America’s incarceration rate is in decline

Post by PaulHoule » Thu, Jun 26, 2025, 3:11 PM UTC

999900000999 wrote: post #150

pamelafox wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had my children at 36 and 38, and I'm the mother, and energy-wise, I've had no issues. Yes, they considered me to be of "advanced maternal age" in the OB department and gave me special treatment due to it, but my doctors told me that the "advanced maternal age" threshold (35) was based off outdated research anyway. In the bay area, most of the mothers I've met were around that age, and my friends are having their k…

The issue here is this can lead people to pushing it till 40+. I was talking to a nice girl up until she mentioned still wanting kids in her late 40s. Maybe I’m old school, but telling someone you froze your eggs the same day you meet them is weird. Society itself is broken. You SHOULD be able to graduate high school and make enough to support yourself and a family with a bit of struggle. This rapidly transformed int…

Post by energywut » Thu, Jun 26, 2025, 3:15 PM UTC

rahimnathwani wrote: post #362

energywut wrote: post #133

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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 co…

Prisons make criminals more likely to commit crime in the future. Prisons make people less likely to become criminals. Your comment focuses on prison and the impact it has on a single criminal who is caught, convicted, and put in prison. Sometimes this is a useful way to look at things. I think it's far more useful to consider prison's impact on all the people who are not in prison. It serves as a crime deterrent.

Post by energywut » Thu, Jun 26, 2025, 3:20 PM UTC

vessenes wrote: post #337

energywut wrote: post #129

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You have any data to support that? I've lived in Seattle for 40 years, and crime here is way less of a concern now than it ever has been. Especially violent crime. My experience also seems to match statistics. So, it would seem that your friend's experience might be the outlier -- I'm not saying they are wrong, I'm saying their experience doesn't match the data and there's at least one anecdote (mine) that runs count…

I'm not sure the data backs up your assertion -- in fact, it looks to me like Seattle's crime rate is roughly steady -- and bad -- over the last 20 years. Seattle had the highest burglary rate in the nation of any large city as recently as 2023 (1201 per 100k residents!). https://www.safehome.org/resources/crime-statistics-by-state... from 1999-2018 (most recent I can find a chart for), Violent crime ebbed and flowed…

Post by rahimnathwani » Thu, Jun 26, 2025, 3:23 PM UTC

energywut wrote: post #393

rahimnathwani wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prisons make criminals more likely to commit crime in the future. Prisons make people less likely to become criminals. Your comment focuses on prison and the impact it has on a single criminal who is caught, convicted, and put in prison. Sometimes this is a useful way to look at things. I think it's far more useful to consider prison's impact on all the people who are not in prison. It serves as a crime deterrent.

> Prisons make people less likely to become criminals. Here is a study supporting the assertion that prisons increase (or do not reduce) the likelihood of someone reoffending in the future. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/715100 Your claim that prisons reduce the likelihood of the population at large is not obvious on its face, as the US has very high rate of incarceration, but still has moderately high…

  Your claim that prisons reduce the likelihood of the population at large is not obvious on its face

  Here is a study supporting the assertion that prisons increase (or do not reduce) the likelihood of someone reoffending in the future

Post by zellyn » Thu, Jun 26, 2025, 3:26 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…