Lexington: "A Nation of Jailbirds"

[jimmy olsen]

My point is your first sentence.

Little Timmay posted with heavy sarcasm that the crack cocaine epidemic explained the huge increase in incarceration, with the implication that this was obvious.

My point is that this explaination did not explain, because Canada experienced a similar epidemic (and indeed continues to) without experiencing a similar increase in incarceration.

I have no idea how to measure the relative seriousness of gang violence. It is certainly making the news these days, very much so. This in today's news:

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/World+media+focus+Metro+gang+violence/1472363/story.html

With under a year to go to the 2010 Winter Games, a headline like "From heaven to hell: 18 die as drugs war rages on streets of Vancouver" is not what politicians and tourism promoters want to see.

But the spate of murders, drive-by shootings and even random violence, like the Gibsons care home shooting, have drawn the inevitable attention of international media now focused on Vancouver's looming Olympics.

"I Googled 'Vancouver gang violence' last night and it's everywhere," said Vancouver Coun. Geoff Meggs. "I hope this round of violence will burn itself out, but I don't think it has been good for the city's image by any means. We all know it is a dark time in the city's history."

Although the rash of murders and shootings has generated international attention, the piece that has caused the most discussion is an article last week in The Independent, a well-regarded British newspaper.

Under the headline quoted above was the subtext "The Canadian city has been named the best place in the world to live. But those halcyon days are over."

The crack cocaine epidemic and harsher sentencing go together. The harsher sentences were an American response to the crack cocaine epidemic, one that Canada did not have IIRC.

[Strix]

As Grumbler and others have pointed out, it's practices like mandatory minimums that are causing high incarceration rates. In the past it was much more common for prisoners to be released early, but that doesn't really happen too much anymore, at least within the federal system.

On a personal note, I saw someone sent to 15 years in prison for violation of parole. The violation was a posession of a single bullet. The guy was a wife-beating thug, but still that's pretty out there. But the sentence was within the federal sentencing guidelines. Although the guidelines are no longer mandatory, many (or most if not all) judges still follow them.

That was most likely the result of Project EXILE. A single bullet is treated the same as a firearm. Why? Common sense dictates that if a bullet is present than a firearm was at some point.

How Project EXILE works is simple. When a criminal is found with a firearm or ammunition than that agency looks at some guidelines that enable it to become a Federal case at which point the Feds are given the info to decide if they wish to pursue the case in Federal court. The Feds have tougher sentences for firearms than most States, so criminals do more time.

The key factors are required are as follows;

1) Is the person a convicted felon?
2) Was the person and/or firearm/ammunition found during a drug sale or with a large quantity of drugs?
3) Is the firearm/ammunition part of an interstate nexus?

The third one must always be present. What does it mean? The firearm or ammunition must have passed over state borders at some point in it's existence. This is what gives the Feds jurisdiction. It doesn't matter who was in possession when it did pass over state borders but rather just that it did at some point that can be proven. And since there are very few firearms manufacturers left it's almost a forgone conclusion that it has at some point.

[dps]

What I do not get is that cracking down harder on druggies itself makes the gang violence worse, and I'm not sure why this would be so.

One argument that I have seen is that since essentially the prison sentence for dealing drugs is going to be as long as the sentence for murder, there is no incentive for drug dealers to not be as violent as possible.  I'm not sure that I buy that argument 100%, but it's not totally unreasonable.

Another argument I've seen is that cracking down on drugs puts people in the drug scene under more psychological pressure, so they're more likely to snap and become violent.  While I can easily see how that could happen to individual users if their dealer is arrested and they can't get their fix, I don't see how it explains routine, more-or-less institutionalized violence by the dealers.

[Tamas]

Well, also by making the punishment more severe, you raise the risk and thus the potential profit.

[Octavian]

What could possibly justify doubling the prison population in twelve years? And what is the rate now, in 2009? Have these years been cherry-picked as outliers?

It was the war on drugs.  The really bizarre thing is that during that same period the crime rate was lower...

Of course it was lower, we sent all the criminals to jail!

And obviously, if 2/3rds just get sent back because they keep committing crime, then we are letting too many blacks out.

Changed

[Richard Hakluyt]

What I do not get is that cracking down harder on druggies itself makes the gang violence worse, and I'm not sure why this would be so.

One argument that I have seen is that since essentially the prison sentence for dealing drugs is going to be as long as the sentence for murder, there is no incentive for drug dealers to not be as violent as possible.  I'm not sure that I buy that argument 100%, but it's not totally unreasonable.

Another argument I've seen is that cracking down on drugs puts people in the drug scene under more psychological pressure, so they're more likely to snap and become violent.  While I can easily see how that could happen to individual users if their dealer is arrested and they can't get their fix, I don't see how it explains routine, more-or-less institutionalized violence by the dealers.

Thinking about the 3rd strike and you are out thing, once one is on a crime spree that will lead to one's 3rd strike there is really no reason to hold back at all from almost any level of violence and mayhem. (absent the moral restraint which is the primary reason for most people obeying most laws).

[CountDeMoney]

This seems like a colossal waste of resources. War on drugs, especially, seems to be a great example how moral panic can cause one to behave in a way that is entirely inefficient, morally wrong and wasteful at the same time.

I suppose asking people to adhere to their social contracts and NOT commit crimes would be too much to ask.

I really liked this part:

and damaging the country abroad.

because, you know, that's so important.

[Malthus]

The crack cocaine epidemic and harsher sentencing go together. The harsher sentences were an American response to the crack cocaine epidemic, one that Canada did not have IIRC.

Which naturally leads to the question of why sentences became harsher in the US and not Canada.

So, as can be seen, merely saying "crack cocaine epidemic" dosen't answer the question at all. Why did sentences get harsher in the US and not Canada in response?

I suspect that the answer has something to do with a host of social and political factors - greater "moral panic", existence of a Black underclass, and something no-one has mentioned so far - the fact that the prosecutorial system in the US is more politicized than in Canada - together with the injection of politics into mandated sentencing guidelines, makes the who issue of punishment more suseptible to popular trends (i.e., "moral panics") concerning criminality.

Though even this may not be sufficient to explain a five or six-fold difference.

[The Minsky Moment]

How is the prosecutorial system more politicized in the States?

[Zanza]

How is the prosecutorial system more politicized in the States?

Don't you elect your state attorneys? I guess that could lead to them demanding harsher penalties as otherwise their opponent in the next election could accuse them of coddling criminals which is probably not the quality that most voters look for in a state attorney.

[The Minsky Moment]

Don't you elect your state attorneys? I guess that could lead to them demanding harsher penalties as otherwise their opponent in the next election could accuse them of coddling criminals which is probably not the quality that most voters look for in a state attorney.

The District Attorney is elected but all the staff jobs are civil service hires.  DAs usually campaign on crime control priorities and conviction success - not sentencing length which they have little control over.

Besides the mandatory minimums and high guideline sentences that people have been talking about are a feature of the federal system and federal prosecutors are not elected.

[Malthus]

Don't you elect your state attorneys? I guess that could lead to them demanding harsher penalties as otherwise their opponent in the next election could accuse them of coddling criminals which is probably not the quality that most voters look for in a state attorney.

The District Attorney is elected but all the staff jobs are civil service hires.  DAs usually campaign on crime control priorities and conviction success - not sentencing length which they have little control over.

Besides the mandatory minimums and high guideline sentences that people have been talking about are a feature of the federal system and federal prosecutors are not elected.

Heh, don't these guys typically campaign on a platform of "I'll be tough on crime"? Isn't that politicization?

Saying the prosecutor has "little control" over sentence lengths is a bit, well, misleading. Does the US not have plea-bargaining?

Seems to me a system in which prosecutorial authority is (sometimes) governed by the guy who can convince the man in the street that he's tougher on criminals than the next guy, is going to be one in which politics impacts prosecutorial discretion.