Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

26% of violent crime convicts account for 63% of violent crime conviction (2014)

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 244 posts

Re: 26% of violent crime convicts account for 63% of violent crime conviction (2014)

#81

Post by emmelaich »

splitrocket wrote: post #37
Wohlf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Studies like these that take place in the USA are labeled racist because they disproportionately include minorities.

Studies that don’t take into account socio-economics are, in fact, racist. When you control for income and wealth, particularly intergeneraltional, racial differences disappear.

There's the what and the why. I think gp comment was suggesting that the what is often mixed up with the why.

We shouldn't be afraid of getting statistics, but you're indeed correct that you must consider other factors when it comes to interpretation.

Re: 26% of violent crime convicts account for 63% of violent crime conviction (2014)

#82

Post by dsacco »

splitrocket wrote: post #67
evgen wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the minds of many people the purpose of the system is not entirely to deter crime; some criminals will not be deterred and the secondary purpose of the system is to segregate such people from society by placing them into little boxes until the system decides they are no longer a danger to the rest of us.

So are you saying that the solution is to lock up these people for life? Because I hope that’s not what you are saying.

You hope that’s not what the commenter is saying, but what is your proposal instead?

We can put significant effort into understanding criminals, for the purposes of both preemptive treatment and reactive rehabilitation, but this is not likely to eradicate crime. What do you suppose we should do with criminals who continue to commit violent or disruptive crimes in perpetuity?

To clarify, I think the system could improve: extremely long sentences may not need to be issued for first time offenders, even if they are very serious. But I don’t think the system can remove permanent sentences if criminals exhibit a clear predilection that is resistent to all known forms of treatment.

Re: 26% of violent crime convicts account for 63% of violent crime conviction (2014)

#83

Post by Fnoord »

sercand wrote: post #21

So %1 becomes new kind of Pareto rule. The %1 owns half of the world's wealth and this.

Well, I was thinking of all these people who are getting away with their crimes. I mean, "smart" criminals don't get caught, right? Specifically, I was thinking about the very rich who are offshoring their money to tax havens (see Panama Papers) but of course, they are not criminals. After all, they're not convicted, and innocent until proven guilty, and hey its tax avoidance not tax evasion.

Which is a double standard; if I'd steal an iPhone from the tax avoiding Apple then that's theft. Heck they even mention that the price includes all kind of levies such as environmental and taxes. Yet when they steal from my government (who represent me) then that's totally fine? Or, if someone would operate a client computer from a country where piracy is illegal, but the server would be hosted in a country where piracy is legal, then suddenly the whole act is illegal even though the computer who executes the commands is allowed to.

I don't have the numbers, so I'm very curious what's more damaging: tax avoidance or piracy. I've even seen criminal acts like mass selling pirated DVDs being also tax evasion. Yet all the crap within the Panama Papers is not? How that does rhyme?

Furthermore it doesn't appear like anyone in power cares enough about tax avoidance in order for it to be solved (we, as in civilians of governments from all over the world, are missing out on a massive amount of tax dollars).

Re: 26% of violent crime convicts account for 63% of violent crime conviction (2014)

#84

Post by coldtea »

mc32 wrote: post #51

At least among the Swedish population, but Id guess likely to similar in other places: >The majority of violent crimes are perpetrated by a small number of persistent violent offenders, typically males, characterized by early onset of violent criminality, substance abuse, personality disorders, and nonviolent criminality. Very interesting, so if you get past your teens without criminality you seem to not become a cri…

Not a career / repeat criminal. You can still very much be a criminal, embezzler, murderer and so on -- e.g. a cheated spouse "on the heat of passion".

Re: 26% of violent crime convicts account for 63% of violent crime conviction (2014)

#85

Post by acdha »

exabrial wrote: post #5

Studies like this are hard, because they're usually labeled 'racist', or it turns into an ad hominem attack on the authors, or struck down in the media for singling out some minority group. I love the wording as it has a focus on the positive; summed up it basically says: we can't help those who we can't identity.

> Studies like this are hard, because they're usually labeled 'racist', or it turns into an ad hominem attack on the authors, or struck down in the media for singling out some minority group.

I think you’re confusing studies with conclusions. What you’re describing doesn’t happen but what is common are studies finding a correlation which leads to someone claiming causation and then complaining when they’re criticized.

As an example, in the US it’s uncontested that some populations have worse academic performance. That doesn’t get criticized seriously. What does get criticism is when a right-wing commenter tries to say that this must be because of genetic causes or the popular euphemism “culture” – and that criticism is well deserved since that ignores all of the other explanations and checks which actual science would require and goes straight to the same conclusion which avowed racists have been pushing for centuries.

Re: 26% of violent crime convicts account for 63% of violent crime conviction (2014)

#87

Post by coldtea »

pron wrote: post #79
exabrial wrote: post #5

Studies like this are hard, because they're usually labeled 'racist', or it turns into an ad hominem attack on the authors, or struck down in the media for singling out some minority group. I love the wording as it has a focus on the positive; summed up it basically says: we can't help those who we can't identity.

What you are saying is troubling because it shows that many people really don't understand what it is that we call racist -- and it's not studies like these. I am a radical leftist (and a radical feminist) and I do not consider a statistical assertion such as "black people in the US are significantly overrepresented among those who commit violent crimes" at all as racist. What is racist (not just "labeled" racist; we…

>What you are saying is troubling because it shows that many people really don't understand what it is that we call racist -- and it's not studies like these. I am a radical leftist (and a radical feminist) and I do not consider a statistical assertion such as "black people in the US are significantly overrepresented among those who commit violent crimes" at all as racist.

You might not, but lots of people do -- and publicly say so.

Re: 26% of violent crime convicts account for 63% of violent crime conviction (2014)

#88

Post by weberc2 »

BigBuzzKill wrote: post #43
stewbrew wrote: post #35

1.) Violent crime is a rare event (in post-WW2 European societies), so the proportion of offenders is rather small. 2.) One time offenders have a hard time getting their feet on the ground after being released from prison. Without appropriate support & back in their old networks, they often have few alternatives than going down that road again. IMHO that's not exactly news. I personally find it slightly surprising th…

Maybe in Europe? Not in the USA it isn’t. We’ve seen drops in homicides and the like in some cities (NYC), but disturbing trends in homicides places like Baltimore and Chicago.

In the long term crime is falling even in Baltimore and Chicago. The short term trends are probably the result of police learning to cope with abrupt, significantly increased scrutiny in those cities.

Re: 26% of violent crime convicts account for 63% of violent crime conviction (2014)

#89

Post by WhitneyLand »

singlow wrote: post #57
splitrocket wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me put it this way: the current “standard” criminal justice system is exceedingly effective at dissuading the sort of people who designed and operate the system from committing crime, but those folks are not the population that in fact commit crimes.

Tautology - People who are effectively deterred from committing crimes do not commit crimes. The system may be very effective at deterring many would-be criminals. Any system will be ineffective against some subset and so this statement would still apply. Under any system, most crime will be committed by those whom that system does not effectively deter.

Beautifully parsed and simplified.

Re: 26% of violent crime convicts account for 63% of violent crime conviction (2014)

#90

Post by [deleted] »

splitrocket wrote: post #60
coleifer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prison is a deterrent, certainly, but it also exists to keep violent folks away from the rest of society so they can't do more harm.

This study indicates that incarceration, at least as it is currently implemented, is emphatically not a deterrent for repeat violent offenders. As for the public safety element, yes, but these people mostly weren’t locked up for life. What this shows, at least, in my opinion, is that much more intensive psychological and therapeutic interventions are needed, because if anything, incarceration as it currently exists w…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN