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Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers

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Re: Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers

#11

Post by ghostberry »

zo1 wrote: post #10
neverminder wrote: post #6

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

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.

Out of interest, why do you think there are so many valid criminals and lawbreakers in the US?

Re: Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers

#12

Post by Rovanion »

zo1 wrote: post #10
neverminder wrote: post #6

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

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.

Every prisoner in the US is a convicted criminal under US law. The amount of criminals outside of US prisons could then be speculated to be much higher than in other countries because the US criminalizes more things than other countries. Determining the number of criminals outside of prison then becomes a hard task since you can't use the state supplied numbers if you want to do a fair comparison between countries. It could also be that an equal amount of things are criminalized in other countries, but not punishable by prison sentence.

Note however that this is wild speculation, just things you have to take into account.

Re: Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers

#13

Post by vog »

zo1 wrote: post #10
neverminder wrote: post #6

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

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.

> "The percentage of criminals in the United States"

Not sure how this is really an additional fact. If you defined criminals in the sense of "criminals as defined in the US", you have almost by definition a direct correlation to the number of prisoners.

BTW, here in Germany we also have politicians who think that Europe's criminals concentrate in Germany. Probably every country has some people believing that all criminals come to them. The difference between countries is how much influence those voices have.

Re: Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers

#14

Post by zo1 »

vog wrote: post #13
zo1 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> "The percentage of criminals in the United States" Not sure how this is really an additional fact. If you defined criminals in the sense of "criminals as defined in the US", you have almost by definition a direct correlation to the number of prisoners. BTW, here in Germany we also have politicians who think that Europe's criminals concentrate in Germany. Probably every country has some people believing that all cri…

The point I'm making is that it's implicit that they are "not" criminals by virtue of there being such a huge discrepancy. This needs to be addressed in a clear, and concise manner instead of making sweeping generalizations about the discrepancy.

Re: Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers

#15

Post by maze-le »

Jacqued wrote: post #9
sgdesign wrote: post #4

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.

Those random identity checks are only legal if they are performed under particular circumstances establishing the risk of breach of the public order (for example around a protest or in such situations). Theoretically they cannot be based on the appearance of the person being controlled. This means it is not legal for a police officer to control your identity unless they have established this risk of public disorder.…

I don't think that is entireley true. While the Schengen-Zone (EU border agreements) has established that there are no physical borders, where you have to show an id, there is a 50km (maybe more maybe less I don't know exactly) zone around those borders, where Identity checks are permitted. Police is allowed to control your identity in those zones if they have a "reasonable cause" to think yo may be an illegal immigrant...

Of course "reasonable cause" can (and usually will) mean, that if you happen to have the "wrong" skin-tone, hair-color etc. you will be controlled. The Police justifies this racial profiling with "experience" and "statistics" (at least in Germany)

Re: Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers

#16

Post by struppi »

sgdesign wrote: post #4

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.

IIRC, in Austria, police CAN ask you about your name and home address at any time, and they can even bring you to the police office if they don't believe you and you don't have an ID to prove it. Even though we don't have an "Ausweispflicht" like Germany, having an ID with you can be a good thing in this situation.

They are not allowed to search you without a reason (In theory. I heared that they might just say "I think I smelled cannabis" and then they have a reason.)

Disclaimer: IANAL, and maybe I got some details wrong.

Re: Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers

#18

Post by timq »

malka wrote: post #7
sgdesign wrote: post #4

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.

> 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.

> 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.

Re: Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers

#19

Post by sillygoose »

comrade1 wrote: post #2

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 y…

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.

Re: Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers

#20

Post by arethuza »

zouhair wrote: post #17
neverminder wrote: post #6

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

The fact that it is mostly a for profit business helps a lot.

Only 8.4% of US prisoners are in privately owned prisons:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison#Development_3

I suspect wider cultural reasons rather than just simple corruption - though that no doubt plays a part.

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