3 ms·

Jobs and jail might not keep young men out of crime, but how about therapy?

19 points by ALee 12y ago

Someone1234 12y ago
> Most solutions you’ve heard of probably boil down to one of two things: jobs or jail. Unfortunately, there’s not much evidence that either do much good. In fact, some of the policing and punishment could be making things worse. What? What evidence is that? The article provides no clues. Considering it has been well shown that crime goes up as unemployment increases[0][1][2] they need to provide some kind of counter-evidence to that. Their argument that the link has "not much evidence" is just untrue. I could source this into the tens of papers if I wished. It is very well tested, and considered a "fact" in the Economics and Sociological spheres. [0] http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/crimwage.htm http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/crimwage.htm [1] http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1069&context=parkplace http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=10... [2] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12000026 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12...
- weeksie 12y ago
  Odd because we didn't experience an increase in violent crime during the recession, in fact it continued to decrease. How many of those studies look at data after the great mid century crime wave had settled? As for evidence that jobs and prison prevent recidivism (or crime in general), assuming they do to some degree, how much more or less effective are they than therapy?
guard-of-terra 12y ago
In fact, "young" violent crime mostly a cultural issue. There are a lot of countries in the world, for example in SE Asia, which are pretty poor but "super safe" - poverty/joblessness doesn't lead to crime. I would argue reasons for crime hotspots are: - Effective destruction of family. - Degenerative urban/dense environment. - No viable life prospects - regardless of what you do, statistically you're stuck at bottom. It's not just that you are poor. Many people in the world are poor. It's that you're poorer than most people in the society, you don't really need to work to avoid starvation and if you do, it doesn't move your prospects.
honksillet 12y ago
Jobs do keep crime down. Crime rates have been correlated with economic performance.
imroot 12y ago
Unfortunately, incarceration's really the only punishment (outside of probation) that courts are allowed to give. I really think that we need to have a serious discussion about the difference between what society thinks is a bad person versus who is society really afraid of -- the people who we, as a society are truly afraid of should be incarcerated.

19 points by ALee 12y ago

> Most solutions you’ve heard of probably boil down to one of two things: jobs or jail. Unfortunately, there’s not much evidence that either do much good. In fact, some of the policing and punishment could be making things worse. What? What evidence is that? The article provides no clues. Considering it has been well shown that crime goes up as unemployment increases[0][1][2] they need to provide some kind of counter-evidence to that. Their argument that the link has "not much evidence" is just untrue. I could source this into the tens of papers if I wished. It is very well tested, and considered a "fact" in the Economics and Sociological spheres. [0] http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/crimwage.htm http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/crimwage.htm [1] http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1069&context=parkplace http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=10... [2] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12000026 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12...

weeksie 12y ago
Odd because we didn't experience an increase in violent crime during the recession, in fact it continued to decrease. How many of those studies look at data after the great mid century crime wave had settled? As for evidence that jobs and prison prevent recidivism (or crime in general), assuming they do to some degree, how much more or less effective are they than therapy?

guard-of-terra 12y ago

In fact, "young" violent crime mostly a cultural issue. There are a lot of countries in the world, for example in SE Asia, which are pretty poor but "super safe" - poverty/joblessness doesn't lead to crime. I would argue reasons for crime hotspots are: - Effective destruction of family. - Degenerative urban/dense environment. - No viable life prospects - regardless of what you do, statistically you're stuck at bottom. It's not just that you are poor. Many people in the world are poor. It's that you're poorer than most people in the society, you don't really need to work to avoid starvation and if you do, it doesn't move your prospects.

honksillet 12y ago

Jobs do keep crime down. Crime rates have been correlated with economic performance.

imroot 12y ago

Unfortunately, incarceration's really the only punishment (outside of probation) that courts are allowed to give. I really think that we need to have a serious discussion about the difference between what society thinks is a bad person versus who is society really afraid of -- the people who we, as a society are truly afraid of should be incarcerated.