America’s incarceration rate is in decline • Hacker News Board

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#131

Post by GuB-42 » Wed, Jun 25, 2025, 11:34 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #90

kovek wrote: post #13

This is interesting. I don't know why it's happening. However, this book deserves a mention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Natur... . It shares statistics on how violence has been decreasing throughout the history of humanity.

20 century features pretty much largest genocides ever. Multiple of them. And in addition, things that we do not count as genocides, but still involved deliberate killing of millions. That particular book was criticized by historians a lot.

Maybe that violence is just better organized now. Personal violence is declining (assault, murder, ...), but not organized violence (war, genocide, ...).

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#132

Post by Spivak » Wed, Jun 25, 2025, 11:34 PM UTC

leptons wrote: post #56

jjcob wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt there is a single explanation. I think it's multiple factors. Unleaded gasoline could also be a factor. Every country has shown drops in crime rates when leaded gasoline was phased out. If I recall, leaded gasoline was phased out in the 80ies, which fits a drop in crime rates in the 90ies.

Availability of pornography has cut down the rate of rapes significantly. Too bad the republicans are going to try to ban all porn pretty soon, according to their stated agenda. They do love their wealthy donors that run the prison-industrial-complex.

This would be a good theory if it was supported at all by data. There has been a decrease but if you squint it's a flat line. The best you can really say is that the availability of pornography is neutral.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#133

Post by energywut » Wed, Jun 25, 2025, 11:42 PM UTC

pengaru wrote: post #3

Does that mean we can stop keeping mouth wash and deodorant behind lock and key on store shelves and resume locking up the criminals making messes of our cities?

Putting poor, desperate people in jail isn't going to solve the systemic issues that create poor, desperate people.

Locking up people for petty theft is almost certainly FAR more expensive than the cost of the materials being stolen. It costs tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars to house an inmate every year, to say nothing of the damage it causes that inmate. Prisons make criminals more likely to commit crime in the future.

A person would have to be stealing like 40 bottles of mouthwash every single day for it to be cheaper to jail an inmate rather than just replace the mouthwash for the business. Cases like that also clog the justice system and prevent solving more serious crimes, deplete shared resources like police and public defenders, and overcrowd prisons.

Even if you aren't a prison abolitionist like me, surely the rational approach here isn't "Pay more and increase the likelyhood the petty criminal becomes a serious criminal". It just makes zero rational sense to try and solve the issue that way.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#134

Post by mymythisisthis » Wed, Jun 25, 2025, 11:43 PM UTC

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #53

rwmj wrote: post #19

The question not even asked by the article is ... why?

The answer is likely unknowable, but I can think of several factors that tie into the plummeting birth rate: - While the Freakanomics citation of widespread access to abortion has been debunked as a sole cause, I think it remains credible for at least a contributing factor. Fewer young people born to folks who are too poor/busy/not wanting to raise them is doubtlessly going to reduce the number of young offenders who…

I think that demographically we might be in a trough, of new born children. Also children born to the last major cohort (the children of the baby Boomers) are just becoming tweens and young teens, or very young adults. There might be a spike in crime, in the next 10 years, as they start to mature. It helps that they are more spread out, and not born in the same few years like the Boomers were, (a more flattened and spread curve).

Very rough midpoint years; Baby Boomers 1949, Gen X 1979, Millennial 2009.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#135

Post by potato3732842 » Wed, Jun 25, 2025, 11:52 PM UTC

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #105

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's lead. Lead concentration in America "rapidly increased in the 1950s and then declined in the 1980s" [1]. There is a non-linear discontinuity among kids born in the mid 80s, with linear improvements through to those born in the late 2000s [2]. Arrest rates for violent crimes are highest from 15 to 29 years old (particularly 17 to 23-year olds) [3]. They're particularly low for adults after 50 years old. We're aro…

Can we blame lead for the US’ electoral landscape too?

I don't think it shifts the red blue much which is probably what you're getting at.

I think it absolutely affects the quality of politicians we get though. The best that a given generation can offer is probably lower if that generation huffed a lot of lead gas. So as they age out and younger people hit peak career and fill those roles things will probably improve a bit.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#136

Post by spinner34f » Wed, Jun 25, 2025, 11:52 PM UTC

strict9 wrote: post #12

> Rapidly declining numbers of youth are committing crimes, getting arrested, and being incarcerated. This matters because young offenders are the raw material that feeds the prison system: As one generation ages out, another takes its place on the same horrid journey. Another factor which will soon impact this, if it isn't already, is the rapidly changing nature of youth. Fertility rates have been dropping since 200…

The flip-side of an aging society with declining fertility is that older people, with fewer children are likely to be less sympathetic to children, and you could see the incarceration rates increase, or remain steady, as less severe infractions are punished more harshly.

We recently saw this play out in the Queensland, Australia, state election where the opposition party, which was pretty much out of ideas, ran a scare campaign about youth crime in regional areas. Neighbourhood Facebook Groups where CCTV footage of "suspicious youth" are a mainstay and an aging population did the rest of the job and they won the election and passed "adult time for adult crime" laws: whether you agree with these or not, "adult time" in Australia means that the youth incarcerated will be adults in their 20s and 30s when they get out.

The Australian state of New South Wales routinely strip-searches young children, but again, there isn't much outcry.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out elsewhere. The worst case scenario is that kids will be politically scapegoated ("why should childless and aging taxpayers fund education?"), and it leads to a further decline in fertility rates.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#137

Post by krapp » Wed, Jun 25, 2025, 11:52 PM UTC

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #105

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's lead. Lead concentration in America "rapidly increased in the 1950s and then declined in the 1980s" [1]. There is a non-linear discontinuity among kids born in the mid 80s, with linear improvements through to those born in the late 2000s [2]. Arrest rates for violent crimes are highest from 15 to 29 years old (particularly 17 to 23-year olds) [3]. They're particularly low for adults after 50 years old. We're aro…

Can we blame lead for the US’ electoral landscape too?

No. Much of the American electoral landscape is still shaped by the systemic remnants of slavery, reconstruction and segregation, and the post-Trump landscape by the cultural trauma of having elected a black president.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#138

Post by makeitdouble » Wed, Jun 25, 2025, 11:52 PM UTC

y-curious wrote: post #49

holmesworcester wrote: post #30

How much of this is due to smartphones? The years seem to line up. 2014 seemed like the big year where smartphone ubiquity changed US teen culture. Less boredom, dumb adventure, drinking, etc. (For better or worse but in this case better.)

Devils advocate: smartphones have made antisocial tiktok trends, "fast money" hacks and paint an unrealistic portrait of success. Before, only rappers could be young and rich and flashy. Now, seemingly regular teens are millionaires and this is constantly fed into young people's feeds.

I hear your point as: up until then scams, gambling and Ponzi schemes were for adults with strong purchasing power (could sink all the family's money in one single decision), when with smartphones everyone gets to enjoy screwing themselves directly.

My hot take is that previous generations weren't better prepared for the adult world than today's kids. They were more "mature" (sex, violence, abuse resistance) in some respects, but not specially ready for caring about society.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#139

Post by bobthepanda » Wed, Jun 25, 2025, 11:52 PM UTC

mymythisisthis wrote: post #128

throwaway_2121 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of boredom is also a factor. Social media and modern games are keeping them occupied.

People also have fewer possessions worth stealing and trying to hock? It's not like TVs and radios cost that much anymore. People wear less jewelry. Though this is not a significant factor, it might be worth putting on the list still.

The most valuable things on a person these days (credit cards, phone) are also incredibly easy to lock down and make worthless. Many of the things like jewelry, are also now rendered essentially worthless because a lot of jewelry now is cheaply sourced; pawning off crap from fast fashion is not going to be worth it.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#140

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 25, 2025, 11:52 PM UTC

strict9 wrote: post #12

> Rapidly declining numbers of youth are committing crimes, getting arrested, and being incarcerated. This matters because young offenders are the raw material that feeds the prison system: As one generation ages out, another takes its place on the same horrid journey. Another factor which will soon impact this, if it isn't already, is the rapidly changing nature of youth. Fertility rates have been dropping since 200…

[deleted]