The Number of Youth in Juvenile Detention in California Has Quietly Plummeted • Hacker News Board

Re: The Number of Youth in Juvenile Detention in California Has Quietly Plummeted

#121

Post by taurath » Tue, Sep 18, 2018, 1:36 AM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #100

40acres wrote: post #6

"Tough on crime" was always a dog whistle to signal to (most) voters that politicians were willing to lock up minorities for comparably minor crimes. It's good to see that the winds have shifted towards a more just system although there is a long way to go. I think there are many factors that contribute to this trend and would love to see a paper which goes into the details. I would bet that prosecutors have a lot to…

> "Tough on crime" was always a dog whistle to signal to (most) voters that politicians were willing to lock up minorities for comparably minor crimes. I think race in these discussions is a poor stand-in for the reality of the situation. It's convenient, because it's much more easily quantifiable than culture, and we in the US had laws calling out race until ~55 years ago. But, looking at today, cultural mores and a…

> Tough on crime was a misguided attempt to change the culture of drugs and violence.

- Why is violence a sibling of drugs?

- Why do people feel the need to take drugs?

I think you're right that poverty is the problem, and its not only the "culture" of poverty to blame for it. The criminal justice system upholds poverty as a way of life by mass incarcerations of working-age people rather than treatment and rehabilitation. The lack of any social real safety net also upholds poverty - an entire town can be devastated by an arbitrary boardroom decision.

Re: The Number of Youth in Juvenile Detention in California Has Quietly Plummeted

#122

Post by rossdavidh » Tue, Sep 18, 2018, 1:49 AM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #120

rossdavidh wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roe v Wade is not _that_ far out there. It explains state-level differences for when the decline began, for example. I'm not saying it's a slam dunk, but it's got some reasonable supporting evidence, enough to at least not be considered "out there".

You may be right; I recall, though, hearing some fairly convincing counter-arguments at the time the first Roe v Wade hypothesis was floated. But maybe there's been more research since.

The biggest argument I've heard since then was that, while the abortion rate has gradually declined again since then, the crime rate has not gone back up.

Re: The Number of Youth in Juvenile Detention in California Has Quietly Plummeted

#123

Post by throwaway5839 » Tue, Sep 18, 2018, 4:55 AM UTC

UpshotKnothole wrote: post #105

nostrademons wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property crime is rampant in a lot of the Bay Area. Violent crime has hit historic lows. I've learned to never keep valuables in your car and always lock your doors, but I also feel safe walking around in a number of places that historically have had really bad reputations, like even the Tenderloin. I wouldn't be so quick to blame changes in laws, though. In my experience, property crime is up because the police don'…

As far as I can tell California is right in the middle of 50 states in terms of property crime (a little below actually at 26th-27th) [1] so I’m not sure where this doom and gloom is coming from. Well, I did find a few laughable articles from mass media claiming that prop 47 had some impact, it itmdoesnt hold up when looking at demographics across the country and over a long time. http://www.ppic.org/publication/crim…

The parent was talking about San Francisco. Obviously in a huge state like California, some areas are good and others are bad.

SF has the highest per capital property crime rate among the nation's top 50 cities: http://sfist.com/2016/04/25/sf_now_has_highest_per_capita_pr...

Re: The Number of Youth in Juvenile Detention in California Has Quietly Plummeted

#124

Post by throwaway5839 » Tue, Sep 18, 2018, 5:28 AM UTC

diob wrote: post #118

gascan wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like revisionist history. From the seventies thru the beginning of the nineties, the national homicide rate was double to triple what it is today. We had real crime problems in the "Tough On Crime" era, and we were hitting record crime rates. A lazy Wiki snip: Violent crime nearly quadrupled between 1960 and its peak in 1991. Property crime more than doubled over the same period. Since the 1990s, however,…

I really encourage you to read The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Hand waving away racial influences is convenient to some, but definitely not to those affected by it. If you look into the statistics, you'll see that primarily minority communities were targeted by the "tough on crime" era. And these touted "tough on crime" policies only had the effect of enslaving and crippling generat…

"The crime rates are nearly similar among all races" Do you have any stats to back that up? Everything I find says the opposite.

A Channel 4 News fact check says: https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-black-amer... "Blacks were disproportionately likely to commit homicide and to be the victims. In 2008 the offending rate for blacks was seven times higher than for whites and the victimisation rate was six times higher."

You can look at the stats yourself: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rhovo1215.pdf See Page 3 Table 2. This is the "Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey" where they ask victims of violent crime demographic information about the offenders. This avoids any question of bias from the arrest rates. Doing the math, black people offend at a rate 2.4x higher than whites.

I disagree that whites are left off the hook: "The probability of arrest given the commission of a crime is higher for whites than it is for blacks for robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault, whereas for rape the probability of arrest is approximately equal across offender race. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_S... https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/81/4/1381/22345...

I tried to find data about offender rate for property crime, but every discussion said that since the victims don't encounter the offenders, there is no good way to estimate offender race.

I'm not defending anything in American history. I just want to set the facts straight.

Re: The Number of Youth in Juvenile Detention in California Has Quietly Plummeted

#125

Post by factsaresacred » Tue, Sep 18, 2018, 5:58 AM UTC

diob wrote: post #118

gascan wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like revisionist history. From the seventies thru the beginning of the nineties, the national homicide rate was double to triple what it is today. We had real crime problems in the "Tough On Crime" era, and we were hitting record crime rates. A lazy Wiki snip: Violent crime nearly quadrupled between 1960 and its peak in 1991. Property crime more than doubled over the same period. Since the 1990s, however,…

I really encourage you to read The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Hand waving away racial influences is convenient to some, but definitely not to those affected by it. If you look into the statistics, you'll see that primarily minority communities were targeted by the "tough on crime" era. And these touted "tough on crime" policies only had the effect of enslaving and crippling generat…

> The crime rates are nearly similar among all races

This is patently false and not all crimes are the same. The murder and assault rate, for example, is tragically - and dangerously - high for blacks.

> The thing is though, police don't patrol white communities.

The thing is though, police patrol crime-ridden communities, which sadly are often black communities. Or do you think there's a massive unknown murder wave in New Hampshire that would be uncovered if only the police presence there was increased?

I'm sorry to be blunt but this kind of obfuscation of facts is extremely unhelpful and we'll never resolve societies problems by shifting the blame to 'the man' all the time.

Re: The Number of Youth in Juvenile Detention in California Has Quietly Plummeted

#126

Post by dnomad » Tue, Sep 18, 2018, 6:08 AM UTC

throwaway5839 wrote: post #124

diob wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really encourage you to read The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Hand waving away racial influences is convenient to some, but definitely not to those affected by it. If you look into the statistics, you'll see that primarily minority communities were targeted by the "tough on crime" era. And these touted "tough on crime" policies only had the effect of enslaving and crippling generat…

"The crime rates are nearly similar among all races" Do you have any stats to back that up? Everything I find says the opposite. A Channel 4 News fact check says: https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-black-amer... "Blacks were disproportionately likely to commit homicide and to be the victims. In 2008 the offending rate for blacks was seven times higher than for whites and the victimisation rate was six…

You clearly don't undererstand the "facts" you're presenting or, more likely, you are being intentionally dishonest.You're comparing data from [1] which is clearly labeled 2012-2015 and using that to argue about the drug policy for the last 50 years.

If you really want to understand the "facts" about America's drug policy and the last 50 years of criminal policy there is a lot of academic literature written by some of the best historians out there. You can start with [2] for example.

[1] https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rhovo1215.pdf

[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/680751.The_Marijuana_Con...

Re: The Number of Youth in Juvenile Detention in California Has Quietly Plummeted

#127

Post by throwaway5839 » Tue, Sep 18, 2018, 6:18 AM UTC

dnomad wrote: post #126

throwaway5839 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The crime rates are nearly similar among all races" Do you have any stats to back that up? Everything I find says the opposite. A Channel 4 News fact check says: https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-black-amer... "Blacks were disproportionately likely to commit homicide and to be the victims. In 2008 the offending rate for blacks was seven times higher than for whites and the victimisation rate was six…

You clearly don't undererstand the "facts" you're presenting or, more likely, you are being intentionally dishonest.You're comparing data from [1] which is clearly labeled 2012-2015 and using that to argue about the drug policy for the last 50 years. If you really want to understand the "facts" about America's drug policy and the last 50 years of criminal policy there is a lot of academic literature written by some o…

I'm arguing about drug policy for the last 50 years?

I disagreed with two false statements of fact: "The crime rates are nearly similar among all races" and "They also let white people off the hook".

I said nothing about drug policy.

Re: The Number of Youth in Juvenile Detention in California Has Quietly Plummeted

#128

Post by expathacker » Tue, Sep 18, 2018, 6:23 AM UTC

johnm1019 wrote: post #104

ryandrake wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, our society is set up so that once you are labeled a criminal, that label sticks with you for the rest of your life. Many aspects of legitimate law-abiding life, particularly employment and housing, get harder once you’ve been convicted of something, even after you’ve served your time. Every application that asks for your criminal history or “have you ever been convicted” cements this class distinction. If we w…

Evidently there are many people who agree with you. One of them founded, and now many support an awesome foundation called the Delancey Street Foundation. It is in San Francisco (and now other places). They provide housing and employment, via their own internal businesses, which employ those they are helping to reintegrate into society. Their cafe and restaurant are really great if you're in the neighborhood in San F…

I used to live 2 blocks from Delancey. I had them move me into my apartment, move me out, hired them for two office moves, and they were the labor for the SF-end of a significant datacenter move. Great guys, hard workers. The professionalism at the cafe is almost military, I had breakfast there almost every morning for 2 years. It's part of the reason I'm so fat.

Re: The Number of Youth in Juvenile Detention in California Has Quietly Plummeted

#129

Post by expathacker » Tue, Sep 18, 2018, 6:27 AM UTC

Could it be that the "greatest generation" were just really bad parents? The men came back from WW2, and then again Korea, completely broken with PTSD"?

The boomers didn't deal with nearly as much war as their parents. Violent crime peaked exactly 18 years after Roe vs Wade. An entire generation was allowed to wait until they were ready to be intentional parents rather than accidental.

Re: The Number of Youth in Juvenile Detention in California Has Quietly Plummeted

#130

Post by Janeman544 » Tue, Sep 18, 2018, 6:35 AM UTC

ergothus wrote: post #70

Janeman544 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property crimes are not punished in California and the problem is acute when Gun ownership is also discouraged. While techies in bay area might only see an occasional car break-ins or theft the problem in Central and northern California is of theft of copper wires, fence wires, illegal dumping etc. I worked with lot of self help groups in California and learned that the cops and prosecutors would rather go after soft…

> The cop would rather catch a normal kid in wrong place at wrong time because that kid will not fight back. That sounds like a real problem to fix - incentivizing our law enforcement to go after "easy" targets does not create the sort of society I want to be in. I don't see how increasing sentences helps change this (if the sentences are being selectively applied anyway), and gun ownership is likewise orthogonal (sh…

By Gun ownership I meant people protecting their own property from other people who might use force to steal away or damage the property. I do not mean shooting people dead but the mere indication that store/farm owner might be armed deters potential thieves away.

I agree with you on everything you have said but the real issue is with the American people who get scared easily and act as if anyone branded as criminal should be treated as animal. For example people think it is great if people are forever locked, raped in jail, disallowed to work etc. because "they are bad people". To change that mindset we need to build far better communities. I feel we should break up larger metropolitan areas into several smaller ones and force people to actively participate in the governance instead of relying on a hate mongering politician who turns up every few years promising to lock up the bad guys.