37 ms·

Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers

374 points by philrea 11y ago

comrade1 11y ago
I guess the best you can do is hopethat you know the laws for the area you live in. The u.s. has so many laws that are different across states and also so many laws that are enforced arbitrarily. Some states you only have to verbally identify yourself to police. Some states you're required to show I.d. if requested. Some states you can decline a breathalyzer and other states you cannot. And if you know the law then you should exercise your rights to the limit of the law. Of course they keep passing new laws to push the limits in the other direction. And I don't think anyone wants to be a test case for throwing out a bad law in the courts. The problem is similar here in Switzerland with the exception that there are fewer laws and that the federal government has very little power (unlike the u.s. With its strong federal laws). For example, here in one canton you can grow 2 marijuana plants for your own use while in another canton you will go to jail for even a small amount of marijuana.
- EliRivers 11y ago
  That's all very well, but it turns out the armour of righteousness is poor protection against getting shot in the back by a policeman, who subsequently plants his excuse on your body. Coppers prepared to do that are hardly going to listen to people claiming their rights are being violated. I dread the day that standard plod in the UK carries a firearm.
  - arethuza 11y ago
    Well I guess the good news is that the UK police seem pretty adamant that they don't want to be armed on normal duty.
    - dghf 11y ago
      Except with tasers: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/09/police-federation-votes-tasers-uniformed-officers http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/09/police-federati...
- seatonist 11y ago
  It's important to know one's rights, but I think that's by no means the best we can do. For starters, we can support organizations like the Equal Justice Initiative (http://www.eji.org http://www.eji.org) or the author of TFA's org, Equal Justice Under Law (http://equaljusticeunderlaw.org http://equaljusticeunderlaw.org) that are working to both defend indigent defendants and fundamentally reform the criminal justice system. Beyond that, I think that there is a lot of opportunity to advocate around these issues on the state and local level right now. Whatever you think of bodycams for police, you have to admit that in light of recent events they're going to become dramaticaly more common. That's just one example of how a crisis can provide a great opportunity for advocacy, and ultimately change. That's not to say that we will be able to make fundamental change quickly on this very difficult issue. But it is to say that there are paths forward, and I would invite people who care to dive in.
- sillygoose 11y ago
  There's this widespread misconception that there are things the police can't do to you because some text somewhere says so. In reality, it's just a question of what they want to do, and whether they can get away with it. For example, if an officer insists on seeing your ID even if the rulebook says you don't have to show it, he can escalate until he gets his way. A police officer can saw off your leg and feed it to some crocodiles if he wants to, and no one's looking or filming. But of course, this misconception is central to the belief in "the rule of law", which keeps us misguidedly comfortable with the fact that there's a bunch of guys in blue costumes who can abuse you as they please, confiscate all your cash, shoot your dog, or just ruin your life on a whim.
  - a3n 11y ago
    There's a saying among cops, "You may beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride." In other words, they can harass you all they want, with impunity. "Oh, he was innocent? Well, darn."
    - sillygoose 11y ago
      Yep, and we're guilty of whatever bullshit crime they accuse us of, until we somehow prove we're not.. from jail, after having all our accounts seized.
  - Cthulhu_ 11y ago
    That's why I support things like dash cams and cameras on police officers themselves - if they're not trustworthy, they need to be monitored and harshly dealt with.
    - sillygoose 11y ago
      They're never dealt with harshly though. Their idea of a punishment is a paid vacation (=suspension), after which the thug is free to do his thing again.
vamonopalmonte 11y ago
bund of suckas. fuck you all beatches.
sgdesign 11y ago
I've been "stopped and frisked" in France before, and it didn't seem out of the ordinary at the time. I just assumed random identity checks was part of the police's job. So I wonder how other countries' laws compare to the U.S. when it comes to random checks like this. And of course, it happened maybe twice in my life, not a couple times a week.
- malka 11y ago
  > And of course, it happened maybe twice in my life, not a couple times a week. In France, that depends mostly of your shade of skin.
  - needs 11y ago
    > In France, that depends mostly of your shade of skin. Well, it mostly depend if you live in a sensible district or not. It happens that mostly Arab and black people live in sensible district because they are poorer than the normal average french people. And (relative) poverty is the source of a lot of social problems. I don't say there is no racism in France too, there is. But it is more indirect, like people trying to avoid looking at black people, or people who prefer helping the white guy instead the black one at school is another example.
    - JonnieCache 11y ago
      I think you mean "sensitive." "Sensible" is a value judgement about a person or course of action and how much "sense" they possess.
      - dghf 11y ago
        'Sensible' is a false friend in English for French speakers, and vice versa.
      - needs 11y ago
        Thank you, this is indeed what I wanted to say! (I'm still learning english ;) )
neverminder 11y ago
> The United States has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s prisoners. This sums it up for me.
- zo1 11y ago
  I find it disturbing how those two tiny stats "sum" it all up for you, yet you make no mention of the third and elusive stat that makes the biggest difference of all: "The percentage of criminals in the United States" Like I said, drawing and inference from the two stats you posted is disturbing because both of those stats say nothing of the actual amount of valid criminals/lawbreakers.
  - ghostberry 11y ago
    Out of interest, why do you think there are so many valid criminals and lawbreakers in the US?
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      Among other things, our murder rate is higher than that of most other western nations. Assuming murder rate is a good proxy for other "valid" crimes (it's hard to hide a body), we would expect to have 5x the incarceration rate of the UK or France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
      - jacquesm 11y ago
        The murder rate is that high because of easy access to weapons that make murdering people relatively easy. Shooting someone is a lot easier than knifing someone, point-and-click.
        mellavora 11y ago
        Ummm, no. IF this was true, we would see a correlation between gun ownership (or access) and murder rates. If anything, the correlation is slightly negative, both in the US and globally. Where you DO see the correlation is inequality. In US states, using data from wikipedia, I find a 70% correlation between gini coefficients and homicide rates. The same is true globally.
alwaysinshade 11y ago
A recent article on HN made me realise that the U.S. might be on the right track for fixing this. The article was called Game Theory's Cure For Corruption Makes Us All Cops [0]. The solution is in your pocket. Imagine a city where police commit blatant traffic violations and never ticket one another. The authorities could decrease power inequalities by developing an online system in which all citizens are able to anonymously report dangerous drivers. Anyone who received too many independent reports would be investigated – police included. This sounds almost laughably simple, and yet the model indicates that it ought to do the trick. It is, after all, essentially the same system used by many online communities. [0] http://aeon.co/magazine/society/game-theorys-cure-for-corruption-make-us-all-cops/ http://aeon.co/magazine/society/game-theorys-cure-for-corrup...
- btown 11y ago
  The article mentions but does not address the point of altruism. Nobody wants to be a stool pigeon singing to the police on someone they know, even if it's anonymous. The result is that the set of enforced laws is a strict subset of the set of laws that the majority of people would find reasonable. That's why we create police forces in the first place- to be our better selves. The war on black America needs to end, but simply democratizing enforcement isn't the way to do it.
  - asanagi 11y ago
    But if the lawmakers are representatives of the people, why are there laws the people find unreasonable?
  - triangleman 11y ago
    asanagi, you are unfortunately "hellbanned", which means no one can see your post unless they are logged in and have "showdead" turned on.
- zyx321 11y ago
  >It is, after all, essentially the same system used by many online communities. Of course what actually happens if you report a moderator (or even just a friend of a moderator) is that the report will get thrown out on a technicality, and then you'll get banned over a minor infraction you may or may not have committed half a year ago. PS: Big shout-out to all my buddies who are Not Here To Build An Encyclopedia.
spodek 11y ago
> myths that the most serious types of crime affecting our society are the kinds of violent crimes that police patrolling the streets supposedly fight and that entire poor communities are “high-crime areas.” ... > An intellectually rigorous system would, for example, study in great detail the connection between hundreds of billions of dollars in financial fraud and tax evasion and millions of easily preventable deaths, not dramatically reduce every year the resources devoted to fighting crime committed by the wealthy. I'm glad when they said how over-policed some areas are that they also pointed out how we don't police other areas at all and the effect of those other areas, like white-collar crime, are HUGE. The article stressed injustices based on race and geography. It touched less on differences of injustices based on class. I don't think it mentioned sex at all. Since I applied to volunteer with the Innocence Project -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_Project -- I've become much more aware of how what we all know, which is how much more men are targeted and jailed. I volunteered because after seeing a documentary on the project I felt compelled to do something. The innocent people the project freed spent an average of 13.5 years in jail -- completely 100% innocent. My taxes are paying for the system this piece described. You can do something to change the system too. Edit: a quick search for the question below on differences in sex for the same crimes -- "Estimating Gender Disparities in Federal Criminal Cases" http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2144002 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2144002, which I found in "Men Sentenced To Longer Prison Terms Than Women For Same Crimes, Study Says" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/men-women-prison-sentence-length-gender-gap_n_1874742.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/men-women-prison-se..., which has links to other research too.
- jcromartie 11y ago
  I'm sure there are some disparities in the way men and women are prosecuted and sentenced, but doesn't the bulk of the difference in incarceration by sex come from the difference in criminal behavior by sex?
dghf 11y ago
That is the nicest and most readable typography I've seen for a long-form article on the Web.
DanielBMarkham 11y ago
I completely agree that we overcriminalize things and imprison far too many people in the U.S. I'm 100% on-board with this. It's our shame the way we treat non-violent offenders. A disgrace. But guys, nothing is ever 100% one way or the other, no matter how much you support it. So you have to look at differing points of view -- unless the objective is just to have a good rant. Here are the things that come to mind reading this: - Yep, highest incarceration rates ever. Also violent crime has been dropping to unheard-of lows and the country is safer than it ever has been - Prisons are not about justice or reform. [insert really long discussion here]. Political systems exist and function for political reasons. Therefore the prison system is made and maintained to keep society together. They don't put the guy who killed you friend in the electric chair because of justice. They do it so you don't kill him yourself, or have a lifelong vendetta against both him and the system. - This piece is written by a lawyer. Do not expect it to fairly talk about all of the options. It's invective; well-written, emotional, powerful invective. The goal is to make you turn off your brain and feel a certain way. Treat it as such. - Although this is targeted at lawyers, whatever failings there are? Most likely a result of judges and elected officials -- in other words, the public. If the public wants something, and it wanted harsher sentencing, it gets it. That means changes need to occur with the electorate, not elite legal minds - If the system is broken, it's broken. Toss out all of that racism stuff, it's a red herring. People shouldn't have their civil rights abused because it's the wrong way to run a country, not because they're a member of an oppressed minority. If you want to win this fight and fix things, toss out every other issue aside from fixing the system. Sure, use various things like incarceration rates among blacks as an argument, but only very carefully. If this is a true problem affecting everybody (and I believe it is), then don't attach yourself to one particular cause or the other. That's just an easy way to lose the discussion. We desperately need to fix things, but that's only going to happen if we make both impassioned and dispassionate arguments -- and only if we understand the terms at stake. I'm not sure this article helped any, but it damned sure made me angry at how broken things are.
- pjc50 11y ago
  The racism is not a red herring, it's the primary driver for the electorate demanding that the system be broken in the ways it is. It's used to argue that the victims of the system deserve it, and thereby to prevent change.
CPLX 11y ago
There's all this discussion of these issues, which relate to racism, economic issues, police brutality, crime, etc. They seem complicated and nuanced and people throw their hands up and say well what can we do. The answer to that question is actually so simple you can say it in four words: End the drug war. Someone far more eloquent than me, The Wire creator David Simon, can flesh that out a little: http://www.washingtonpost.com/rweb/commentary/want-to-fix-baltimore-end-the-drug-war-says-david-simon/2015/04/29/696c2063a2386c61999ad0ae2f96956d_story.html?tid=kindle-app http://www.washingtonpost.com/rweb/commentary/want-to-fix-ba...
- mellavora 11y ago
  Seconded.
- a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
  The drug war is a direct consequence of the Warren Court reforms of the 1960s. Equal Protection and Disparate Impact made illegal many local laws and policing methods that had worked to maintain order. Prosecutors needed new tools to get criminals behind bars, hence the war on drugs.
  - monochromatic 11y ago
    I don't think I've heard this theory before. Can you flesh it out a little bit please?
    - fluidcruft 11y ago
      I found this via Google (which isn't much): https://foseti.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/the-war-on-drugs/ https://foseti.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/the-war-on-drugs/ When the author was asked in the comments to expound on the thesis he just provided a link to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Court#Due_process_and_rights_of_defendants_.281963.E2.80.9366.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Court#Due_process_and_r... I think the crux is in the last paragraph of that section, although the link to the War on Drugs is not made explicit: > Conservatives angrily denounced the "handcuffing of the police." Violent crime and homicide rates shot up nationwide in the following years; in New York City, for example, after steady to declining trends until the early 1960s, the homicide rate doubled in the period from 1964 to 1974 from just under 5 per 100,000 at the beginning of that period to just under 10 per 100,000 in 1974. Controversy exists about the cause, with conservatives blaming the Court decisions, and liberals pointing to the demographic boom and increased urbanization and income inequality characteristic of that era. After 1992 the homicide rates fell sharply. I think it's entirely reasonable that the War on Drugs began as a reaction to rising crime rates. My two additional bits: I've often heard that the US is a little exceptional in that it approaches the problem of "police doing bad things" by throwing "tainted" evidence out and mostly not holding the police accountable for their actions, whereas other countries allow the "tainted" evidence to stand but then allow some sort of proceeding against the police to address the bad behavior. It seems from my limited understanding that the US approach stands on the Warren Court. It's interesting that both aspects of the US approach (War on Drugs, shielding the police from liability) are under fire. I wonder if these things are as controversial in other Western countries -- if not maybe the Warren Court really does deserve some scrutiny. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that the Warren Court caused the police protectionism, rather that it tacitly allowed it to persist with frameworks that mostly provide indirect corrective feedback to police misbehavior.
bsenftner 11y ago
There is an insidious reason driving our incarceration rates: prisons rent inmates to corporations as contract workers for pennies an hour. With guarantees of the number of inmates they will be supplied. Follow the money. Follow the money. Follow the money.
- jongraehl 11y ago
  I don't think that's the main cause (for-profit jails and police/prison-unions are surely primary), but the argument does work - incarceration costs the public far more than it could save in suppressed wages, but the companies that benefit don't care about that.
lasermike026 11y ago
So when get over the depression of observing this system in action and the desire to leave the US I feel the desire for action. This problem of over criminalizing and over incarceration must be reversed and corrected. I refuse to live in a country like this unless this is corrected.
teekert 11y ago
In the US, back in 2007, I met some dutch guys, aged 20 and 21, the 20 y/o just spend a night in jail because he was drinking in a bar. He didn't even realize, back home he was drinking legally for over 4 years (and for drinking before the age of 16 there was no real punishment). We had a good laugh, "they must have a lot of jails here" we said. Lately the government is becoming more firm here (the Netherlands) as well. Beer drinking is now legal only from age 18 and up and serving minors is punishable by law now, a bar owner pays 1360 euro the first time but may risk closure of the establishment. Drinking in private is never punishable. For public drinking (but not for being drunk) the fine is 90 euros, 45 when below age 16. If you are sick from alcohol you will never be punished as it may be inhibiting for seeking help.
- aidenn0 11y ago
  In the US if you go to the hospital for alcohol related symptoms and you are under 21, you are essentially guaranteed to get an arrest ticket for underage drinking. Yes this is inhibiting for seeking help. [edit] See replies, this isn't universally true.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    There may be some jurisdictions in the US where this is true, but it doesn't seem to be generally true. As this kind of thing is a matter of state law and local agency practice, there probably is no valid generalization one way or the other on the level of "in the US".
    - aidenn0 11y ago
      For the 3 towns in 3 different states I have lived in, this is true. I accept that this is a very small number of data points.
  - kinghajj 11y ago
    In some states, it's only the purchase and public consumption of alcohol that's prohibited for those under 21; and consumption on private property and/or under the supervision of parents/guardians is expressly allowed.
lubesGordi 11y ago
There is a question no one ever seems to ask anymore, "Does the punishment fit the crime?"
quicksnap 11y ago
This article was a great read; it made me feel awful. > ... we’re starting to have symposia in which people talk about whether everything will be better if we give police more money to buy cameras for their lapels. This was my mindset--that with more accountability, police will shape up. However, this article highlighted this solution as a symptomatic treatment. I wonder how we could help address this major problem technologically?

374 points by philrea 11y ago

I guess the best you can do is hopethat you know the laws for the area you live in. The u.s. has so many laws that are different across states and also so many laws that are enforced arbitrarily. Some states you only have to verbally identify yourself to police. Some states you're required to show I.d. if requested. Some states you can decline a breathalyzer and other states you cannot. And if you know the law then you should exercise your rights to the limit of the law. Of course they keep passing new laws to push the limits in the other direction. And I don't think anyone wants to be a test case for throwing out a bad law in the courts. The problem is similar here in Switzerland with the exception that there are fewer laws and that the federal government has very little power (unlike the u.s. With its strong federal laws). For example, here in one canton you can grow 2 marijuana plants for your own use while in another canton you will go to jail for even a small amount of marijuana.

EliRivers 11y ago
That's all very well, but it turns out the armour of righteousness is poor protection against getting shot in the back by a policeman, who subsequently plants his excuse on your body. Coppers prepared to do that are hardly going to listen to people claiming their rights are being violated. I dread the day that standard plod in the UK carries a firearm.
- arethuza 11y ago
  Well I guess the good news is that the UK police seem pretty adamant that they don't want to be armed on normal duty.
  - dghf 11y ago
    Except with tasers: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/09/police-federation-votes-tasers-uniformed-officers http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/09/police-federati...
seatonist 11y ago
It's important to know one's rights, but I think that's by no means the best we can do. For starters, we can support organizations like the Equal Justice Initiative (http://www.eji.org http://www.eji.org) or the author of TFA's org, Equal Justice Under Law (http://equaljusticeunderlaw.org http://equaljusticeunderlaw.org) that are working to both defend indigent defendants and fundamentally reform the criminal justice system. Beyond that, I think that there is a lot of opportunity to advocate around these issues on the state and local level right now. Whatever you think of bodycams for police, you have to admit that in light of recent events they're going to become dramaticaly more common. That's just one example of how a crisis can provide a great opportunity for advocacy, and ultimately change. That's not to say that we will be able to make fundamental change quickly on this very difficult issue. But it is to say that there are paths forward, and I would invite people who care to dive in.
sillygoose 11y ago
There's this widespread misconception that there are things the police can't do to you because some text somewhere says so. In reality, it's just a question of what they want to do, and whether they can get away with it. For example, if an officer insists on seeing your ID even if the rulebook says you don't have to show it, he can escalate until he gets his way. A police officer can saw off your leg and feed it to some crocodiles if he wants to, and no one's looking or filming. But of course, this misconception is central to the belief in "the rule of law", which keeps us misguidedly comfortable with the fact that there's a bunch of guys in blue costumes who can abuse you as they please, confiscate all your cash, shoot your dog, or just ruin your life on a whim.
- a3n 11y ago
  There's a saying among cops, "You may beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride." In other words, they can harass you all they want, with impunity. "Oh, he was innocent? Well, darn."
  - sillygoose 11y ago
    Yep, and we're guilty of whatever bullshit crime they accuse us of, until we somehow prove we're not.. from jail, after having all our accounts seized.
- Cthulhu_ 11y ago
  That's why I support things like dash cams and cameras on police officers themselves - if they're not trustworthy, they need to be monitored and harshly dealt with.
  - sillygoose 11y ago
    They're never dealt with harshly though. Their idea of a punishment is a paid vacation (=suspension), after which the thug is free to do his thing again.

vamonopalmonte 11y ago

bund of suckas. fuck you all beatches.

sgdesign 11y ago

I've been "stopped and frisked" in France before, and it didn't seem out of the ordinary at the time. I just assumed random identity checks was part of the police's job. So I wonder how other countries' laws compare to the U.S. when it comes to random checks like this. And of course, it happened maybe twice in my life, not a couple times a week.

malka 11y ago
> And of course, it happened maybe twice in my life, not a couple times a week. In France, that depends mostly of your shade of skin.
- needs 11y ago
  > In France, that depends mostly of your shade of skin. Well, it mostly depend if you live in a sensible district or not. It happens that mostly Arab and black people live in sensible district because they are poorer than the normal average french people. And (relative) poverty is the source of a lot of social problems. I don't say there is no racism in France too, there is. But it is more indirect, like people trying to avoid looking at black people, or people who prefer helping the white guy instead the black one at school is another example.
  - JonnieCache 11y ago
    I think you mean "sensitive." "Sensible" is a value judgement about a person or course of action and how much "sense" they possess.
    - dghf 11y ago
      'Sensible' is a false friend in English for French speakers, and vice versa.
    - needs 11y ago
      Thank you, this is indeed what I wanted to say! (I'm still learning english ;) )

neverminder 11y ago

> The United States has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s prisoners. This sums it up for me.

zo1 11y ago
I find it disturbing how those two tiny stats "sum" it all up for you, yet you make no mention of the third and elusive stat that makes the biggest difference of all: "The percentage of criminals in the United States" Like I said, drawing and inference from the two stats you posted is disturbing because both of those stats say nothing of the actual amount of valid criminals/lawbreakers.
- ghostberry 11y ago
  Out of interest, why do you think there are so many valid criminals and lawbreakers in the US?
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    Among other things, our murder rate is higher than that of most other western nations. Assuming murder rate is a good proxy for other "valid" crimes (it's hard to hide a body), we would expect to have 5x the incarceration rate of the UK or France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      The murder rate is that high because of easy access to weapons that make murdering people relatively easy. Shooting someone is a lot easier than knifing someone, point-and-click.
      - mellavora 11y ago
        Ummm, no. IF this was true, we would see a correlation between gun ownership (or access) and murder rates. If anything, the correlation is slightly negative, both in the US and globally. Where you DO see the correlation is inequality. In US states, using data from wikipedia, I find a 70% correlation between gini coefficients and homicide rates. The same is true globally.

alwaysinshade 11y ago

A recent article on HN made me realise that the U.S. might be on the right track for fixing this. The article was called Game Theory's Cure For Corruption Makes Us All Cops [0]. The solution is in your pocket. Imagine a city where police commit blatant traffic violations and never ticket one another. The authorities could decrease power inequalities by developing an online system in which all citizens are able to anonymously report dangerous drivers. Anyone who received too many independent reports would be investigated – police included. This sounds almost laughably simple, and yet the model indicates that it ought to do the trick. It is, after all, essentially the same system used by many online communities. [0] http://aeon.co/magazine/society/game-theorys-cure-for-corruption-make-us-all-cops/ http://aeon.co/magazine/society/game-theorys-cure-for-corrup...

btown 11y ago
The article mentions but does not address the point of altruism. Nobody wants to be a stool pigeon singing to the police on someone they know, even if it's anonymous. The result is that the set of enforced laws is a strict subset of the set of laws that the majority of people would find reasonable. That's why we create police forces in the first place- to be our better selves. The war on black America needs to end, but simply democratizing enforcement isn't the way to do it.
- asanagi 11y ago
  But if the lawmakers are representatives of the people, why are there laws the people find unreasonable?
- triangleman 11y ago
  asanagi, you are unfortunately "hellbanned", which means no one can see your post unless they are logged in and have "showdead" turned on.
zyx321 11y ago
>It is, after all, essentially the same system used by many online communities. Of course what actually happens if you report a moderator (or even just a friend of a moderator) is that the report will get thrown out on a technicality, and then you'll get banned over a minor infraction you may or may not have committed half a year ago. PS: Big shout-out to all my buddies who are Not Here To Build An Encyclopedia.

spodek 11y ago

> myths that the most serious types of crime affecting our society are the kinds of violent crimes that police patrolling the streets supposedly fight and that entire poor communities are “high-crime areas.” ... > An intellectually rigorous system would, for example, study in great detail the connection between hundreds of billions of dollars in financial fraud and tax evasion and millions of easily preventable deaths, not dramatically reduce every year the resources devoted to fighting crime committed by the wealthy. I'm glad when they said how over-policed some areas are that they also pointed out how we don't police other areas at all and the effect of those other areas, like white-collar crime, are HUGE. The article stressed injustices based on race and geography. It touched less on differences of injustices based on class. I don't think it mentioned sex at all. Since I applied to volunteer with the Innocence Project -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_Project -- I've become much more aware of how what we all know, which is how much more men are targeted and jailed. I volunteered because after seeing a documentary on the project I felt compelled to do something. The innocent people the project freed spent an average of 13.5 years in jail -- completely 100% innocent. My taxes are paying for the system this piece described. You can do something to change the system too. Edit: a quick search for the question below on differences in sex for the same crimes -- "Estimating Gender Disparities in Federal Criminal Cases" http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2144002 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2144002, which I found in "Men Sentenced To Longer Prison Terms Than Women For Same Crimes, Study Says" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/men-women-prison-sentence-length-gender-gap_n_1874742.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/men-women-prison-se..., which has links to other research too.

jcromartie 11y ago
I'm sure there are some disparities in the way men and women are prosecuted and sentenced, but doesn't the bulk of the difference in incarceration by sex come from the difference in criminal behavior by sex?

dghf 11y ago

That is the nicest and most readable typography I've seen for a long-form article on the Web.

DanielBMarkham 11y ago

I completely agree that we overcriminalize things and imprison far too many people in the U.S. I'm 100% on-board with this. It's our shame the way we treat non-violent offenders. A disgrace. But guys, nothing is ever 100% one way or the other, no matter how much you support it. So you have to look at differing points of view -- unless the objective is just to have a good rant. Here are the things that come to mind reading this: - Yep, highest incarceration rates ever. Also violent crime has been dropping to unheard-of lows and the country is safer than it ever has been - Prisons are not about justice or reform. [insert really long discussion here]. Political systems exist and function for political reasons. Therefore the prison system is made and maintained to keep society together. They don't put the guy who killed you friend in the electric chair because of justice. They do it so you don't kill him yourself, or have a lifelong vendetta against both him and the system. - This piece is written by a lawyer. Do not expect it to fairly talk about all of the options. It's invective; well-written, emotional, powerful invective. The goal is to make you turn off your brain and feel a certain way. Treat it as such. - Although this is targeted at lawyers, whatever failings there are? Most likely a result of judges and elected officials -- in other words, the public. If the public wants something, and it wanted harsher sentencing, it gets it. That means changes need to occur with the electorate, not elite legal minds - If the system is broken, it's broken. Toss out all of that racism stuff, it's a red herring. People shouldn't have their civil rights abused because it's the wrong way to run a country, not because they're a member of an oppressed minority. If you want to win this fight and fix things, toss out every other issue aside from fixing the system. Sure, use various things like incarceration rates among blacks as an argument, but only very carefully. If this is a true problem affecting everybody (and I believe it is), then don't attach yourself to one particular cause or the other. That's just an easy way to lose the discussion. We desperately need to fix things, but that's only going to happen if we make both impassioned and dispassionate arguments -- and only if we understand the terms at stake. I'm not sure this article helped any, but it damned sure made me angry at how broken things are.

pjc50 11y ago
The racism is not a red herring, it's the primary driver for the electorate demanding that the system be broken in the ways it is. It's used to argue that the victims of the system deserve it, and thereby to prevent change.

CPLX 11y ago

There's all this discussion of these issues, which relate to racism, economic issues, police brutality, crime, etc. They seem complicated and nuanced and people throw their hands up and say well what can we do. The answer to that question is actually so simple you can say it in four words: End the drug war. Someone far more eloquent than me, The Wire creator David Simon, can flesh that out a little: http://www.washingtonpost.com/rweb/commentary/want-to-fix-baltimore-end-the-drug-war-says-david-simon/2015/04/29/696c2063a2386c61999ad0ae2f96956d_story.html?tid=kindle-app http://www.washingtonpost.com/rweb/commentary/want-to-fix-ba...

mellavora 11y ago
Seconded.
a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
The drug war is a direct consequence of the Warren Court reforms of the 1960s. Equal Protection and Disparate Impact made illegal many local laws and policing methods that had worked to maintain order. Prosecutors needed new tools to get criminals behind bars, hence the war on drugs.
- monochromatic 11y ago
  I don't think I've heard this theory before. Can you flesh it out a little bit please?
  - fluidcruft 11y ago
    I found this via Google (which isn't much): https://foseti.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/the-war-on-drugs/ https://foseti.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/the-war-on-drugs/ When the author was asked in the comments to expound on the thesis he just provided a link to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Court#Due_process_and_rights_of_defendants_.281963.E2.80.9366.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Court#Due_process_and_r... I think the crux is in the last paragraph of that section, although the link to the War on Drugs is not made explicit: > Conservatives angrily denounced the "handcuffing of the police." Violent crime and homicide rates shot up nationwide in the following years; in New York City, for example, after steady to declining trends until the early 1960s, the homicide rate doubled in the period from 1964 to 1974 from just under 5 per 100,000 at the beginning of that period to just under 10 per 100,000 in 1974. Controversy exists about the cause, with conservatives blaming the Court decisions, and liberals pointing to the demographic boom and increased urbanization and income inequality characteristic of that era. After 1992 the homicide rates fell sharply. I think it's entirely reasonable that the War on Drugs began as a reaction to rising crime rates. My two additional bits: I've often heard that the US is a little exceptional in that it approaches the problem of "police doing bad things" by throwing "tainted" evidence out and mostly not holding the police accountable for their actions, whereas other countries allow the "tainted" evidence to stand but then allow some sort of proceeding against the police to address the bad behavior. It seems from my limited understanding that the US approach stands on the Warren Court. It's interesting that both aspects of the US approach (War on Drugs, shielding the police from liability) are under fire. I wonder if these things are as controversial in other Western countries -- if not maybe the Warren Court really does deserve some scrutiny. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that the Warren Court caused the police protectionism, rather that it tacitly allowed it to persist with frameworks that mostly provide indirect corrective feedback to police misbehavior.

bsenftner 11y ago

There is an insidious reason driving our incarceration rates: prisons rent inmates to corporations as contract workers for pennies an hour. With guarantees of the number of inmates they will be supplied. Follow the money. Follow the money. Follow the money.

jongraehl 11y ago
I don't think that's the main cause (for-profit jails and police/prison-unions are surely primary), but the argument does work - incarceration costs the public far more than it could save in suppressed wages, but the companies that benefit don't care about that.

lasermike026 11y ago

So when get over the depression of observing this system in action and the desire to leave the US I feel the desire for action. This problem of over criminalizing and over incarceration must be reversed and corrected. I refuse to live in a country like this unless this is corrected.

teekert 11y ago

In the US, back in 2007, I met some dutch guys, aged 20 and 21, the 20 y/o just spend a night in jail because he was drinking in a bar. He didn't even realize, back home he was drinking legally for over 4 years (and for drinking before the age of 16 there was no real punishment). We had a good laugh, "they must have a lot of jails here" we said. Lately the government is becoming more firm here (the Netherlands) as well. Beer drinking is now legal only from age 18 and up and serving minors is punishable by law now, a bar owner pays 1360 euro the first time but may risk closure of the establishment. Drinking in private is never punishable. For public drinking (but not for being drunk) the fine is 90 euros, 45 when below age 16. If you are sick from alcohol you will never be punished as it may be inhibiting for seeking help.

aidenn0 11y ago
In the US if you go to the hospital for alcohol related symptoms and you are under 21, you are essentially guaranteed to get an arrest ticket for underage drinking. Yes this is inhibiting for seeking help. [edit] See replies, this isn't universally true.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  There may be some jurisdictions in the US where this is true, but it doesn't seem to be generally true. As this kind of thing is a matter of state law and local agency practice, there probably is no valid generalization one way or the other on the level of "in the US".
  - aidenn0 11y ago
    For the 3 towns in 3 different states I have lived in, this is true. I accept that this is a very small number of data points.
- kinghajj 11y ago
  In some states, it's only the purchase and public consumption of alcohol that's prohibited for those under 21; and consumption on private property and/or under the supervision of parents/guardians is expressly allowed.

lubesGordi 11y ago

There is a question no one ever seems to ask anymore, "Does the punishment fit the crime?"

quicksnap 11y ago

This article was a great read; it made me feel awful. > ... we’re starting to have symposia in which people talk about whether everything will be better if we give police more money to buy cameras for their lapels. This was my mindset--that with more accountability, police will shape up. However, this article highlighted this solution as a symptomatic treatment. I wonder how we could help address this major problem technologically?