USA: The Leader of the Unfree World

[Zanza]

I was just speaking the production and trafficking. Clearly we then need to think about the use piece. I mean it isn't like we don't have legal drugs that kill people.

Tylenol (paracetamol) is one of the most common drugs that people overdose on.

[crazy canuck]

The Guardian did a piece on 6 reasons which have been proposed for the drop in crime rates in the UK.

1. We removed the lead from petrol
The theory: Exposure to lead in the womb causes headaches, inhibits IQ and can lead to aggressive or dysfunctional behaviour in later life.
Says who? Scientists including Oxford physiologist Dr Bernard Gesch, who has studied the effect of diet and other environmental factors on criminals.
Are they right? The posited time lag of about two decades between rising lead levels and purportedly linked rises in crime levels makes the theory plausible – only now, perhaps, are we beginning to benefit crime-wise from going lead-free. That said, in France, violent crime has risen recently even though most of their cars ditched lead decades ago.

2. We can't afford to get drunk any more
The theory: After decades of being cheap, alcohol has become less affordable since 2008. And a reduction in disposable income for the people most likely to be involved in violence – those aged 18 to 30 – makes them less likely to be alcohol-fuelled and thus violent.
Says who? Professor Jonathan Shepherd, director of Cardiff University's violence and society research group.
Is he right? Perhaps. Younger teenagers are less likely to drink alcohol, use drugs or smoke than previous generations. But you can still buy a 15-pack of Foster's lager for 67p a can, so let's not get too complacent.

3. Fighting's just not cool these days
The theory: Culture has shifted and violence has now become less acceptable.
Says who? The idea has been floated by the BBC home editor Mark Easton.
Is he right? A sceptic might counter that the glut of TV documentaries devoted to cops wrangling Friday-night boozers into vans en route to the drunk tank punches holes in this theory. That said, there is at least a possibility of a new causal factor: if you've seen yourself on telly drunk and offloading air punches shortly before fit, stone-cold-sober bouncers put you on your back, you might become doubtful about the fighting is cool thesis.

4. We're too busy playing games
The theory: There is an "incapacitation effect" – if you're inside playing games, you're not outside commiting crimes.
Says who? Researchers at the University of Texas and the Centre for European Economic Research.
Are they right? Maybe. One objection is that some video games are so violent that they surely create impulses that spill over into real life, but the Texas research suggests that such aggression is short-lived and thus unlikely to prompt one to go Titanfall on anyone's ass, least of all in Yeovil on a Friday night.

5. We legalised abortion

The theory: Unwanted babies are more likely to grow up to be criminals. So more abortions equals fewer future troublemakers.
Says who? Steven Levitt of the University of Chicago and John Donohue of Yale University, back in 2001. Levitt is co-author, with Stephen J Dubner, of the bestseller Freakonomics.
Are they right? The theory has been disputed, not least because Levitt and Donohue made statistical errors that, once corrected, suggested that legalising abortion in the US had no effect on violent crime.

6. Crime is harder than ever
The theory: CCTV and other new technologies have made committing almost all crimes harder.
Says who? Various people. The Economist has floated the theory, while futurologists at Fox News predict a policing future that makes Judge Dredd seem positively retro.
Are they right? Probably, to an extent, but one would be hard pressed to argue this could account for the full drop.

[garbon]

I was just speaking the production and trafficking. Clearly we then need to think about the use piece. I mean it isn't like we don't have legal drugs that kill people.

Tylenol (paracetamol) is one of the most common drugs that people overdose on...

Yeah, I was also thinking of alcohol and its societal ills. That doesn't even have a stated medical purpose.

[OttoVonBismarck]

3. No one ever really investigates if maybe all those "non-violent" offenders that got locked up in harsher sentences in fact, maybe were never able to become violent criminals and that's at least part of the decrease in crime rates.

If we also preemptively locked up all those who drive recklessly or pay their bills late, or all members of the infamously violent 18-25 demographic, crime would fall even further. 

Except this point fails to miss the mark--we're locking them up for things that are crimes in basically the entire civilized world: dealing drugs, theft, white collar frauds, confidence schemes etc. The difference between American approach to those non-violent (but internationally recognized criminal acts) is that in America the punishment is harsher. You're speculating locking up people who have not actually committed crimes, although reckless driving is actually a misdemeanor (and not a traffic offense) in most States.

[DGuller]

I thinkthe lead argument (considered favourably in a Stephen Pinker book) is very convincing. The correlation for both the rise in violent crime and its decline was very strong over numerous countries.

[OttoVonBismarck]

They are also "aged out" of the part of their life where they could easily develop a non-violent and socially responsible way of living outside of prison.  If it's a matter of risking violent behavior from someone who hasn't previously had any and giving them a chance to be productive in society why would you presume the worst?

Like I said, if you can find a way to get that kid who at age of first offense is anywhere from 18-30 or so (first non-juvenile offense), but who has been in poverty/drugs/gang since the age of 10-11, and find a way to fix his life so he doesn't go to crime then I'm all for that instead of incarceration. I'm interested to hear how you do that, I understand places like Sweden have an approach that believes it solves this, but Swedes aren't dealing with the population groups I'm talking about. They aren't dealing with people who live in a huge swathe of some American city where everyone is very poor, where crime is the only real way to guarantee making big money, where drug uses is a behavior passed on from mother to child etc. I think the obvious rehabilitative approach works good for broken/damaged goods who are otherwise products of a functional society, but that's not the problem cases in America. The problem cases here are societal subgroups that in their own social group, their criminality is not the problem we see it as from the outside.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah the streets around here are covered with the rotting corpses of dead stoners.

What percentage of the sub-30% of the prison population in for drug crimes do you believe are simple stoners on a possession (or even distribution charge) for pot, versus the percent in for harder drug possession/distribution?

[Zanza]

Dguller, an even better example is this:

[OttoVonBismarck]

Otto, it appears that violent crime is falling everywhere in the Western World.  It also seems that nobody has a particularly good explanation for why this is occuring across all Western societies.

Since it was massively higher in the United States than anywhere else in the late 70s-1990s (especially homicide rate, which in the U.S. has spiked far more than anywhere else in the OECD0, whatever general affects you allude to I find it likely there are specific affects unique to the United States.

[frunk]

Like I said, if you can find a way to get that kid who at age of first offense is anywhere from 18-30 or so (first non-juvenile offense), but who has been in poverty/drugs/gang since the age of 10-11, and find a way to fix his life so he doesn't go to crime then I'm all for that instead of incarceration. I'm interested to hear how you do that, I understand places like Sweden have an approach that believes it solves this, but Swedes aren't dealing with the population groups I'm talking about. They aren't dealing with people who live in a huge swathe of some American city where everyone is very poor, where crime is the only real way to guarantee making big money, where drug uses is a behavior passed on from mother to child etc. I think the obvious rehabilitative approach works good for broken/damaged goods who are otherwise products of a functional society, but that's not the problem cases in America. The problem cases here are societal subgroups that in their own social group, their criminality is not the problem we see it as from the outside.

So you don't see it as a problem to "preemptively" punish people who might be violent offenders in the future by locking them away for less serious crimes now?  Isn't that convicting them for a crime they haven't committed?

[OttoVonBismarck]

So you don't see it as a problem to "preemptively" punish people who might be violent offenders in the future by locking them away for less serious crimes now?  Isn't that convicting them for a crime they haven't committed?

Do you see it as a problem to punish someone for DUI even though DUI isn't in itself a violent crime? DUI is the same way, States punish you for a first offense, and usually a second offense is mandatory incarceration time (in many States first offense is now, as well.) It's under the logic that someone doing this is starting a pattern of behavior that is likely to lead to something violent and bad for society down the road, so we're punishing them harshly now.

[frunk]

Do you see it as a problem to punish someone for DUI even though DUI isn't in itself a violent crime? DUI is the same way, States punish you for a first offense, and usually a second offense is mandatory incarceration time (in many States first offense is now, as well.) It's under the logic that someone doing this is starting a pattern of behavior that is likely to lead to something violent and bad for society down the road, so we're punishing them harshly now.

Except you are comparing a reckless, irresponsible act that endangers others with a reckless, irresponsible act that endangers themselves.  The DUI is intrinsically a dangerous act to other people and property.  There's nothing intrinsically dangerous to other people or property in drug use.

[grumbler]

Dguller, an even better example is this:

Except that neither your "example" nor DG's are examples of anything.  The lead hypothesis is based on both correlation and causation, whereas you and DGuller seem to think that random correlations are examples of something or other.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Except you are comparing a reckless, irresponsible act that endangers others with a reckless, irresponsible act that endangers themselves.  The DUI is intrinsically a dangerous act to other people and property.  There's nothing intrinsically dangerous to other people or property in drug use.

I'm actually talking about non-violent crimes in general. If you look at the previous statistics on what portion of our incarcerated population are in there for non-violent crimes that have no victims it's actually relatively small. Especially since you can presume most of the percentage of drug incarcerations are not simple users of the drugs.

[CountDeMoney]

I prefer the European sentencing model, particularly if I'm interested in murdering someone or raping a teenager as a movie director.