Raise the Crime Rate (2012) • Hacker News Board

Re: Raise the Crime Rate (2012)

#51

Post by watwut » Thu, Sep 11, 2014, 4:02 PM UTC

tormeh wrote: post #28

clay_to_n wrote: post #3

Wow, very powerful article. I agree that our prison system is America's biggest moral wrong, and I hope that history books in 50 years write about how sad and unjust it is in our time. That said, does anyone know what proposed solutions are? When the author talks of abolishing the prison system in exchange for higher crime rates (and potentially even more deaths by the state), does he literally mean we should close a…

The max-security ones need to be kept. Some people are just bastards and can't be helped. Punishment has no effect on them - what we need is to lock them up for life. But that's maybe 5% or less of the prison population. Legalize drugs, and have a social security system that means no one has to steal and suddenly almost everyone else is out. The remainder need rehabilitation, which probably needs to happen in a priso…

The max-security ones are the ones that are biggest problem. They exacerbate mental problems the person had and often release people back into society unable to function normally. And no, not all the people who are locked there were repeatedly violent.

Re: Raise the Crime Rate (2012)

#52

Post by tormeh » Thu, Sep 11, 2014, 4:08 PM UTC

candu wrote: post #43

tormeh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The max-security ones need to be kept. Some people are just bastards and can't be helped. Punishment has no effect on them - what we need is to lock them up for life. But that's maybe 5% or less of the prison population. Legalize drugs, and have a social security system that means no one has to steal and suddenly almost everyone else is out. The remainder need rehabilitation, which probably needs to happen in a priso…

> Some people are just bastards and can't be helped. I'd say that's a difficult assertion to prove in a system that provides every incentive for recidivism. In addition, how would you (or anyone else) fairly evaluate who falls into this category?

A brainscan for psychopathy would be a first step. Honestly, I would outsource that to psychologists.

Re: Raise the Crime Rate (2012)

#53

Post by watwut » Thu, Sep 11, 2014, 4:09 PM UTC

alexhawdon wrote: post #34

lallysingh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put education in the prison? Maybe attach good grades to earlier release?

This seems like such an obvious solution and, with the advent of things like MOOCs, something that needn't be particularly costly. (Setting aside the fact that even 'costly' but effective rehabilitation is demonstrably cheaper in the long-run.) As well as the obvious benefits of equipping offenders with skills that will make them more employable upon release it seems intuitively true that the struggle for self-improv…

If I recall right, education for education sake did not lowered recidivism much. It made prisoners better behaved while in prison (e.g. there was less violence and less problems in prison).

I suspect that part of the problem with practical education for prisoners is that everybody else have to pay for it. So, law abiding (or not caught yet) citizens get all jealous about the perk they are not getting.

Re: Raise the Crime Rate (2012)

#54

Post by angersock » Thu, Sep 11, 2014, 4:12 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #32

angersock wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way to get this fixed (peacefully) is to raise a ruckus and get the public to fight their elected officials into Doing the Right Thing. You can bet your ass that the number of dollars able to be rallied for this purpose is dwarfed by the incumbent interests. Further, it's trivial to say "Do you want to have your kid growing up next to an evil ~=felon=~?" and sway votes, because people are not rational above…

Problem is, prisons like all government institutions are controlled by fads and fears and money - Senators don't do anything until votes are at stake or campaigning dollars. So nothing happens for a long time, and then Bang some extreme measure is passed to show that they care or something. We closed the mental institutions and released folks into the general population, and that didn't work very well. Closing the pr…

Closing the prisons would be worse, because some of the people in there actually mean to do us harm.

This doesn't follow. Prisons are not equivalent to mental health institutions; there's a lot more at play there.

Re: Raise the Crime Rate (2012)

#55

Post by tormeh » Thu, Sep 11, 2014, 4:14 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #51

tormeh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The max-security ones need to be kept. Some people are just bastards and can't be helped. Punishment has no effect on them - what we need is to lock them up for life. But that's maybe 5% or less of the prison population. Legalize drugs, and have a social security system that means no one has to steal and suddenly almost everyone else is out. The remainder need rehabilitation, which probably needs to happen in a priso…

The max-security ones are the ones that are biggest problem. They exacerbate mental problems the person had and often release people back into society unable to function normally. And no, not all the people who are locked there were repeatedly violent.

Well, my uneducated opinion is that an individual either shouldn't be in maximum security or should never be let out except when a team of psychologists says *he's good.

Re: Raise the Crime Rate (2012)

#56

Post by netcan » Thu, Sep 11, 2014, 4:19 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #36

netcan wrote: post #29

This is a part of my perspective as a European: The prevailing system of government in the world at present is a mix of socialism, capitalism, welfarism and the philosophically unchampioned realpolitik practices that were picked up and spread over the years. In any case, Europe has a philosophical heritage of socialism. It's different flavors at different times in different places. There is also conservatism, capital…

Don't attribute the gentleness of European customs to Marxism. Explicitly Marxist countries had the highest incarceration rates in history, because incarceration was used for class warfare with no pretense of "punishing" people for "crimes". I grew up in one of those countries, and I want to weep every time I see a Westerner advising someone to read Marx and Trotsky.

That doesn't matter. I don't think Objectivism is true. But, I do think it's an interesting and enlightening perspective, a lens through which some things can be better understood. I think trying to actually apply it as the political basis of a country would be a terrible idea.

The bottom line is that class and class dynamics are real i societies. Avoiding that lens entirely is avoiding reality, to an extent.

High income engineers are members of a certain a class. Most of the prison population are members of a different class. This is obviously true.

All I am saying is that when you look at something like the role of prison, you should probably look at it from that perspective.

Re: Raise the Crime Rate (2012)

#57

Post by eurleif » Thu, Sep 11, 2014, 4:24 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #49

eurleif wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Comparing the two it seems like choosing the rich causes far more atrocities their just less visible. > US examples: Unemployed to long, well sorry we no longer count you. Had your stuff stolen at a homeless shelter well sorry we don't count you. Spending a year in prison awaiting trial, sorry your right to a speedy trial ends well before your actual trial. These are your examples of atrocities which are supposed t…

"Seriously?" is not an argument. Neither is 'oh, please' or 'you must be really stupid to believe that' (for future reference.) edit: If you feel the need to downvote this comment, pretend that it was "Whatever - communism wasn't so bad." and upvote it instead.

"Seriously?" was not my argument. My argument was that there have been far worse atrocities in communist countries than the problems described in the US. I didn't really think I needed to be specific, because it's common knowledge... but if you insist, here's your history lesson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_...

Re: Raise the Crime Rate (2012)

#58

Post by Retric » Thu, Sep 11, 2014, 4:56 PM UTC

xrange wrote: post #46

Retric wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every government picks a side in the class struggle. Saudi America and the USA pick the rich to various degrees. Denmark chooses the lower middle class. Comparing the two it seems like choosing the rich causes far more atrocities their just less visible. Unemployed to long, well sorry we no longer count you. Had your stuff stolen at a homeless shelter well sorry we don't count you. Got picked up for being in the wron…

>Spending a year in prison awaiting trial, sorry your right to a speedy trial ends well before your actual trial. ...Can you point me in the direction of these abuses? I was under the impression that most defendants usually declined the speedy trial option. I'd be interested to learn more.

"In one murder case, for example, a federal appeals court upheld the finding that a 16-month delay between arrest and trial didn’t violate the speedy-trial right. (Amos v. Thornton, 646 F.3d 199 (5th Cir. 2011).) The court in that case observed that the delay between accusation and trial becomes “presumptively prejudicial” near the one-year mark. It found no compelling reasons for the delay and noted that the defendant promptly asserted his speedy-trial right while the proceedings were pending. But the defendant couldn’t show that the delay compromised his defense, and that inability doomed his claim." http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/the-right-speedy-tria...

Some states have a 6 month test for non Murder cases. Generally up to 1 year is considered reasonable in the US with a fairly large number of people waiting longer than that.

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/speedy+trial

Re: Raise the Crime Rate (2012)

#59

Post by m0nty » Thu, Sep 11, 2014, 5:20 PM UTC

api_or_ipa wrote: post #40

m0nty wrote: post #33

Excellent article until we get to this: "[T]he first question any prison abolitionist needs to answer is what we’re supposed to do with violent criminals. An important part of that answer has to be that we must simply put up with an increased level of risk in our daily lives." Good luck selling that idea. It drifts off-topic in any case, since up until then the article is mainly about prison reform and (for the most…

If you put aside political left and rights, then the arguments seem to be a bit more justifiable. At least, the author isn't sticking to party talking points and making new arguments. I think what the author is saying is that prisons are, by them selves, a bad way to encourage reasonably low and sustainable crime rates. Wherever possible, criminals should be "punished" by out-of-prison solutions and rehabilitation. T…

I suppose I'm using left and right as short-hand for progressive and authoritarian, but it's a bit clumsy and not that much shorter.

It's an excellent article, but even if it is just a rhetorical position (re-reading, I accept it could be) I think it poisons the debate to the extent that nobody will engage with it. If you really want to argue in favour of releasing murderers and violent criminals from prison, it will be branded a "murderer's manifesto" and the debate is basically over. So talk about reforming the mostly futile drug laws, three-strike laws, etc, before anything else.

Re: Raise the Crime Rate (2012)

#60

Post by baddox » Thu, Sep 11, 2014, 5:47 PM UTC

tormeh wrote: post #52

candu wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some people are just bastards and can't be helped. I'd say that's a difficult assertion to prove in a system that provides every incentive for recidivism. In addition, how would you (or anyone else) fairly evaluate who falls into this category?

A brainscan for psychopathy would be a first step. Honestly, I would outsource that to psychologists.

As far as I know, there is no "brainscan for psycopathy." Moreover, I don't think the field of psychology has a very strong record regarding the diagnosis and treatment of prisoners.