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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

#221

Post by beat »

CPLX wrote: post #210
beat wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think the drug war was the problem. Not anymore. Think about the high-profile police shootings of unarmed black men over the past year. Not a single one of those was over drugs. They were all "walking while black". Ending the drug war would not, on its own, end the "walking while black" problem. The family structure breakdown among the poor is directly, painfully correlated to the high incarceration rate. A…

> He's a black man driving a car too nice for him. That's not about the war on drugs. Actually, it kind of is. What's the implicit assumption in that story? Of course, that he's a drug dealer. What would be the pretext for pulling him over and searching his car? To look for drugs. It really is the cornerstone of policing in 2015, just try to imagine counterfactuals where there was no such thing as illegal drugs and d…

But again, look at the high profile shootings recently. The cops weren't looking for drugs. In all of those cases, they were stopped for basic harassment.

The nice car isn't a reason to pull over the doctor. It's an excuse.

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

#222

Post by dragonwriter »

rhino369 wrote: post #219
DanBC wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

detected crime rates depend on race. That's not surprising when institutional racism creates a system focused on criminalising black people.

Look at murder rates that are harder to overlook. The murder rage amongst black men is about 8-10x more then white men. Obviously historical racism is the huge cause here. But you cannot just write off the crime rates due to different policing. Poor Black neighborhoods are simultaneously over and under policed. Gangs and criminals have free reign and then cops capriously make a show of force.

> Poor Black neighborhoods are simultaneously over and under policed.

They are under policed ("guardian" model) and overmuch hostilely occupied by the police ("warrior" model).

They are the places most in need of effective community-oriented policing, and the places that get that kind of policing the least.

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

#223

Post by njharman »

MrZongle2 wrote: post #163
rayiner wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drug war is a symptom of something more basic: Americans lack compassion. Consider something in the non-drug context: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/georgia-probatio... . You can bring up private prisons and probation companies, but the fact is that these laws have been on the books all along. They were passed by part-time state legislators, who are pretty representative of ordinary people in the sta…

"The drug war is a symptom of something more basic: Americans lack compassion." Really? http://www.nptrust.org/philanthropic-resources/charitable-gi...

I would argue that most people contribute out of guilt rather than compassion.

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

#225

Post by beat »

netfire wrote: post #158
rmxt wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The reason blacks growing up poor in this country suffer bad outcomes isn't because they're told that they're victims by well-meaning social programs. It's because they're treated like criminals and given very few opportunities to achieve something better.

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

#226

Post by the_imp »

MrZongle2 wrote: post #166
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 United States has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s prisoners. This sums it up for me. Here in the United States, we do have issues with the justice and penal systems. But these number alone do not paint the full picture. In other countries, if you're convicted of a crime you may have a body part cut off. You may be executed. Or you may simply "disappear". In any of these cases, you're not con…

> In other countries, if you're convicted of a crime you may have a body part cut off. You may be executed. Or you may simply "disappear". In any of these cases, you're not considered a prisoner.

But are those really the countries you would like the USA to be compared with?

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

#227

Post by beat »

LordKano wrote: post #202
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…

But people are not being locked up just because they are black, or poor. They are committing crimes, and pleading or being found guilty. I have a friend, someone that has been my friend for 30 years, who is in prison right now for drugs. He wasn't incarcerated because he's black. He was incarcerated because he was caught selling marijuana and laundering money. I, on the other hand, chose a different path in life. I m…

There are two somewhat different problems... high levels of crime, and different levels of law enforcement for equivalent crimes. We have both. Moreover, unequal enforcement contributes to the crime rate. People continually harassed and jailed for petty crimes can't hold steady jobs, so they wind up moving up the crime ladder just to make a living.

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

#228

Post by ctdonath »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #200
mkr-hn wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You don't need lottery-funded scholarships if you have universal education (as most first world countries do).

The money has to come from somewhere. Taxing innumeracy seems a good start.

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

#229

Post by dragonwriter »

MrZongle2 wrote: post #166
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 United States has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s prisoners. This sums it up for me. Here in the United States, we do have issues with the justice and penal systems. But these number alone do not paint the full picture. In other countries, if you're convicted of a crime you may have a body part cut off. You may be executed. Or you may simply "disappear". In any of these cases, you're not con…

> In other countries, if you're convicted of a crime you may have a body part cut off. You may be executed.

You can be executed in the US, too. In fact, the US executes more people per year than anyone but China and a handful of countries in the Middle East.

So adding the possibility of execution into the comparison doesn't actually make the US look better.

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

#230

Post by toomuchtodo »

ctdonath wrote: post #228
toomuchtodo wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need lottery-funded scholarships if you have universal education (as most first world countries do).

The money has to come from somewhere. Taxing innumeracy seems a good start.

> Taxing innumeracy seems a good start.

Taxing based on wealth instead of intelligence just seems more....civilized?

"The measure of a civilization is how it treats its weakest members."

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