Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by aasarava » Wed, May 20, 2015, 2:57 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #114

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…

I'll agree that the drug war is out of control and as a "cure" it's worse than the disease. But people are not being locked up just because they are black, or poor. They are committing crimes, and pleading or being found guilty. The problem I have with pieces like the original article are that they are making it sound like we are engaging in a Gestapo-like rounding up of large numbers of minorities for no reason and…

> But people are not being locked up just because they are black, or poor. They are committing crimes, and pleading or being found guilty.

The US is locking up very, very large numbers of young black men for minor crimes that people of other races regularly commit -- i.e., for activities that are only crimes when blacks are found to be doing them. Recent studies have shown that whites use more drugs than blacks, and yet are charged far less. Even the sentencing on perceived "black drugs" (drugs more readily available to the poor) such as crack is far more punitive than sentencing for the equivalent cocaine.

For a good book on the subject, see The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. It illuminates, with facts, just how disproportionately our system of laws punishes young black men while young whites are given second and third and fourth chances.

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

#152

Post by wil421 » Wed, May 20, 2015, 2:58 PM UTC

panzagl wrote: post #144

anon3_ wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, it's about drugs and cultural undertones that drugs are permissive, that you can be the "druggie guy", and to some, it's hip and cool. I blame the intelligentsia. Try the scenario when you're in a low income family with an addict. This very easily leads to a vicious cycle - eventual arrest and incarceration. That's one less person coming home with a paycheck. That's a family growing up a generation wit…

I do wonder how and why we're supposed to get people into treatment if drugs aren't illegal- "Hi citizen I noticed you're enjoying a legal activity with deleterious long term effects. Please take this pamphlet with a list of treatment centers and voluntarily enroll." It's worked so well with tobacco and alcohol.

Alcohol problems have seemed to take a downward trend in recent decades as well. Although it looks like pregnant women are drinking more!

http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/Social/Module1Epidemi...

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

#153

Post by yummyfajitas » Wed, May 20, 2015, 3:02 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #43

yummyfajitas wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among other things, our murder rate is higher than that of most other western nations. Assuming murder rate is a good proxy for other "valid" crimes (it's hard to hide a body), we would expect to have 5x the incarceration rate of the UK or France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

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.

That's far from clear - even the rate of non-shooting murders is vastly higher than most of the western world (only ~1/2 our murders are done with firearms).

Along the same lines of reasoning as yours, approximately 1/2 our murders are committed by black Americans, and the proportion of people who are black are well correlated with murders. So one could equally well say that the murder rate is high because of the presence of black people. Would you endorse this conclusion? If not, why not?

(Let me emphasize I'm not endorsing the conclusion I derive here - I simply plan to repeat whatever argument jaquesm has against the above conclusion back at him w.r.t. guns.)

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

#154

Post by rmxt » Wed, May 20, 2015, 3:02 PM UTC

millermp12 wrote: post #145

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.

The problem is, a substantial (and potentially growing) segment of the population doesn't agree with you. If racism is _the_ problem, why does it produce perfectly antipodal outcomes for different "people of color"? i.e. Asians are economically ascendant (surpassing whites on most metric), while blacks, well... you get the idea. Rubbing the amulet of "structural racism" so much has entirely debased the term.

Are you really equating the plight and histories of Asian-Americans and African-Americans in America over the past 3 centuries? You can do that with a straight face?

Hint: one history includes codified discrimination until ~50 years ago and legal enslavement until ~150 years ago and the other one doesn't. Well, I'll give you that Asian Americans faced codified discrimination into the 20th century, but don't overlook the "antipodal" patterns of how each ethnic group came to be in America.

Hint 2: Asian Americans came over, at a minimum, in indentured servitude.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Asian_Americans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_history

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

#155

Post by CPLX » Wed, May 20, 2015, 3:05 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #114

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…

I'll agree that the drug war is out of control and as a "cure" it's worse than the disease. But people are not being locked up just because they are black, or poor. They are committing crimes, and pleading or being found guilty. The problem I have with pieces like the original article are that they are making it sound like we are engaging in a Gestapo-like rounding up of large numbers of minorities for no reason and…

> The problem I have with pieces like the original article are that they are making it sound like we are engaging in a Gestapo-like rounding up of large numbers of minorities for no reason and throwing them in jail.

The reason people are "making it sound like that" is because that's actually what's happening.

Freddy Gray was plucked from a sidewalk, detained, and then killed, for literally no lawful reason.

The context for his story, and the many others like it, is the war on [certain] drugs [when used by some kinds of people] that is current social policy.

This approach to criminal justice appeared at precisely the same time that overtly racist means of policing were outlawed, to accomplish the same goal.

Do you really think it's random happenstance that urban blacks get arrested for experimenting with drugs in a way that suburban whites do not?

Did a country with a few centuries of of legally enshrined racism and violence towards blacks just, you know, stop doing that fifty years ago, suddenly?

Do you know what Ockham's razor is?

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

#156

Post by kramarao » Wed, May 20, 2015, 3:06 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #114

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…

I'll agree that the drug war is out of control and as a "cure" it's worse than the disease. But people are not being locked up just because they are black, or poor. They are committing crimes, and pleading or being found guilty. The problem I have with pieces like the original article are that they are making it sound like we are engaging in a Gestapo-like rounding up of large numbers of minorities for no reason and…

"In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread."

Besides the selective enforcement of laws, most laws themselves discriminate against the poor.

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

#157

Post by MrBuddyCasino » Wed, May 20, 2015, 3:07 PM UTC

rmxt wrote: post #150

millermp12 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be genuinely interested in a rebuttal to elevated testosterone levels (the linked National Cancer Institute abstract). I almost always provide links to sources that provide a reasonably analytic angle. They are generally ignored or misunderstood. Because, you know, (structural) racism.

The testosterone argument is a bullshit one in this context: the article you posted isn't trying to connect the dots in the disingenuous way you are, it's talking about prostate cancer . It does not attempt to suss out whether or not testosterone levels are the cause of crime, period. The misstep you are taking is assuming that testosterone causes crime, rather than correlates with it. Even this article [1], which yo…

Don't assume bad intentions. I used to think that there is a strong racial component, simply because it matched my everyday experiences. Only after I started traveling more did my opinion change - I'm now pretty sure that its mostly cultural.

Your previous reply sounded a lot like those "you are not allowed to say this" stuff that does a lot of harm, because it suffocates discourse.

So thanks for posting a factual follow-up, we need more of those and less of the political correct group-think dismissals.

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

#158

Post by netfire » Wed, May 20, 2015, 3:08 PM UTC

rmxt wrote: post #104

happyscrappy wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think racism plays a part, but there are are factors to consider as well, including victimology. The current way we are approaching race in america seems to be part of the problem.

We seem to be telling people of certain races that they are born disadvantaged, that they are somehow second-class citizens and not fully responsible for their actions or outcome of their life. We then distribute aid and provide services based not only on economic or educational status, but also on race, and we form organizations to benefit members of that race. We become outraged when their rights are violated (but no so much when the rights of members of another race are).

I don't think we'll truly eliminate racism in our society if we continue to focus on race the way we are. Instead we need to care just as much about the rights (or the violations of those rights) of a black man as we do a white man (or any other race). Race needs to not be considered when creating programs to benefit the poor or uneducated. After all, shouldn't a poor white man be just as entitled to our compassion and assistance as an equally poor black man?

Martin Luther King said "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." For me, that cuts both ways. Not only should we not be judged unfairly in a court of law or be treated different by police because of the color of one's skin. It should be a non-factor in determining any sort of benefit or assistance as well.

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

#159

Post by j_m_b » Wed, May 20, 2015, 3:08 PM UTC

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…

Few in the media have the courage to state the obvious, end the drug war. A call for the end of the drug war irritates too many governmental and private sector interests and points the finger on exactly what is to blame. Bringing up racism, economic issues, police brutality, crime, etc. allows the blame to be spread, appeals to popular sensibilities and muddles the real issue.

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

#160

Post by nmrm2 » Wed, May 20, 2015, 3:10 PM UTC

millermp12 wrote: post #141

rmxt wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The racists and/or "human biodiversity" types have come out to play. Better to ignore the disingenuous comments and move on, as they tend not to be here for discussion. Articles on race and crime often draw out these sorts of "arguments". For those that actually believe the GP might have some ground to stand on, the least they could do is to link to some sources or resources.

I would be genuinely interested in a rebuttal to elevated testosterone levels (the linked National Cancer Institute abstract). I almost always provide links to sources that provide a reasonably analytic angle. They are generally ignored or misunderstood. Because, you know, (structural) racism.

Your theory is just damn racist. You make a huge jump from correlation to causation that isn't warranted from the data you present -- it's that (I stress, obnoxiously unsubstantiated) jump that's damn racist.

Ex: "Melanin is positively correlated with crime. " is exactly the same argument, and is (I hope obviously) damn racist.

The study cited also doesn't say what you think it does, and your misreading is obnoxiously wilful, to the point that it's clear you're looking for evidence to back something you believe a priori. But someone else has already taken that on.

Anyway, the bar for these sorts of claims is high for a reason: people have made these "black men just have medical differences that make them more susceptible to violence/rape/murder/crime" arguments since the existence of modern medicine. The evidence behind these claims has always been pure bullshit racism masquerading as science.