London_Calling, could you rephrase? I’m not following - I know there’s sarcasm in there, but I’m not sure which sentences.
Thakns,
PeeQueue
I don’t know what to say. No, it wasn’t sarcasm. I just find it difficult to accept a developed democracy would condone criminalizing that percentage of its own people, especially given the very high ethnicity of that prison population.
If you have to put that number of people behind bars – and this is just the ones dumb enough to be caught – then maybe, just maybe, the law itself doesn’t have widespread public support. There comes a point – critical mass, if you will – when laws don’t work. And I think, in terms of the US marijuana legislation, that point was reached some while ago.
Jesus, I know there are other issues as well (the likely use of marijuana essence as a prescribed pain reliever in the next couple of years, for example) but no wonder most other comparable countries have done a 180 (towards ‘de-criminalisation’ or even legislation). I guess no one wants to even try to go down the US road.
It actually raises interesting philosophical points, like, for example, at what percentage point (of incarceration of its own people) does a society stop looking like a democracy and more like an oppressive regime – cos these people, the 2 million ‘caught’, represent just the tip of the criminal iceberg (unless you think the police are especially wonderful) ?
Oh, I gotcha now, and will have to agree completely regarding our draconian drug laws and sentences.
OTOH, I don’t see the connection that the OP makes between this and the low crime rates.
Thanks,
PeeQueue
If you’ll excuse a meandering reply, London_Calling, I’d like to agree with you in a longish sort of way.
If I had to put money on it, I’d say that the low crime rate right now has to do with a number of factors–probably not the least of which is the unusually shitty weather most of the United States has experienced in the past year. But probably the most important factor almost certainly has to do with the trend in favor of not paroling violent criminals–and possibly career criminals–so soon.
I’m not so sure that’s a good thing, and I’ll try to explain.
There is a fairly common idea out there now that most of the nations’ violent crimes are caused by a fairly small percentage of people who are, well, violent. Moreover, the “three strikes” laws–originally intended for violent criminals–are now being applied to nonviolent repeat offenders.
I think you’re dealing with two different kinds of people. Check out the latest report on recidivism:
[QUOTE]
[ul][li]Released prisoners with the highest rearrest rates were robbers (70.2%), burglars (74.0%), larcenists (74.6%), motor vehicle thieves (78.8%), those in prison for possessing or selling stolen property (77.4%), and those in prison for possessing, using, or selling illegal weapons (70.2%).[/li]
[li]Within 3 years, 2.5% of released rapists were arrested for another rape, and 1.2% of those who had served time for homicide were arrested for homicide.[/li]
[li]The 272,111 offenders discharged in 1994 had accumulated 4.1 million arrest charges before their most recent imprisonment and another 744,000 charges within 3 years of release.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
I’m not putting forward a best case here because that quote combines violent and nonviolent recidivism, but that’s okay in my book because I personally think there are at least two things going on here.
First, I fully believe that there is such a thing as a naturally violent person. Hell, I’ve met them, and sure enough, several of them are doing time right now. Lengthening prison sentences keeps that small circle of jerks out of the way, longer, which is good in the short term.
However, I suspect prison is also the finest place to teach budding criminals how to be even more criminal. When damned near four out of five first-time car thieves skip the joint and then get caught doing the same thing later, it seems patently obvious to me that jail time doesn’t reform most criminals, it teaches them how to keep being criminals–albeit poor ones who still can’t avoid getting caught.
I think the unusual ethnic imbalance within the prison population may actually be weak evidence in favor of the criminal education theory. We already know that minorities generally get harsher sentences for first-time offences and have less opportunity to plea-bargain. That may be giving ethnic minorities a longer and better criminal education in prison and that in turn may in fact be creating recidivist criminals. A mirror image of America’s racist mien, if you will.
Moreover, it seems to me as if lengthening prison sentences provides only a temporary benefit unless we continue lengthening sentences forever. Sooner or later those people are going to be getting out, and they’re going to be getting out at roughly the same rate they went in. I say “roughly” because some of those poor bastards are going to get killed in prison or commit other crimes while inside which keep them there. The benefits we’re experiencing right now are probably only temporary until the cycle completes and the baddies start getting turned loose again (I can see it now–the “geriatric crime wave” takes the nation by storm in 2040).
The broad-brush long term sentencing looks to me like a very clumsy way of identifying the real “bad seeds” out there. Hell, it doesn’t identify them at all, it just punishes everyone else for the transgressions of that hard core contingent of true criminals.
I think we’d have a better long-term success identifying the true baddies before they have to go to the clink. The “three strikes” rules and such may well be effective for snagging violent criminals, but longer initial sentences for everyone are probably just making it less easy for first-timers to go straight when they get out, while simultaneously giving them an advanced degree in criminality as a tempting alternative lifestyle.
In short, I think you have one genuine problem in people with a predisposition to be violent, and one manufactured problem with people who have been snagged in the same criminal justice filter and who now have less capability and less incentive to go straight. I say spend the money to identify the bad ones for real and keep them sequestered from society if they fuck up. Give the rest of them a chance to be reformed.
Just don’t ask me how to do that…
Is it possible there is some statistical disconnect between the number of people in prison and the number of citizens in the United States. Wouldn’ t you have to subtract out the non-US citizens to get an accurate ratio?
Is it possible there is some statistical disconnect between the number of people in prison and the number of citizens in the United States. Wouldn’ t you have to subtract out the non-US citizens to get an accurate ratio?
Depends on the study, but the figures quoted previously are based on US residents, not citizens. Here’s a cite that mentions the number of illegal residents held in detention in addition to those numbers:
http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking/Growing.html
America’s prison population grew again in 2002 despite a declining crime rate, costing the federal government and states an estimated $40 billion a year at a time of rampant budget shortfalls.
Experts say mandatory sentences, especially for nonviolent drug offenders, are a major reason inmate populations have risen for 30 years. About one of every 143 U.S. residents was in the federal, state or local custody at year’s end.
Drug offenders now make up more than half of all federal prisoners.
About 10 percent of all black men between 25 and 29 were incarcerated last year, compared with 1.2 percent of white men and 2.4 percent of Hispanic men. Overall, the 586,700 black men in prison outnumbered both the 436,800 white males and 235,000 Hispanic males. Black males account for about 45 percent of all inmates serving a sentence longer than a year.
Privately operated prisons held 93,771 inmates, about 5.8 percent of state prisoners and 12.4 percent of those in federal jurisdictions.
At year’s end 2002, the federal government held 8,748 people at immigration detention facilities, 2,377 at military jails and 16,206 in U.S. territorial prisons.
Thanks for the explanation, Sofa King but I don’t quite grasp your premise; the crime rate now (having apparently come down recently) is within the range currently experienced by comparable countries. And those countries have 8-10 times fewer of their citizens locked up.
It would seem to me that only two conclusions are possible; the law is an ass/society is fucked up to the point that ‘democracy’ (as I would understand it) is absenting itself, or blacks and Hispanics are inveterate criminals. There seems no other possible conclusion ?
Has the death penalty had any deterent effect on crime?
I suspect two things are at work. Crime rates have been dropping for about ten years due to a better economy, cultural trend, and perhaps greater societal interest in law enforcement (police forces growing, tougher laws and such). At the same time, the jails are being filled with non-violent drug offenders along with the real criminals.
I don’t think the two are necessarily related. That is, if we weren’t going nuts trying to lock up every druggy, crime rates would still be low.
Another explanation is that American culture predisposes us toward crime. I like that one. I mean, the narrative that most young people have for their own lives tends to include them getting rich at some point. Most of us don’t, of course, but in America more than any other country, getting rich is supposed to be a real possibility for most folks. That’s the carrot the mainstream dangles for most young people. Work hard, keep your nose clean, and you’ll be successful."
Doesn’t happen for most folks, of course. Most of us stay in the same economic class we are born into for all of our lives. Some of us get rich but it’s a very small percentage.
America also extols the virtues of breaking the rules, thinking outside the box, not being a follower, being a leader, having courage and decision. So what happens when a reasonably ambitious and industrious guy learns he’s not rich or likely to be by working a low-level jobs?
I mean, in America we don’t respect guys who push brooms or wait on tables or work a counter or push papers. Ya gotta have money to be considered successful here.
Result? Bang! bang!
In other countries, we have cultural attitudes that don’t lead young men so quickly and easily to lives of crime. Because if you’ll notice, even if we did come to our senses and get all the dopers out of jail, our crime rates would still be 4-5 times higher than a lot of European countries’ crime rates.
Evil Captor, regarding your last sentence - it is simply not true. Our crime rates are pretty average compared to the rest of the world, and a good bit lower than certain European countries (higher than some too of course). See my earlier post in this thread.
The rest of your post is an interesting theory, and you’re probably right that it comes into play a bit in the U.S. I don’t think it has a major impact though (see above).
So nothing to do with the extremes (as compared with similar countries) of wealth and poverty and the disenfranchisement the latter causes in the US if it’s coupled with educational opportunity – if I had lived on one of those God-forsaken Projects, I’m pretty sure drugs would have been my only escape route as well; prescribed or not prescribed. And as, I believe, it is anywhere. Except elsewhere than in the US, you don’t have those extremes and you don’t go to prison for escaping (in your head) from poverty.
How else did all those blacks and Hispanics get to make up so much of the prison population ? It’s either social of genetic, and it ain’t the latter.