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Google Engineer bails out student in jail

neil.fraser.name

91–100 of 202 posts

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#91
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be saying that if we got rid of all the blacks and muslims we'd have far less crime. Did I misread you?

You seem to be accusing me of racism rather than offering a counterargument. Did I misread you? Cultural homogeneity and its effects on crime transcend race. European immigration to the US during the 19th and 20th centuries were linked to crime as well. Usually, the dominant cultures in a heterogenous society will exclude and oppress minority populations, which leads to poverty and desperation. The problem really is…

You said this: "if you look, for instance, at Scandinavia, where the rate of rapes has risen dramatically as more and more Muslims immigrate there." making correlation with increased rape rates with "muslim" immigrants and then said "Obviously Islam, or blackness, isn't the problem here"

How is this consistent? Do you have any single evidence your blanket group of "muslim immigrants" caused the increase in rape? Make your mind please.

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, somehow, over the last 20 years the crime rate in the US has dropped tremendously. Crime rates in all Western countries have dropped over the last 20 years. More interestingly, the crime rate in the US does not significantly differ from that in other countries[1]. Even taking the statistics from [1] at face value (they are probably skewed by various different definitions for 'crime'), The Netherlands has the…

This is where the lack of controlled experimentation makes the data harder to read. To match the Dutch imprisonment rate, the US would have to release some 84% of its prison population, or in other words, to not have imprisoned those people to begin with. But if we did that, the crime rate would be different because, presumably, at least some of those people would have gone on to commit crimes! I'll readily concede t…

Of course, possession and use of drugs is not a crime in the Netherlands (selling them is illegal for hard drugs and soft drugs above a certain quantity). That explains away part of the difference. If you consider fewer things to be crimes then you have less criminals. Dutch laws are also more tolerant on things like prostitution (if not forced), euthanasia (if properly executed), underage drinking (not in a bar), and a few others.

A clear side effect of being in prison is that you are more likely to get the wrong friends and less chance of a job which leads to more crime. Rinse & repeat. That explains away a lot of the rest.

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#93
post #24

25% of the world population in jail is American. 737 out of 100.000 Americans are in jail, that's almost one out of a hundred. As a comparison Denmark has 59 out of 100.000 people in jail. And the number of Americans in jail has been rising steadily for the last 20 years. This is a pretty serious problem.

Stupid war on drugs :(

That's merely a symptom, not a cause. The cause is that US prisons are for profit organisations, and that laws are written by lobbyists and passed by bribes. This shows how effective market forces are.

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#94
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criminals are created by (a) laws, (b) their transgression, and (c) their enforcement. You seem to think that the whole issue is in (b) - that there's something about the US that causes more people to act unlawfully, to transgress. Have you considered other possibilities, such as unjust laws, or unequal application of laws? Besides that, there's social issues, whereby subgroups are disadvantaged and have fewer opport…

Well, let's consider (a) and (c). We're comparing statistics to other Western countries, and other Western countries have largely the same criminal laws the US does. Some of them legalize prostitution more than the US does, but everything else (violent crimes, property crimes, drug crimes) that's illegal in the US is illegal in the countries we're comparing the US with. So that rules out (a) for the purpose of this d…

> Some of them legalize prostitution more than the US does, but everything else (violent crimes, property crimes, drug crimes) that's illegal in the US is illegal in the countries we're comparing the US with. So that rules out (a) for the purpose of this discussion.

I'm not so sure about that. You'll not go to jail for possession of small quantities of drugs in Denmark, but you might in the US?

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where the lack of controlled experimentation makes the data harder to read. To match the Dutch imprisonment rate, the US would have to release some 84% of its prison population, or in other words, to not have imprisoned those people to begin with. But if we did that, the crime rate would be different because, presumably, at least some of those people would have gone on to commit crimes! I'll readily concede t…

Of course, possession and use of drugs is not a crime in the Netherlands (selling them is illegal for hard drugs and soft drugs above a certain quantity). That explains away part of the difference. If you consider fewer things to be crimes then you have less criminals. Dutch laws are also more tolerant on things like prostitution (if not forced), euthanasia (if properly executed), underage drinking (not in a bar), an…

However, I picked The Netherlands from the list because it was closest to the US and has a higher crime rate than Germany, France, Canada, etc. You can substitute any of those in my argument and it still holds.

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#96
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be saying that if we got rid of all the blacks and muslims we'd have far less crime. Did I misread you?

You seem to be accusing me of racism rather than offering a counterargument. Did I misread you? Cultural homogeneity and its effects on crime transcend race. European immigration to the US during the 19th and 20th centuries were linked to crime as well. Usually, the dominant cultures in a heterogenous society will exclude and oppress minority populations, which leads to poverty and desperation. The problem really is…

It is dangerous to idly attribute a rise in violent crime to lack of integration with a specific cultural group.

You've backed up your theory here - but you didn't initially.

In my opinion, the most dangerous form of prejudice - is prejudice that's backed up by an 'intellectual' argument.

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#97
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That 25% number seems pretty hard to believe, given that compared to all countries (not developed countries) America is very low-crime and America is 5% of the world's population. I suspect that either a) poorer countries are too cash-strapped to lock up dangerous criminals or b) that many poorer countries don't have reliable data on prisoner numbers.

The '25%' number is a red herring and not worth debating. The US has over 6 times the number of inmates (per capita) as the average Western European country[1][2]. How could that be, other than because of a seriously fubared justice system? [1] http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri_per_cap-crime-pris... [2] http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r234.pdf

> other than because of a seriously fubared justice system?

I live in Brazil and I had two cars stolen. None was found, nobody was charged. A couple years back I had my backpack (with my laptop inside) robbed at gunpoint.

A friend of mine who lives in the US had his car stolen. It was returned that same afternoon. Another friend of mine had his home completely cleaned up (the thieves left the heavy furniture and the kitchen). All his stuff was returned by the police two days later.

The larger inmate population could also be, in some part, due to more efficient law enforcement.

That, of course, does not forgive the cops from breaking laws themselves. It's just that the issue is not that black and white.

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#98
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be saying that if we got rid of all the blacks and muslims we'd have far less crime. Did I misread you?

You seem to be accusing me of racism rather than offering a counterargument. Did I misread you? Cultural homogeneity and its effects on crime transcend race. European immigration to the US during the 19th and 20th centuries were linked to crime as well. Usually, the dominant cultures in a heterogenous society will exclude and oppress minority populations, which leads to poverty and desperation. The problem really is…

That link seems suspect to me. India is rife with crime. Daily life, even for rich people, involves lots of activities that would be crimes in a Western country, particularly official corruption.

Anyway, you spoke in terms of "criminality in some American cultures", which sounds like a euphemism, since you neglected to name them. Although you followed it up with your hetereogenity thesis I (like many readers) was already lost.

I do agree that it is the rifts between groups that ultimately cause all the problems. However, who's really to blame for that? America's slave-descended population have been in the country for over 500 years. By any normal expectations, their original culture should have been completely blended with the mainstream culture hundreds of years ago. And a large extent this is true of those blacks that enter the middle class and beyond. But for those that are trapped in a ghetto lifestyle -- with ghetto attitudes -- I don't think you can attribute that up to cultural differences. That's circular reasoning again. Something else is keeping the cultures separate.

I think we should be open to the idea that the forces keeping the cultures separate are both external and internal to the black community in America. Still, anecdotally speaking, as a Canadian I find the racism in America to be pretty breathtaking. White Americans, whether liberal or conservative, take it as a given that there's always some part of the city dominated by blacks where gunfire is heard at night and the cops are afraid to go. If you probe even a little bit you find that most white Americans, even nominally liberal ones, think blacks have lower capacities than they do. This seems to me, with my Canadian attitudes, like a shocking abandonment of a large part of your citizenry.

In any case, heterogenity doesn't always lead to a higher crime rate. Toronto is over 38% immigrant [1] and yet has a low crime rate. Montreal has been riven by cultural heterogenity (between English, French, and others) ever since the 1700s, and yet has an even lower crime rate. [2] I'm not saying Canada is perfect in this regard, and it is a pretty universal rule that the newest immigrant population has a higher rate of crime and organized crime. But, unscientifically, it seems to me that the availability of better social services, less inequality, more equitable law enforcement, plus a very strong tradition that the norm of "Canadian" isn't any particular race [3], must all be factors in mitigating this.

[1] http://www.mta.ca/about_canada/multi/

[2] http://www.toronto.ca/quality_of_life/safety.htm

[3] Even the gangs in Canada are sometimes multiracial: the "United Nations" gang is famous for this. http://www.vancouversun.com/Gallery+gang/1350012/story.html

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#99
post #6

In case you're (like me) wondering what "attempted lynching" means in the context of the article, consider yourself enlightened by the California Penal Code: 405a. The taking by means of a riot of any person from the lawful custody of any peace officer is a lynching. 405b. Every person who participates in any lynching is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three or four years. I can't imagine this…

The part about "attempted lynching" results from an accusation that the student yelled "Kick her (the police officer's) ass!" during the confrontation. At least that makes the charge make sense, though of course who knows if it's true or not. Details were linked off the linked page- http://www.laweekly.com/2010-12-09/news/jeremy-marks-attempt...

Do you think it would still be "attempted lynching" if the students were white?

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#100
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The '25%' number is a red herring and not worth debating. The US has over 6 times the number of inmates (per capita) as the average Western European country[1][2]. How could that be, other than because of a seriously fubared justice system? [1] http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri_per_cap-crime-pris... [2] http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r234.pdf

> other than because of a seriously fubared justice system? I live in Brazil and I had two cars stolen. None was found, nobody was charged. A couple years back I had my backpack (with my laptop inside) robbed at gunpoint. A friend of mine who lives in the US had his car stolen. It was returned that same afternoon. Another friend of mine had his home completely cleaned up (the thieves left the heavy furniture and the…

That sounds like the difference between inefficient and an efficient police work - not something that is due to a greater incarceration rate. If that was the cause, there would be fewer crimes, but the resolution of them should be about the same. Of course, that evades the question of whether incarceration has any kind of positive effect on crime rates - Popular wisdom assumes that, but scientific evidence is lacking.
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