but, the point was, that the crime pattern was pretty much the same cycle over the past 30 years or more, with peaks and valleys coming every decade or so. This would tend to suggest that the increase in incarceration that began in the late 80s had little appreciable effect on the over all pattern.
a. Folks who are predisposed to committing crimes often do them from a jail cell (one notable from my case load was the guy who arranged for a ‘delivery’ of mj to the prison, by writing his supplier, forgetting, apparently that his mail was read by prison staff. but I digress). perhaps the potential is reduced for some, perhaps vastly reduced for some, but that’s not really germane to the point I was making, which was…
b. attempting to reduce or explain human behavior to one cause/reason was unlikely to be accurate or of any appreciable benefit. crime, in particular feeds off of many other issues (substance abuse, poverty, mental illness, to name a few).
It’s incontrovertible that when criminal humans are behind bars, their potential for doing harmful things is vastly reduced. Thankfully.
**
[/QUOTE]
Yes, but death penalty and lifetime prison sentences are fairly rare. These people who go behind bars are eventually released, and there is no proof that prison stops people from becoming hardened criminals after their release. The charge is that our current prison system may make them more likely to return to a life of crime.
Regardless of why or how long these prisoners have been incarcerated, it seem to me that the United States penal system would rather lock’em all up than deal with the “real” problems these people are having.
I love the call-and-response format, wring, but the sequence is messed up and I think you’re still responding to unmade statements.
I observed (and believe that) there is a connection between rising incarceration rates and lower crime rates. I did not claim that this was the only factor involved in decreased crime, so your comments to that effect are off target.
I later said that crooks have far less potential to commit crimes when behind bars, to which you responded that criminals are still able, though perhaps in vastly reduced fashion, to commit crimes while imprisoned. Fine. I never claimed otherwise. You then go off on a tangent about the multiplicity of causes that lead people to commit crimes. I cannot for the life of me figure out what statement of mine this is supposedly a “counter” to, unless using the term “criminal” is objectionable to you, and you would prefer to call those who break the law “mentally ill”, “substance abusers” etc.
** Can you explain why I deserve a “english as a third language” comment? Have I missed seeing a rude comment by me towards you?
** you’re entitled to your opinion that there’s a connection - I posted evidence to suggest that your opinion is off base. The cycle of crime remains essentially unchanged when viewed from a perspective of several decades. This fascination with increasing the prison population happened to coincide with one of the downward cycles that seems to occur every decade or so. If you wish to continue to believe there’s even a slight cause and effect rationale, I’d suggest you look for additional evidence to support that position.
All I was attempting to get at is that causes for rise/falls in crime rates vary as often as the rationals for committing crime, and that to suggest that a single factor (like locking great percentages of us up) is a major factor ignores general trends like explained above and the multitude of other factors involved.
You seem to be agreeing that there are multiple factors - which leads me to wonder why you keep trying to shore up the ‘but increasing rate incarceration is an appreciable part’ of it. I’m assuming that you feel that the increase in rate is a significant enough factor to warrant continued efforts, due, in part to your remark re: (paraphrased) ‘at least they’re not outside committing crimes’.
Your honor, I submit this paragraph as evidence. But I ask for mercy. ;)**
Oh, and feel free to paraphrase without manufacturing quotes.
Example: To paraphrase the OP, 99.3% of all Americans are not imprisoned. To paraphrase you (with an embedded quote): Our decreasing crime rates of the past few years just “happened to coincide” with locking up criminals at an increasing rate.
Forgive me if I’m belaboring a point. are you saying that the ‘english as a 3rd language’ was meant as a teasing statement? as in joke? I try really hard to treat other debaters respectfully. I’ll admit that I’m not perfect about it, but I really do try. I don’t think that throw away snide comments really do anything positive for the exchange of ideas.
I have no idea what you’re trying to say here - did I mischaracterize your position? or is your point that paraphrasing an opponent’s point will almost of necessity skew the point? This is a written medium. If some one says they don’t understand me, I try and clear up confusion. If I am unclear of a point that some one else is attempting, I ask for clarification. None of us is perfect in communicating in a written medium, generally, if some one doesn’t understand what I’m saying, I don’t automatically assume that they’re dense, I’ll make a realistic attempt to clarify my thoughts. Ok?
back to what I think is your point (and here I’ll quote your entire sentence, ok?)
again, the point is that you are only looking at the demographics for the years post increase in rates of incarceration. to get an appreciation of ‘is this a relevant factor’, you need to look at the crime rates before the increase, and not just the simple year by year.
So, the increase in rate of incarceration began in the 80’s and went hog wild in the 90’s. Then, how do you explain that according to the chart linked above, the crime rates:
went down 72- 73 up 74-76 down 77-80 up 80 - 82 down82- 86 up 86- 92 and
**down ** again 92 - 96.
So, your statement (quoting directly again) of “more felons in jail and reduced crime when the trends continue year after year.” doesn’t seem to be supported by the facts, since the trend does not seem to continue year after year.
But why stop at '96? Crime rates have continued to drop and incarceration rates have kept increasing since then, plus there’s a trend towards longer sentences as described in the link(s) noted above.
Your duck is quacking quite loudly.
Disclaimer: the author of this post has no connection with either law enforcement or inmate advocacy groups.
the data the I found only went up to 96. point remains that it went up/down up/down during the period of increased rates of incarceration. A point you’ve successfully dodged yet again. Feel free to look for the data since 96. still, your original ‘year after year’ decline is demonstrably wrong.
FTR- I have worked in the CJ field since 1977. I’ve testified for both the prosecution and the defense. spent 14 years as a ‘guard’ type person in a correction center, where the focus was on busting folks for doing things wrong, checking to see if they were etc. Clients at the time referred to me as the “po-lice”. My position presently is not specifically either law enforcement or advocacy. I run an agency assisting offenders in getting jobs. So, for example, today, I yelled at the guy who blew off a job 'cause of a bender, and refused to go to bat for him with them again.
what I see most often these days are the folks having spend roughly 3 years in prison for offering to sell $50 worth of mj/pills whatever to another person (who was trading off their bust by busting others for the narcotics squad).
So, I’ve seen the ‘rates’ in action as part of my day to day job.
You’re welcome to check out the links in my first post here (incarceration rates, up through at least '99). The rates of occurrence for crimes overall including violent offenses have continued to drop since '96, as reported by law enforcement agencies and discussed extensively in the news media (a cursory Google search should leave you awash in good news).
Jackmanii, I hate to hit you over the head with science, but a couple of points:
1 - Five years, or even ten years, may constitute a trend in both areas (increasing incarceration, decreasing crime), but they don’t mean you’ve established even so much as a correlation between the two, much less a causation. I’d run the figures through a spreadsheet to see if there’s even a correlation, but I’m getting lazy about this stuff, since it doesn’t really seem to ever prove anything to anyone.
2 - Given that it’s a proveable fact that most people who commit crimes are young, and that the population of youngsters has been declining, I think you’d have a far better case for that as both correlation and causation than that locking up less than 1% of the population could have any conceivable effect on the crime rate.
3 - The drug war has had a huge effect on the number of people put away. What is true, and a good point here, is that a lot of these people would commit other crimes as well as drug crimes, so having them put away may be a good thing. But what is definitely a bad thing is putting away a lot of people who are otherwise OK for no other reason than that they involved themselves with drugs. The drug war needs to be ended, posthaste, IMHO.
4 - Finally, do not underestimate the effect of a single city, namely NYC. Under Giuliani, the police were subjected to actual management, so that precinct captains would have to sit there and try to explain why crime was increasing in their area. Places where crime was increasing were subjected to sweeps and crackdowns. Failing captains were replaced. Policing became, finally, scientific. The large drop in crime in NYC contributed disproportionately to the decrease in crime on the national level. And the methods pioneered in NYC were used elsewhere.
No problem. Bring on the “science”. I haven’t seen any scientific analysis here showing that there is no connection between locking up increasing numbers of criminals (including the targeting of habitual criminals and longer sentences) and less crime. Logic and crime statistics indicate the contrary. It would be so nice if someone were to read my actual postings and realize that I am not excluding other factors as possibly contributing to lowered crime.
Unfortunately, many people who have a grudge against law enforcement and a natural sympathy for criminals have a stake in trying to prove that busting crooks doesn’t affect people’s safety. After awhile such claims just look silly.**
If you’re claiming that New York was the only place in the country that saw a real drop in crime in recent years, that’s an interesting revelation. Got stats to back that up?
noting that your remark links crime rate to incarceration rate by itself, w/o other factors.
it is this latter portion which implied not only to me, but apparently to others, that you felt the increase in rate of incarceration not only had a ‘connection’ but was a significant enough connection that the act of decreasing the rate would, all by itself, would have the effect of raising the crime rates again.
It was your apparent presumption (as quoted here) that the incarceration rates by themselves would have a measurable effect on crime rates that I objected to, since (once again) it doesn’t seem to be true according to the data. if incarceration rates by themselves have such an effect, then the crime rates since the late 70’s should have demonstrated a steady decrease (or at the very least not an increase) but we saw that it rose/fell every few years from at least the latter 70’s through to the mid 90’s. So, even if crime rates since 96 have decreased consistently, the incarceration rates increase began long before and data shows that crime rates both rose and fell.
It is the fact that the incarceration rates continued steadily upward, yet crime rates did not consistently fall, that leads me to conclude that while incarceration rates would not have zero effect on crime rates, it’s clear to me at least, that they do not seem to have a major effect. So, in short, it may have some small effect (at a huge cost), but does not seem to be a major factor, based on available long term data.
You bet. Significantly decreasing the incarceration rate (and doing away with longer sentences, a phenomenon you’re ignoring) logically will cause a crime rate jump.
If it quacks like a duck, after awhile (i.e. nearly a decade of this “trend”) most people get the idea that it really is a duck, not a pigeon, blue heron, or, as you would apparently have it, a cocker spaniel.
To all the pundits, sociologists and inmate advocates who hate the idea of jailing people. Here’s one voice of sanity on the subject.
“Well we don’t understand why you called in the National Guard
When Uncle Sam is the one who belongs in the exercise yard
We’ve all got balls and brains
But some’ve got balls and chains
At the local dance
At the local county jail.”
Royko is your voice of sanity? ok, that explains a lot. Listen, I like him too, amusing guy.
Ok let’s review. The rate of incarceration has greatly increased steadily since the late 70’s. The push for longer sentences started in the early 80s (at least in my neck of the woods, I recall the first ‘habitual offender’ statutes as well as the ‘mandatory life’ for drug dealers over a certain level - which nearly landed Tim Allen in prison for life here in MI). Yet the data showed that the cyclacle up/down of crime continued at least until the mid to late 90s. And you still contend that it was a major factor?
So, it apparently is your position that the increase in incarceration rates merely ‘took’ nearly 20-30 years to have the major effect, and the other factors, like an incredibly strong economy for the past decade, the aging of the baby boomer population, both of which would be factors felt primarily in the mid 90’s to present, have less to do with the crime rates?
Interesting theory. from your link
Oddly enough, those who lecutre and write about crime are often, too, those who actually study the figures. and not just ‘how many people have we locked up’ and ‘what’s the crime rate’.
You seem to be back to your original stance of ‘lockin’ em up is the bestest way’, which a few moments ago you’d backed away from a tad, to agree that other factors would be involved, too. Too bad.
You really need to look at more than duck feathers to get the whole picture.
Your own post indicates that crime rates began their present long-term drop in '92. That doesn’t sound to me like “the mid to late 90s”.**
More quote manufacturing, too bad. But no, I believe that locking up criminals/longer sentences for serious crimes is a major, probably the major factor in our long-term run of lower crime rates. I don’t exclude other factors from having influenced this picture. On the other hand, you have been straining mightily to deny any role for increased incarceration in lowering crime, which just seems silly.
“Don’t do the crime
If you can’t do the time…
Don’t do it!”
From the theme to “Baretta”, starring Robert Blake.
