It is rather proven that no matter how much $ you throw at a situation it doesn't fix a thing. Somehow we've gotten to a place where we think having more police means less crime. We will never have a Minority Report force, so how do we get all parties on board to fight crime. Why don't we force our elected officials to sit in a room and come back with real solutions versus militarizing police, more jails, longer sentences, etc.
I think an earnest effort needs to be made to study how young people decide to live of life of abiding the law and some go the other direction. Studies that combat recidivism, etc.
Excessive funding doesn't work with all these half baked social programs. Gangstas don't care about growing gardens in vacant lots.
Can you explain how cutting down on the number of prisoners and prisons will reduce crime? Do you think it was merely a coincidence that after the crime bill of '94, crimes in virtually all categories dropped precipitously, after having risen nonstop since the 1960s? We imprisoned more violent offenders and kept them imprisoned for longer. That helps to reduce crime.
The article at the link explains the 4 key drivers of the reduction in the 1990s:
1.) Increased # of police (Costs $’s)
2.) Increased incarnations (Costs $’s)
3.) Reduced Crack use
4.) Legalized abortion in the 70s leading to fewer criminals (costs souls)
It also covers factors that didn’t have an impact like new policing strategies
Link: http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUnderstandingWhyCrime2004.pdf
Many of the things that lead to criminality: choosing the wrong parents, the availability of weapons, the persistence of street gangs, genetics, are things that we ultimately have little or no control over as a society. We can control how doggedly we pursue criminals, who we put into prison and how long we keep them there.
We can already see where releasing criminals will lead. "Bail reform" is a fine example. It will get many more people maimed and killed and will economically devastate some commercial centers of our country. The madness must stop.
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You know, just based on science.
It is highly, highly unlikely that the genes or gene mutations are distributed equally among individuals in different racial groups because I know of nothing else that is distributed equally among racial groups when it comes to genetics. In other words, we would not expect 10% of Asians and 10% of whites and 10% of blacks to have a genetic predisposition to impulsivity. After he was forced to stop lying last week, he finally answered my question and made a faith-based statement that they must be distributed equally among races. If you had to bet your life on it, on which contention would you bet? Probably the same one he would if everything rested on a correct choice.
An interesting question here is, "What is Chris so afraid of?" that makes him lie like this? One can easily go back and verify that I argued nothing of the sort.
share of genes and/or gene mutations that predispose one to violence. No practical difference.
It would be absurd to assert that all members of any race have a genetic predisposition to impulsivity, and the most basic reason is that most members of any race do not demonstrate chronically impulsive behavior. One assertion entails that most members of any race will not be chronically impulsive and thus not worrisome from a societal view, while the other entails being suspicious of every member of a particular race. C'mon, man!
Oodles of studies on twins indicate that impulsivity and criminal behavior are products of both environment and genetics. What isn't certain the is proportion for each. I have a list of studies, if you really want me to insert them, but I suspect you understand this.
Here's the basic question: how do explain the wide disparities in crime rates between racial groups? It's not just environment. Do you seriously believe that the reason Asians commit drastically lower crimes than whites, blacks, Hispanics is solely because of environmental factors? It's well-established that intelligence has an inverse relationship with impulsivity. Asians have a mean IQ of 108. Asian males also have, on average, less testosterone than males of other racial groups. Those variables have no bearing on the far lower crime rates among Asians compared to whites, blacks, Hispanics? None?
And going way back to something I mentioned originally: how do you explain the many, many families that have, for instance, two well-behaved, non-impulsive children, but then have a third who is impulsive and antisocial? In all those families, are the parents treating that one child differently than the others? Really? I realize most do not interact with kids on a daily basis, but few things become clearer over a teaching career than the fact that there is a subset of students whose impulsive behavior is not simply a matter poor parenting or abuse. You begin to have a little more forgiveness and patience once you recognize that. Particularly with the younger ones, some of them really do lack an ability to control this behavior.
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If you want to hold a completely antiscientific position, contend that criminality is entirely environmental and we are all blank slates who can be formed into anything by those around us or because of our socioeconomic station. In short, impulsivity is at the root of crime and impulsivity is influenced by a number of genes. To contend that we are blank slates is to revert to disproven 18th century hypotheses. I understand why this makes people so uncomfortable, but foisting an untruth on society so that many of us are unoffended is not worth the costs.
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Link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2011.00243.x
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Emphatically so.
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Drug offenses that triggered life sentences doesn't necessarily seem effective to me.
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If you look at the stats, it's usually a combination of other crimes plus drugs. No one is in prison for small amounts of MJ for example.
People are absolute fools if they think decriminalizing and legalizing THC will not lead to the same for other recreational drugs that wreak havoc on society. It is already becoming big business and that business will necessarily branch out and pressure pols to legalize more chemicals. Contrary to propaganda, crime rose, not fell in Colorado, according to numbers from the feds. Fewer ODs is great, but I'm much more interested in the crime it has spawned as a result of unlocking the gates. I'm interested in the victims. Drug abusers are several things. "Victim" is not one of them.
Link: https://www.amazon.com/War-Never-Fought-Establishments-Surrender/dp/1472939387
If I were king, I would legalize marijuana, LSD, psilocybin, DMT and Peyote for recreational use. These substances are less harmful and certainly less addictive than alcohol. And don't cause increases in crime. The rest of the spectrum of substances is up for debate.
Link: https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/effect-state-marijuana-legalizations-2021-update
I can't find it.
The black market has flourished under legalization in Colorado and in other states that went down this road. The same would've happened had we prohibited use of alcohol in the 1920s. We didn't and we didn't produce that huge black market.
Again, arguing that alcohol is worse and legal is a poor justification for legalizing THC. This is like arguing that you might as well eat a voluminous quantities of fatty, greasy bacon every morning because a bag of Cheetos every morning as a substitute is worse. If we went back to a debate over true prohibition of alcohol, I would support it, but that's water under the bridge and we can't go back. I grew up in a "dry town" and that was one of the great things about it. No bars and very few drunks out and about. None, really. I told Frank to ask inner city cops how many of their suspects are high on THC when they're arrested. I hope he does that. Some here will be quite surprised. Psychologists and cops will not. Teachers, too. It's not a coincidence, if you spend any time around young people who are chronic users.
it takes a long time and bottles of the kind of alcohol beverage to add up in he body. But only takes a short time (one or two hits) for drugs take effect on the body. Don't get me wrong, they are both bad for you.
But both are bad for you. But drugs are severely addictive More so than alcohol..
More dogged enforcement, herding more violent people into prison, and holding them longer.
One of the effects of taking dope users/dealers off the street is that you end up taking a lot of violent people off the street. Four or five years ago, I pored over the data. Thirty-some percent of federal prisoners are in for drug offenses. Most of our prison population is in state pens, and in my state, only 19% of prisoners are in for drug offenses. This contradicts the popular misinformation that our prisons are made up mostly of drug offenders.