Lexington: "A Nation of Jailbirds"

[Neil]

My take on what would be the main causes of the differences between the US on one hand and Europe and Canada on the other would be as follows (in the order of influence):

1. War on Terror

You've gotta be fucking kidding me.

[Valmy]

Is this different in other Western Countries?

Do convicted felons (and that is what we are talking about) have trouble getting jobs in Belgium or France or Japan or Canada?

Good question.

[Berkut]

If you were a baseball player, you would be a great hitter with the rate of accuracy in your post.

Yeah how could a phenonmenon that started in the 1980s have anything to do with the war on terror or guns?  We have had guns forever before then and the war on terror did not start up until this decade.

Indeed.

The explanation is not hard, and is rather well known. The War on Drugs combined with the "get tough" sentencing guidelines ahve brought us to were we are today.

And I do think this has has a positive impact on the crime rate - we really ahve thrown enough criminals and potential criminals in jail that it has reduced crime. It certainly is not worth it though, IMO. Especially since so much of the crime is a direct result of the over-criminalization of drugs.

[Malthus]

I dunno, it does seem pretty outrageous, and the necessary qualifiers just underlie what is outrageous about it.

It is outrageous on the numbers - a clear indictment of the War on Drugs.

Crap like pointing out that lots of people in jail are "mentally ill" and how we are "punishing the children" is emotive bullshit, and makes the article crap. But then, the goal isn't to simply point out the problem, it is to enrage and get people like Marty all worked up. Because the numbers alone don't do it, I guess. Lord knows these numbers are well known and reported in a considerably less hysterical manner elsewhere - but then, those articles don't get the attention.

I remember someone running the numbers on this and comming up with the figure that some 20% of the prision population was incarcerated for drug crimes - which, while huge, still doesn't add up on its own as an explaination for the massive increase.

Don't have those figures to hand, though.

Maybe in combo with other factors like sentencing guidelines for other crimes ... it just seems that the huge increase defies easy explaination.

[Strix]

My take on what would be the main causes of the differences between the US on one hand and Europe and Canada on the other would be as follows (in the order of influence):

1. War on Terror
2. Longer sentences
3. Possibly (?) access to firearms and greater social/financial equalities in the populace.

1) War on Terror has very little effect on the prison population in the US. Well, other than WoT prisoners make the news more.

2) Sentences in the US have been continually shortened with much of the power being taken out of the Judges hands i.e. mandatory sentence guidelines.

3) Access to firearms is a factor but not a major one.

Marty, coming from a small uncivilized country, as you do, gives you no insight into the issues and problems that face such an advanced and large country as the US. I suggest sticking to your heterophobia and Catholic Church bashing.

The three main things that create crime in America are money, drugs, and women. In our hip-hop culture you have to have these things, and people will get them regardless of what it takes. This is why there are so many blacks going through the criminal justice system in America compared to other racial groups.

The issues are easy....

1) Culture

There is a culture in America that embraces crime as a ways and means of living. People do what they must to get by, and they take justice in their own hands i.e. you stab my brother, I shoot yours, and no one tells the cops anything.

2) Social System

I would say inequality but the truth is that these people don't want to live like everyone else. They want what everyone else has without having to work, earn, or take responsibility for it. They feel entitled and so they take what they perceive as their "due".

3) Environment

These people live in such a crappy environment that prison is a step up. In prison, they get three meals a day, lights, TV, rec time, canteen ( a place to buy items), and they are usually incarcerated with a lot of people they grew up with or know.

"Wait a minute, aren't prisons dangerous?!?" Yes and no. These people come from areas where they are just as likely to get stabbed/shot walking to the store for food as getting shanked walking to the commissary for food in a prison. What a lot of people don't get is that prisons aren't dangerous, in and of themselves, rather the people IN the prison are what makes it dangerous. These same people also make the places they come from just as dangerous.

Granted, this doesn't apply to every criminal, and you will find criminals in every walk of life. What it does do is explain why the number of incarcerated people are so high in America in comparison to other places. It also explains why rehabilitation cannot work. These people choose to live the way they do, and no one can change their minds except themselves.

[ulmont]

Crap like pointing out that lots of people in jail are "mentally ill" and how we are "punishing the children" is emotive bullshit, and makes the article crap.

Regarding the mentally ill, I thought there was a pretty clear trend that every mental hospital closed resulted in a higher prison population?

Yeah, even the first free page of this paper seems to back that up: http://www.jstor.org/pss/1394108

[grumbler]

They don't believe in rehabilitation, Marty.

I don't see why you don't.  Rehabilitation works under the right circumstances, given the right offender.

[grumbler]

BTW, I completely agree with the general message of the article. Too bad the author could not "stick to the facts" in his presentation, and instead went with the standard crap that makes journalism such a despised profession.

Journalists, you know, can be slimy bastards. And since journalists are all slimy bastards....

"Lexington" isn't journalism.  It is op-ed.  it isn't supposed to inform, but to persuade.  As such, it cherry-picks its facts exactly as every other op-ed piece does.

[grumbler]

Only you would read so much into and be so enraged by a simply rhetorical flourish.

True, but, to be fair, he assumed that "Lexington" was an exercise in journalism.  Now that he knows better, I am sure he understands that there is no reason to be upset by the "violations of the standards of journalism" which the article engages in.

He reads into it, of course, exactly what was intended to be read into it.  That you didn't get it doesn't make him unique in his ability to get it; I would argue that it is likelier that you are unique in your inability to get it.

[Martinus]

LOL sorry the War on Terror was a Freudian slip, I guess. I meant the War on Drugs of course.

[Neil]

If I put ten thousand homosexuals into a concentration camp one year, 9,000 the next and 8,000 the year after, the total number of homosexuals in my concentration camp has increased, even though the number of arrests has decreased.

Yeah but after 25 years alot of the original homosexuals would start to die off...yet the number is continuing to increase despite the lower number of arrests.

Most of the homosexuals being arrested are young, and can live for longer than 25 years (provided they don't get AIDS).

[Malthus]

Is this different in other Western Countries?

Do convicted felons (and that is what we are talking about) have trouble getting jobs in Belgium or France or Japan or Canada?

Good question.

I dunno, BB is the guy to ask for a definitive answer - but I do know that Canada seems to lack many of the types of tests and checks that appear routine in the US.

In Canada it would be inconceivable that a person, once released from prision, would be denied their right to vote. Indeed, in Canada it was recently declared that prisioners actually serving time in prison have the right to vote under our Constitution:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060112/elxn_prisoners_vote_060111/20060113?s_name=election2006&no_ads

[Strix]

Alot of them still manage though.  I know there are some businesses that still take a chance by hiring ex-cons.  The repair shop I take my car to has alot of them for example.

A lot of employers take ex-felons because they get big Federal Tax breaks for it. It's my first major selling point when I call employers to find my parolees jobs. The tax break is based on how long they work there and how many hours. 

Of course, my second major selling point is that if they don't show up for work or are tardy I will send them back to prison. 

[Admiral Yi]

A lot of employers take ex-felons because they get big Federal Tax breaks for it. It's my first major selling point when I call employers to find my parolees jobs. The tax break is based on how long they work there and how many hours. 

Really, never heard of this.  How long has this been on the books?

[Strix]

A lot of employers take ex-felons because they get big Federal Tax breaks for it. It's my first major selling point when I call employers to find my parolees jobs. The tax break is based on how long they work there and how many hours. 

Really, never heard of this.  How long has this been on the books?

A long time. You can get the guidelines from any local post office or your local Federal building. It tells the employer what forms must be filled out (and provides them) as well as how much the tax break will be (it's based on how long they are employed, how many hours they work a week, etc, and so on).

EDIT: Look under the IRS for Work Opportunity Tax Credit