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U.S. Incarceration and Crime Rates Continue to Fall in Tandem

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Re: U.S. Incarceration and Crime Rates Continue to Fall in Tandem

#21

Post by kolbe »

chickenfries wrote: post #13
ClayFerguson wrote: post #12

If we ever decriminalize Marijuana at the Federal level, that seems to me like it would mean millions of prisoners held for offenses involving only that drug would need to be set free. In my mind it is a horrible injustice to jail people for a relatively harmless substance like THC. I think in 100 years, more evolved humans will look back on the THC incarcerations the same way we now look upon the Salem Witch trials,…

This is an extremely reductive description of the drug war, and mass incarceration. You really can't talk about either without talking about race.

What do you mean?

Re: U.S. Incarceration and Crime Rates Continue to Fall in Tandem

#22

Post by taxicabjesus »

TSF1203 wrote: post #19
taxicabjesus wrote: post #9

Punishment is almost always gratuitous. Aside from the handful of people whom society needs to be protected from, prison is always counter-productive. One of the recent stories linked here talks about how the brain doesn't really finish developing until the mid-20's, and that 20-something "kids" frequently get locked up for impulsiveness... I had a passenger who got fined $1000 for letting his medical marijuana card…

Not to detract from your otherwise excellent point and story, but I take a bit of issue with: > (who previously had tried the "mom will stop drinking if we ignore her" strategy) As someone who's been the child in that situation, sometimes you really just need an extended break from dealing with a parent's addiction. It's extremely stressful and really hard to get over the resentment stemming from a childhood destroye…

I do completely understand her kids' reaction. I was able to reach their mom in a way that they couldn't, because I was an extremely over-qualified taxi driver.

Addictions are rather hard; society's efforts to punish addiction makes them harder still.

Re: U.S. Incarceration and Crime Rates Continue to Fall in Tandem

#23

Post by WillPostForFood »

lintiness wrote: post #14

overlay economic growth and contraction, and there's your answer.

There appears to be a only small correlation to the overall trend down, and economic growth. For example, crime declined in 2008 and 2009 when the economy was still flat and unemployment was high. Crime did tick up slightly leading into the recession, though not substantially. So while it has some impact, it doesn't look like it accounts for the broad trend down since the 90s.

Re: U.S. Incarceration and Crime Rates Continue to Fall in Tandem

#24

Post by austincheney »

The data indicates just how much Americans need to use drugs. Imagine how big the numbers get when you scoop in prescription drugs in addition to prohibited substances. Clearly drug use is more important to large number of Americans than risk of incarceration.

Why does America have such a greater drug fascination than perhaps every other country?

Re: U.S. Incarceration and Crime Rates Continue to Fall in Tandem

#25

Post by rayiner »

eth0up wrote: post #2

This is dandy and such, but it has a long, long way to go yet, still boasting the highest incarceration rates in the world: 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra... 2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/07/...

The difference is a little less shocking when you adjust for crime rates. E.g. we have about 8-10x higher incarceration rate of Germany, but we also have more than 4x the murders per capita. (And the chicken came before the egg here. Violent crime started going up in the 1960s, but it wasn't until the late 1990s that the incarceration rate had gone up by the same proportion as the violent crime rate.)

Americans aren't very generous when it comes to crime. In many European countries, even murder carries only about a 10-15 year sentence. On the other hand, I wonder if that's a product of our situation. The United States is fantastically violent in comparison to Europe, and always has been: http://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/homicid....

E.g. Berlin is slightly bigger than Chicago. In a typical year, it might have 60-70 murders. Chicago in comparison had well over 700 this year. You can't look at the criminal justice system in the U.S. relative to our more enlightened European counterparts without keeping in mind that difference.

Re: U.S. Incarceration and Crime Rates Continue to Fall in Tandem

#28

Post by indigo_rex »

austincheney wrote: post #24

The data indicates just how much Americans need to use drugs. Imagine how big the numbers get when you scoop in prescription drugs in addition to prohibited substances. Clearly drug use is more important to large number of Americans than risk of incarceration. Why does America have such a greater drug fascination than perhaps every other country?

I'm not confirming or denying that the US has maybe the worst drug problem in the world - seems plausible. But, on addiction (slightly different, but related), Rat Park is an interesting point of focus.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-...

Re: U.S. Incarceration and Crime Rates Continue to Fall in Tandem

#29

Post by disposablezero »

austincheney wrote: post #24

The data indicates just how much Americans need to use drugs. Imagine how big the numbers get when you scoop in prescription drugs in addition to prohibited substances. Clearly drug use is more important to large number of Americans than risk of incarceration. Why does America have such a greater drug fascination than perhaps every other country?

Arbitrary signals of class to abuse using the 13th ammendment loophole in for-profit prison-industrial plantations 2.0.

Re: U.S. Incarceration and Crime Rates Continue to Fall in Tandem

#30

Post by eterm »

masklinn wrote: post #18
ClayFerguson wrote: post #12

If we ever decriminalize Marijuana at the Federal level, that seems to me like it would mean millions of prisoners held for offenses involving only that drug would need to be set free. In my mind it is a horrible injustice to jail people for a relatively harmless substance like THC. I think in 100 years, more evolved humans will look back on the THC incarcerations the same way we now look upon the Salem Witch trials,…

> If we ever decriminalize Marijuana at the Federal level, that seems to me like it would mean millions of prisoners held for offenses involving only that drug would need to be set free. Decriminalisation isn't necessarily retroactive, that it's now legal or less illegal doesn't mean it was at the time of conviction. For instance despite the Labouchere Amendment ("gross indencency") having been mostly repealed in 196…

Not just Turing, people still alive are still under great injustice, because it was only Turing who received a pardon. Pardons should have been provided to everyone convicted under those laws.
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