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

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

#171

Post by mkr-hn » Wed, May 20, 2015, 3:27 PM UTC

millermp12 wrote: post #134

moomin wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, the City of Ferguson's finances relied on the regular fining of its poorest citizens. Basically backdoor taxation.

Not unlike the lottery, which the poor regularly spent their meager pittance on. Taxation of the poor as Lincoln noted. So can be ban lotteries (and casinos, too) unless participants demonstrate they can afford the losses?

Lotteries are a symptom of the problem of poor financial education. Lottery-funded scholarships are the only way a lot of kids get to college. Ban the lottery, and their parents will blow it on something else. That something else will probably not allocate most of its funding to scholarships.

edit: If this country were rational enough for the solutions proposed in replies, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

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

#172

Post by enraged_camel » Wed, May 20, 2015, 3:29 PM UTC

sbov wrote: post #135

ams6110 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 isn't that we're throwing them in jail for no reason . The problem is we aren't throwing non-poor non-minorities in jail for the same reasons. Most friends of mine regularly do drugs. Even the self made multi millionaires. None of them have been to jail. They aren't subject to the random ass searches like the poor are. If things were different - if the millionaires were treated with the same suspect, you…

The laws are terribly flawed, but they do change.

For instance, up until 2010, there was a 100:1 (one hundred to one) disparity between federal criminal penalties for crack cocaine possession vs. powder cocaine possession. Crack possession also carried a mandatory minimum five-year sentence. Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010, reducing the disparity to 18:1 and removing the mandatory minimum. The law is still influenced by the incorrect belief that crack is more dangerous than powder, but the legal system is capable of recognizing and fixing its flaws (even if the fix is partial).

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

#173

Post by enraged_camel » Wed, May 20, 2015, 3:32 PM UTC

millermp12 wrote: post #134

moomin wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, the City of Ferguson's finances relied on the regular fining of its poorest citizens. Basically backdoor taxation.

Not unlike the lottery, which the poor regularly spent their meager pittance on. Taxation of the poor as Lincoln noted. So can be ban lotteries (and casinos, too) unless participants demonstrate they can afford the losses?

>>Not unlike the lottery, which the poor regularly spent their meager pittance on. Taxation of the poor as Lincoln noted.

Not sure if you're trolling. Assuming you aren't, allow me to point out that your analogy is ridiculous. Fines are mandatory: you have to pay them or you face stiffer fines, and even jail. Lottery is completely voluntary. No one is forcing them to play.

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

#174

Post by worklogin » Wed, May 20, 2015, 3:33 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…

Like others, I believe that that is one solution, but that a rigorous, objective analysis of policies and the reasons behind why we do things is necessary, and this article presents the problems very well. To shrug off the philosophical roots of the broken system is not ideal.

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

#175

Post by pessimizer » Wed, May 20, 2015, 3:38 PM UTC

Bostonian wrote: post #61

pessimizer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

African-American males are 0.25% of the world's population, but 10% of the world's prisoners.

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.

"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." source: TFA

When it comes to the disparity in non-violent arrests, remember that whites are more likely to abuse drugs than blacks

http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/07/study-whites-more-like...

when you control for socioeconomic status.

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

#176

Post by mc32 » Wed, May 20, 2015, 3:39 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #155

ams6110 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 conte…

Yes these things happen. They should not happen. But they happen in most counties --even homogenous countries. Also, people don't get killed like this everyday, these are exceptions, not acceptable exceptions, but its also not routine as you make it out to be.

The problem is economic and cultural (we allow for guns) so the police take maximum caution, and given the police are the only expression of government in some areas, the negativity falls on them. It's not as if most of the community in a blighted area don't want police - they do, but they also want police to act as if the areas didn't have a violent characteristic. Any area of the world with high crime, be it Russia, china, France, germany, greece will have police act differently in those communities. It's a reaction to the dynamics in such places. It takes effort to overcome and the local Govs typically don't put in the necessary effort.

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

#177

Post by psychometry » Wed, May 20, 2015, 3:41 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #115

lars wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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_…

Many consider inequality a symptom/consequence of one's own chosen behavior, not a cause. (ETA "chosen behavior" clause.)

Sure, but that's not a particularly interesting or useful observation seeing as how one's choices are a result of economic circumstances.

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

#178

Post by darkroasted » Wed, May 20, 2015, 3:44 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #155

ams6110 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 conte…

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?

It's more complicated than that. Police are actually much more tolerant of open-air/street corner drug-dealing in black ghetto neighborhoods than in suburbia. If you read books or news articles about these neighborhoods, you see that the dealing gets ignored for months and months, or the dealers are harassed and arrested and then right back out on the street later in the day. This would never be tolerated the same way in suburbia. Then what happens is that there is a shooting, or a gang war with many shootings breaks out. Neighbors demand that the police "do something." Since the police do not know who is responsible and witnesses refuse to talk, the police take the path of least resistance and lock up whoever they can on drug charges. I recommend the books "Ghettoside" and "Don't Shoot" for more on these issues.

Do you know what Ockham's razor is?

The elephant in the room is that black ghetto communities do not self-police and have a dire problem of particular senseless and indiscriminate murders. For instance, Ghettoside recounted a story of a 13-year-old, black kid wandering through the back alleys of his neighborhood, stumbling across a gang of older youths, who immediately started shooting at him. That is just insane. Completely insane. And the book is full of examples like that, of street shootings that take out innocent bystanders because the shooter couldn't be bothered to verify that the target was actually in an enemy gang.

If a community does not self-police, then there are two equally bad options: 1) outsiders can impose their own policing, which is always going to be fraught, brutal, and mistake-prone. 2) other communities can just try to contain the problem, ie, they can segregate themselves.

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

#179

Post by triangleman » Wed, May 20, 2015, 3:46 PM UTC

btown wrote: post #70

alwaysinshade wrote: post #26

A recent article on HN made me realise that the U.S. might be on the right track for fixing this. The article was called Game Theory's Cure For Corruption Makes Us All Cops [0]. The solution is in your pocket. Imagine a city where police commit blatant traffic violations and never ticket one another. The authorities could decrease power inequalities by developing an online system in which all citizens are able to ano…

The article mentions but does not address the point of altruism. Nobody wants to be a stool pigeon singing to the police on someone they know, even if it's anonymous. The result is that the set of enforced laws is a strict subset of the set of laws that the majority of people would find reasonable. That's why we create police forces in the first place- to be our better selves. The war on black America needs to end, b…

asanagi, you are unfortunately "hellbanned", which means no one can see your post unless they are logged in and have "showdead" turned on.

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

#180

Post by worklogin » Wed, May 20, 2015, 3:47 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #35

I completely agree that we overcriminalize things and imprison far too many people in the U.S. I'm 100% on-board with this. It's our shame the way we treat non-violent offenders. A disgrace. But guys, nothing is ever 100% one way or the other, no matter how much you support it. So you have to look at differing points of view -- unless the objective is just to have a good rant. Here are the things that come to mind re…

>This piece is written by a lawyer. Do not expect it to fairly talk about all of the options. It's invective; well-written, emotional, powerful invective. The goal is to make you turn off your brain and feel a certain way. Treat it as such.

>Invective: Denunciatory or abusive expression or discourse

I vehemently disagree and think you insult the paper. It's well written, attempts to describe logical inconsistencies in how we approach our reasons for punishments, and what the legal profession might be able to do to fix it. It turned my brain up, not down, and it makes me think more about logical underpinnings of our justice system. I haven't been spoon-fed, and you also insult readers who might feel they got something honest out of the paper.