14 votes

American incarceration, in real numbers

4 comments

  1. Flashynuff
    Link
    It's mind boggling how awful the U.S. is at this. This data visualization definitely helps put it in some sort of perspective, and I think the suggestions it makes about preventative solutions are...

    It's mind boggling how awful the U.S. is at this. This data visualization definitely helps put it in some sort of perspective, and I think the suggestions it makes about preventative solutions are excellent.

    6 votes
  2. ohyran
    Link
    There is a trend growing here to to focus more on individual moral shortcomings instead of social effects. The "tough on crime" crowd is getting noisier AND the same ideas that even though crime...

    There is a trend growing here to to focus more on individual moral shortcomings instead of social effects. The "tough on crime" crowd is getting noisier AND the same ideas that even though crime is at an all time low - since the fear of crime is high, that justifies it.

    Each time I fall back to Mathiesen "Prison on Trial" - the books is not only fairly old (early 80's) it is also written with a hefty dollop of ideology and Mathiesen obviously believes that "no, no prison is justified" - but the research is well done, he isn't fudging any numbers and doesn't back down from alternatives.
    The core take away from the book is that punishment doesn't work like we all pretend it does. He goes by sociological reports of how different groups react to punishing a criminal. Does it deter crime by the prisoner in the future? Does it make the victim feel better? Does it deter crimes by others? Etc.
    The only provable effect is that it makes others, people not connected to the crime at all feel better as their sense of justice pathos is fed. The criminal doesn't change (now this is dependant on in prison systems to avoid it which are different depending on where you are from, and have changed since the 80's), it doesn't deter crime by others and the victim doesn't feel better except safer if the criminal is kept locked up.
    One side effect that IS proven is that if someone is actually dangerous - that persons removal from the rest of society is a benefit though

    I just don't think that the prison industrial complex in the US is the single problem here - that it is a problem, but not the entire story. It's basically someone trying to save some money and someone trying to make some money and the prison system being the breeding ground for that exchange with horrid consequences.
    One thing that interests me is podcasts like My Favorite Murder - which is a fairly Californian Liberal kind of podcast and with a uniquely US sensibility to punishment and a common theme of "lock them up, throw away the key. Kill them" to it.
    One thing Mathiesen takes up is that what the correct punishment is is circular. Its measured in how crimes are ranked, and crimes are also often ranked by the punishment they get. Beyond the most simple examples like "its worse to kill someone than to steal from them" - its all a circular logic and one which only allows for one populist political movement: upward.
    Making the punishment harsher for one crime, pushes ALL punishment upwards if there is a individualistic moral sin ideal backing it up. There isn't a political platform for "Lower all crimes" because that would be suicide, but making say "purse snatching" a worse offense also makes everything around it worse since then you can compare purse snatching to sexual assault and say "well why is THAT worse than THAT?".
    The logic never allows for lowering the punishment for (in this example) purse snatching so in the end you need to raise the punishment for everything else too.

    IF crime is due to an individual moral failing. Someone is "evil" - then there is no reason why they should ever be free of guilt too. Prison is ment to be a purgatory on Earth (how feasible that is I don't know) where sins are washed off with hopes for sideeffects, but if you can never be reformed (whatever THAT means) you can never truly leave it.
    Sex Offender registry's is an example of this. If someone is forever stuck in a perpetual punishment then when are they ment to be released? If they are an actual threat to everyone else, why are they being let out at all?

    If our inability to handle "possible but not certain threats" to society is the issue why is that person the person to handle the brunt of the problem?

    Whether its sex offenders, drug users, thieves or just trouble makers - the prisons are always bound to fill up and since the justice pathos is one of the driving factors that feels right and good. Why should they have a good time? They are bad individuals that deserve punishment (for some reason, and with no clear benefits).

    So the population will always go up unless we reform the way we think about crime and punishment.

    5 votes
  3. vord
    Link
    Imprisonment culture is a huge problem in America. After the George Floyd protests, my workplace had a series of seminars about systemic racism, and the followed up with a presentation from the...

    Imprisonment culture is a huge problem in America.

    After the George Floyd protests, my workplace had a series of seminars about systemic racism, and the followed up with a presentation from the police to say in effect: But look, we're not those evil bad cops.

    The amount of cheering for the police and how we need an even stronger surveillance state was disturbing.

    In one of the break-out groups, I had a fierce argument with an older white gentleman who lives in a wealth-segragated neighborhood. I was emphasizing how the need for police is over-emphasized, and even if we do need them in some fashion, they certainly don't need to have weapons.

    His primary retort was 'Well, what if you were walking down the street and some poor girl was being raped, right in front of you?" I replied that 'Then the onus to stop the rape is on me. By the time I found a police officer to do it for me, the deed would already be finished.' Nevermind that most rapes don't happen to be random strangers in an alley. Or that it would still likely be one of the 70+% of the rapes that go unconvicted.

    Heavy policing is a poor substitute for trust in a community. By making police into these mysterious 'forces for 'good' (as white people in particular seem to think), it's a way of absolving our own roles in keeping our communities safe.

    I have friends, most of whom consider themselves quite liberal, frequently claim that without police our society would rapidly devolve into large numbers of murder-rapists. I questioned them: is the only thing stopping you from being a murder-rapist the threat of being caught? They answered in (what I seriously hoped) jest, but even that was fucked.

    Despite all of our surveillance and police funding, the absolute best case for police solving crime is 40% for murder/manslaughter. It only gets worse from there.

    So yea, if the only thing keeping you from being a violent criminal is the threat of being caught, might was well go for it, especially if you're white.

    China is supposedly some horribly oppressive state. They have 4x the population than the USA and fewer people incarcerated.

    I guess America really needs its slaves.

    5 votes
  4. Kuromantis
    (edited )
    Link
    A visualization made by the same person that made Wealth inequality, to scale about the US prison system and, what surrounds it and how to solve it. There's also a github page with sources and a...

    A visualization made by the same person that made Wealth inequality, to scale about the US prison system and, what surrounds it and how to solve it. There's also a github page with sources and a general "read me" page, including the difference between jail and prison.

    3 votes