I've been meaning to post this NYT article for a while. It argues that we would more effectively reduce crime by spending more money on police and less money on keeping people locked up. The article is (understandably) a little too focused on NY, but it's an interesting read.
“The United States today is the only country I know of that spends more on prisons than police,” said Lawrence W. Sherman, an American criminologist on the faculties of the University of Maryland and Cambridge University in Britain. “In England and Wales, the spending on police is twice as high as on corrections. In Australia it’s more than three times higher. In Japan it’s seven times higher. Only in the United States is it lower, and only in our recent history.”
Before the era of mass incarceration began in the 1980s, local policing accounted for more than 40 percent of spending for criminal justice, while 25 percent went to prisons and parole programs. But since 1990, nearly 35 percent has gone to the prison system, while the portion of criminal justice spending for local policing has fallen to slightly more than 30 percent.
...The trend toward tougher sentences continued, causing prison populations to grow rapidly in the 1980s throughout the country, including in New York. When crime kept rising anyway, sentences often were further lengthened.
But New York diverged from the national trend in the early 1990s, when it began expanding its police force and introduced a computerized system to track crimes and complaints. Officers also aggressively enforced laws against guns, illegal drugs and petty crimes like turnstile jumping in the subways. Arrests for misdemeanors increased sharply.
Yet serious crime went down. So though more people were being locked up for brief periods...the local jail population was shrinking and fewer city residents were serving time in state prisons.
Dr. Ludwig and Philip J. Cook, a Duke University economist, calculate that nationwide, money diverted from prison to policing would buy at least four times as much reduction in crime. They suggest shrinking the prison population by a quarter and using the savings to hire another 100,000 police officers.
Diverting that money to the police would be tricky politically, because corrections budgets are zealously defended in state capitals by prison administrators, unions and legislators.
....“If you had a dollar to spend on reducing crime, and you looked at the science instead of the politics, you would never spend it on the prison system,” Dr. Jacobson said. “There is no better example of big government run amok.”
"The biggest problems that we’re facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all."
The "era of mass incarceration" coincided with the start of the "war on drugs". I would like to see the cash saved and incarceration rates reduced by looking into legalization, decriminalization and treatment instead of more cops.
WildGorillaMan wrote:Enthusiasm combined with no skill whatsoever can sometimes carry the day.
Terry B. wrote:The "era of mass incarceration" coincided with the start of the "war on drugs". I would like to see the cash saved and incarceration rates reduced by looking into legalization, decriminalization and treatment instead of more cops.
The 'era of mass incarceration' also coincided with the violence associated with the crack trade. Treatment is an issue-- usage of outcome measures and evidence based practices are not as good as they are in law enforcement.
Terry B. wrote:The "era of mass incarceration" coincided with the start of the "war on drugs". I would like to see the cash saved and incarceration rates reduced by looking into legalization, decriminalization and treatment instead of more cops.
and wreck the economy by reducing profits and tax revenue from for-profit correctional facilities??
nafod wrote:The huge numbers incarcerated = fail, any way you look at it.
Yes it does, and let us remember to include the prison industrial complex and the politicians who profit from their relationships with it, and who use their tough on crime stance to further their own careers.
Mao wrote:Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party
The most corrupt union in the USA is the California Prison Guard Union. They are the Vanguard for the douchbag public sector unions and politicians that drove California over the cliff.
Where else will you find:
Average prison guards making 100K a year
Retiring guards making 90-110% of their last pay check with COLA increases
No accountability of the hours they work. That's right, they report their own hours with no oversight or control. Must be nice.
No searches of prison guards as they enter the prisons. The state has been trying to crack down on cell phones making their way into the prisons, but that would interfere with the black market cell phone market the prison guards control. The union is so powerful, they have beat back ant attempts to crack down on this practice.
They own the California Democrat party, heart and soul. To be fair they'd probably own the Pathetic GOP also, if the GOP ever got their shit squared away and grabbed the reigns of power.
Last edited by Batboy2/75 on Sat Feb 09, 2013 7:59 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Arms are the only true badge of liberty. The possession of arms is the distinction of the free man from the slave.
