travel packages, and running their own storefronts for legal drugs using their profits as street dealers to bootstrap it.
dinkumthinkum 12y ago
Are you serious? Many moved on to other criminal activity.
thecabinet 12y ago
Instead of accusing people of racism, why I don't you try actually answering the question? "OMG, he said crack rather than meth, therefore racism!" So, what did all the bootleggers do? I don't have any idea, so I'm probably a racist too... I do know alot of them became politicians, so I think the suggestion that they might turn to a different criminal enterprise is entirely on point. According to Freakonomics, a lot of low-level drug dealers make less than minimum wage. So why do they take those jobs? Can they not find legal employment (ue to lack of opportunities, disqualification due to criminal record, insufficient education, etc. or are they rejecting legal employment for a job that's more exciting, more acceptable among their peers, has a higher maximum vale despite lower expected value, etc? If they're rejecting legal employment it's entirely plausible they'll move on to a different (probably criminal) enterprise that has similar characteristics.
- justincormack 12y ago
  No they really can't find other work. Drugs are the only option in many areas. Philippe Bourgois's book In Search of Respect is a good read on this. So there will be more issues in areas with no jobs after legalization.
Natsu 12y ago
> Just ask yourself one question: what did all the bootleggers do after alcohol prohibition was dropped? "Bootlegging helped lead to the establishment of American organized crime, which persisted long after the repeal of Prohibition. The distribution of liquor was necessarily more complex than other types of criminal activity, and organized gangs eventually arose that could control an entire local chain of bootlegging operations, from concealed distilleries and breweries through storage and transport channels to speakeasies, restaurants, nightclubs, and other retail outlets. These gangs tried to secure and enlarge territories in which they had a monopoly of distribution. Gradually the gangs in different cities began to cooperate with each other, and they extended their methods of organizing beyond bootlegging to the narcotics traffic, gambling rackets, prostitution, labour racketeering, loan-sharking, and extortion. The national American crime syndicate, the Mafia, arose out of the coordinated activities of Italian bootleggers and other gangsters in New York City in the late 1920s and early ’30s." Source: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/73745/bootlegging http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/73745/bootlegging
- joel_perl_prog 12y ago
  Well, so some of them moved on to other activities that also shouldn't be criminalized, then. I speak about gambling. Which is de-facto legal now, because of how many Indian casinos there are in so many states. Prostitution? We have a long way to go in decriminalizing this. But slight progress is being made. Just another stupid moralizing law that achieves nothing. Now as to protection rackets, extortion, etc. These would remain unaffected, most likely. But can we agree that at least some (perhaps most) of the enterprises they moved into, most of the total crime these criminals are responsible for, are just also yet more normal human activities that should never have been illegal? Can we also agree that decriminalizing normal human behaviors, while it won't eliminate all crime (that was never a claim I made), it will reduce the total overall amount of crime? How could it not? When everything is illegal, we are all criminals.
  - Natsu 12y ago
    It's tautological to say that decriminalizing things reduces crime. It would be more productive to do a cost benefit analysis. Most of the advocacy I've seen is starry-eyed and simply ignores or rejects the idea that the social costs--for example marginally or completely unemployable addicts. There's a fair point that this is true of legal drugs (alcohol) but it's not something we should want to expand (c.f. drunk driving), so it should be advocated according to a reasonable analysis of the trade-offs.

aianus 12y ago

I don't know, what did the low level bootleggers and enforcers do after prohibition ended? If I was one, I'd have moved on to similar work in narcotics and prostitution. People choose to risk jail time and physical harm to make mediocre money as a street dealer because they have no better options. Most of them don't even have high school diplomas, what else are they going to do? If we don't do anything other than eliminate the black market for drugs their next best option is still going to be some sort of crime.

joel_perl_prog 12y ago
Sure. But you assume there's a permanent class of criminals whose only interest is crime. The principle interest in the drug game is money. It's a business. What I'm saying is, there's not a "fixed amount of crime," which you imply; you basically say it's like squeezing a balloon. The amount of air doesn't change, it just gets displaced a little bit. What we need is a sociologist (or someone who has otherwise done the reading) to come in with studies and numbers. I'm sort of working outward from my reference, Pinker's The Better Angels Of Our Nature, and suggesting that crime, too, overall crime, is dropping. And would drop even more if the laws were written correctly. In other words, there's not a fixed number of criminals, nor a fixed amount of crime.
- dinkumthinkum 12y ago
  You can talk about studies and all that and that's fine but I think this is horribly naive. The world is not a pop sociology book.
  - joel_perl_prog 12y ago
    That's exactly why it's so important to decriminalize (or outright legalize). Because the theory behind criminalization simply doesn't work. It is you who are naive, sir. Please see my other comments above. I explain this. I hope I explain this. What didn't I convey?
    - dinkumthinkum 12y ago
      Oh, no I'm not naive. You think some Pinker book shows that complete legalization would result in people involved in the drug becoming upstanding members of society. You talk of "criminals" as some kind of theoretical agent.
      - joel_perl_prog 12y ago
        I can see that were not going to connect here. And I shouldn't have called you naive. I should have said your position is naive. But is it really such a stretch to expect alignment between swiftly declining rates of violence and declining rates of all anti-social behavior. Keep in mind, doing drugs, just recreationally doing drugs, minding ones own business IS NOT A CRIME (or shouldn't be) and isn't anti-social (or doesn't have to be, and isn't for most casual users). Think: casual alcohol drinkers. As most are. Are there alcoholics? Of course. But that does nothing to diminish my case. It was never expected that all crime would vanish (or perhaps...you expect that?).
joel_perl_prog 12y ago
Sure, but even if some number of drug dealers moved on to other crime, would there not necessarily be less crime, overall, if a major aspect of normal human life were to suddenly be decriminalized? In other words, when everything is a crime, we are all criminals. That's my basic position on the war on drugs, and so many other things. Edit: whoops, meant to reply thecabinet.
dobbsbob 12y ago
Most gangs are not directly involved in the sale of narcotics, instead they are involved in extortion "taxing" those who are selling drugs in their area. If drugs disappear they will find another black market to tax like gambling, fencing stolen goods or selling weapons. However the difference is they won't make a million dollars per month taxing somebody running an illegal gambling operation unlike jacking cocaine drivers. It will be a much smaller criminal enterprise, they won't be able to afford a small army of thugs to terrorize an entire city like they currently do here now with all their windfall narco profits. As for non violent street peddlers I imagine they will go into exports, shipping narcotics to countries where it's still illegal. After Marijuana was symbolically decriminalized by police here refusing to arrest people for possession, and the black market was swamped with declining prices, many former dealers and growers instead decided to operate unlicensed tourist operations selling weed travel packages, and running their own storefronts for legal drugs using their profits as street dealers to bootstrap it.

dinkumthinkum 12y ago

Are you serious? Many moved on to other criminal activity.

thecabinet 12y ago

Instead of accusing people of racism, why I don't you try actually answering the question? "OMG, he said crack rather than meth, therefore racism!" So, what did all the bootleggers do? I don't have any idea, so I'm probably a racist too... I do know alot of them became politicians, so I think the suggestion that they might turn to a different criminal enterprise is entirely on point. According to Freakonomics, a lot of low-level drug dealers make less than minimum wage. So why do they take those jobs? Can they not find legal employment (ue to lack of opportunities, disqualification due to criminal record, insufficient education, etc. or are they rejecting legal employment for a job that's more exciting, more acceptable among their peers, has a higher maximum vale despite lower expected value, etc? If they're rejecting legal employment it's entirely plausible they'll move on to a different (probably criminal) enterprise that has similar characteristics.

justincormack 12y ago
No they really can't find other work. Drugs are the only option in many areas. Philippe Bourgois's book In Search of Respect is a good read on this. So there will be more issues in areas with no jobs after legalization.

Natsu 12y ago

> Just ask yourself one question: what did all the bootleggers do after alcohol prohibition was dropped? "Bootlegging helped lead to the establishment of American organized crime, which persisted long after the repeal of Prohibition. The distribution of liquor was necessarily more complex than other types of criminal activity, and organized gangs eventually arose that could control an entire local chain of bootlegging operations, from concealed distilleries and breweries through storage and transport channels to speakeasies, restaurants, nightclubs, and other retail outlets. These gangs tried to secure and enlarge territories in which they had a monopoly of distribution. Gradually the gangs in different cities began to cooperate with each other, and they extended their methods of organizing beyond bootlegging to the narcotics traffic, gambling rackets, prostitution, labour racketeering, loan-sharking, and extortion. The national American crime syndicate, the Mafia, arose out of the coordinated activities of Italian bootleggers and other gangsters in New York City in the late 1920s and early ’30s." Source: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/73745/bootlegging http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/73745/bootlegging

joel_perl_prog 12y ago
Well, so some of them moved on to other activities that also shouldn't be criminalized, then. I speak about gambling. Which is de-facto legal now, because of how many Indian casinos there are in so many states. Prostitution? We have a long way to go in decriminalizing this. But slight progress is being made. Just another stupid moralizing law that achieves nothing. Now as to protection rackets, extortion, etc. These would remain unaffected, most likely. But can we agree that at least some (perhaps most) of the enterprises they moved into, most of the total crime these criminals are responsible for, are just also yet more normal human activities that should never have been illegal? Can we also agree that decriminalizing normal human behaviors, while it won't eliminate all crime (that was never a claim I made), it will reduce the total overall amount of crime? How could it not? When everything is illegal, we are all criminals.
- Natsu 12y ago
  It's tautological to say that decriminalizing things reduces crime. It would be more productive to do a cost benefit analysis. Most of the advocacy I've seen is starry-eyed and simply ignores or rejects the idea that the social costs--for example marginally or completely unemployable addicts. There's a fair point that this is true of legal drugs (alcohol) but it's not something we should want to expand (c.f. drunk driving), so it should be advocated according to a reasonable analysis of the trade-offs.