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Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers

harvardlawreview.org

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

#101

Post by joshontheweb »

arethuza wrote: post #20
zouhair wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Private prisons are only part of the revenue generated from the war on drugs. Civil forfeiture is a huge income stream for local and federal. They basically wait for the drug dealers to sell their drugs and then catch them with the money and take it. Some police departments allot for 35% or more of their annual budget to come from civil forfeiture. Add to that the amount of federal money received to fight the war. Also fines and fees. There is a lot of money changing hands and jobs being created by prohibition.

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

#102

Post by CPLX »

pyre wrote: post #85
CPLX wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's important in policy discussions to distinguish "simple" and "easy" as concepts. Needless to say, it would not be easy to end and unravel the drug war. As a concept and goal, however, it is a simple decision. > What will all of those local police departments do without the 'easy' money from the government? Perhaps they could attempt to solve and prevent crimes involving violence and fraudulent behavior, w…

> Perhaps they could attempt to solve and prevent crimes involving violence and fraudulent behavior, which theoretically is the reason they exist in the first place. You are assuming that they are not doing that currently.

That's correct they are not. David Simon has spoken at length on that exact issue, and it's referenced in the article I linked to quoting him.

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

#103

Post by Lawtonfogle »

CPLX wrote: post #88
eevilspock wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that we should end the drug war but you are oversimplifying.

Not really. Much like "end apartheid" or "US out of Vietnam" we are occasionally presented with government policies so clearly unethical or ineffective that they defy oversimplification. The drug war is one such obvious failure.

It is still nuanced in how you do it. For example, what about age limits for drugs? What about adults being banned from getting drugs (say an 18 year old getting alcohol). What about pharmaceuticals being sold without a prescription. What about ensuring safety standards in what was being sold (say ensuring that the crack in the store wasn't cut with anything horrible).

Edit: That said, I do think the argument that even with all this, the argument that legalizing everything now and worrying about the details later is better than keeping it illegal while we work out details does have merit. I'm not convinced it is right, but I'm not convinced it is wrong either.

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

#104

Post by rmxt »

happyscrappy wrote: post #91
pjc50 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The racism is not a red herring, it's the primary driver for the electorate demanding that the system be broken in the ways it is. It's used to argue that the victims of the system deserve it, and thereby to prevent change.

Pretending that racism is the main problem with inner city poor actually contributes to the problem. Not all poor in the city have the same outcome. Victimology is crippling. If nothing I do is my fault, because racism, then why would I not do whatever I feel like, consequences be damned? It is white people's fault, right?

Ignoring the disingenuity, if racism (e.g., redlining, gerrymandering, selective use of semi-legal police procedures, etc.) hasn't led to the current disparate state of affairs between races in America, then what has, pray tell?

"Racism" isn't merely a buzzword or an excuse if it's actually a historic and ongoing phenomenon.

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

#105

Post by Lawtonfogle »

ChrisArgyle wrote: post #69
Bostonian wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Black men also commit violent crimes at much higher rates than the rest of the population. Most people are in jail for a good reason. I suggest reading a recent essay "The Smart Way to Keep People Out of Prison" by Megan McArdle.

It seems as if you're saying violent crime is a function of race (crazy talk) instead of class status (arguable). Is it possible that, due to race-income inequalities in America, that black males are also more likely to have low/no income at the same "much higher rate"?

The icky point is when you start looking at crime as a function of not just SES but also culture. A lot of people have a hard time nuancing culture from race even though a well traveled person would easily see the difference.

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

#106

Post by lars »

CPLX wrote: post #48

There's all this discussion of these issues, which relate to racism, economic issues, police brutality, crime, etc. They seem complicated and nuanced and people throw their hands up and say well what can we do. The answer to that question is actually so simple you can say it in four words: End the drug war. Someone far more eloquent than me, The Wire creator David Simon, can flesh that out a little: http://www.washin…

The drug war is part of it. But the big thing to fix is income inequality. High income inequality is correlated with higher homicide rate, higher robbery rate, lower civic participation, higher mortality, lower social cohesion and lower well-being in children. So many social problems are strongly predicted by this variable, yet many refuse to consider inequality to be a problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality#Effects

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

#107

Post by Lawtonfogle »

arethuza wrote: post #20
zouhair wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That can be a very misleading number.

8.4% owned, how many are not privately owned have services/goods/staff provided in large part by private companies?

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

#108

Post by vogan42 »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #67
brianlweiner wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three strike laws in certain states can result in long prison sentences despite relatively minor crimes being committed - including simple possession - http://www.lao.ca.gov/2005/3_strikes/3_strikes_102005.htm#cr... justice system Furthermore black offenders receive sentences that are longer than white offenders - http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873244320045783044... And white people are significantly less…

> white people are significantly less likely to be arrested for drug possession, despite usage rates being fairly similar This is an oft repeated lie. Blacks use narcotics at well over double the white rate. Claims that rates are similar are based on surveys, as opposed to test data. Anyway, you are missing the point here that prosecutors know exactly who they're convicting. Sentences now are almost all plea bargains…

You point to data (not really, no sources) You ignore alcohol usage entirely. You generalize the behavior of all prosecutors, without data again. And you seem think you are not naive and that in some way the system is "working"...

System works to what end ?

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

#109

Post by jjaredsimpson »

pyre wrote: post #85
CPLX wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's important in policy discussions to distinguish "simple" and "easy" as concepts. Needless to say, it would not be easy to end and unravel the drug war. As a concept and goal, however, it is a simple decision. > What will all of those local police departments do without the 'easy' money from the government? Perhaps they could attempt to solve and prevent crimes involving violence and fraudulent behavior, w…

> Perhaps they could attempt to solve and prevent crimes involving violence and fraudulent behavior, which theoretically is the reason they exist in the first place. You are assuming that they are not doing that currently.

From the article:

American police forces deliberately gorge on the excess of 750,000 marijuana-related arrests every year in order to profit from quotas, grants, and civil forfeiture while allowing hundreds of thousands of rape kits to sit untested for years in police warehouses. Only 4% of all American police arrests are for crimes considered “violent” by the FBI, even though those crimes are offered as the justification for enormous public expenditures, wholesale Orwellian surveillance, and every violent aspect of modern policing.

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

#110

Post by Lawtonfogle »

mellavora wrote: post #52
jacquesm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The murder rate is that high because of easy access to weapons that make murdering people relatively easy. Shooting someone is a lot easier than knifing someone, point-and-click.

Ummm, no. IF this was true, we would see a correlation between gun ownership (or access) and murder rates. If anything, the correlation is slightly negative, both in the US and globally. Where you DO see the correlation is inequality. In US states, using data from wikipedia, I find a 70% correlation between gini coefficients and homicide rates. The same is true globally.

This is especially true when you look at murders and count out suicides. The effect that gun ownership has on murder rates is a separate topic from the effect it has on suicide rates, but many stats conflict the numbers, enough so that I've begun to doubt it being accidental in all cases.
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