Political Roundtable Part XV

[Zonkerbl]

Republicans control the house, the senate, and the Presidency. If they can't fix DACA they have no one but themselves to blame.

Govern, mfers! No excuses now!

[Zonkerbl]

Now I know that "hate the sin, love the sinner" is used to dog whistle homophobia, but I think it really does apply in discussions about racism.

Statements can be racist, but I don't think it's at all productive to label people as racist. What does that even mean anyway. When you label someone as racist, you remove any possibility of convincing them not to be racist. It feels good to yell "racist racist" but it doesn't solve the problem, on the contrary.

Nate is very committed to the idea that black people are inherently more violent than white people. A naive interpretation of the data supports that, so we can either shout "racist racist" or we can present an alternative hypothesis:

1) We observe that black people, being on average more poor than white people, commit more crimes.
2) We conclude that black people are inherently more violent than white people.
3) We design an institutionally racist criminal justice system to unfairly target black people, creating lifelong barriers to earnings potential that perpetuates the income disparity between the two groups.
4) The crime statistics from an institutionally racist criminal justice system, based on *convictions,* will show an even greater tendency towards crime then can be explained just by income, further supporting Nate's erroneous conclusion.

I propose to Nate that the only way to prove who is right, me or Nate, is experiment for at least a few generations with reforming the criminal justice system to stop unfairly targeting black people, at least for non-violent crimes. If incomes among African Americans rise, and crime drops, then I'm right. If the tendency to be convicted of violent crimes stays higher even despite a rise in income, or if incomes don't rise because African Americans are genetically incapable of taking advantage of wealth generating opportunities in the United States, then Nate is right.

But, I further propose, Nate cannot legitimately conclude that African Americans are inherently violent without doing this experiment.

I further further propose, to the board, that trying to convince people like Nate to consider an experiment, where we stop targeting African Americans for non-violent crimes, is a more productive discussion to have than shouting "racist racist."

It's got nothing to do with whether it is possible for people to be inherently, unchangeably racist, and whether Nate is such a person. It doesn't matter.

We live in a passively racist country, where our fear of minorities has lead us to create an institutionally racist criminal justice system. A white person with no experience of what it's like to live as a minority in the United States, presented with conviction statistics and an unsophisticated approach to econometrics (forgiveable for a non-economist), might reasonably conclude that African Americans as a group are indeed inherently violent. The number of people in this country who fall for this fallacy is extremely large, and it includes liberal urban dwelling white people. Yelling "racist racist" at someone honest enough to say "but isn't this what the facts say?" is really not helpful.

[Zonkerbl]

Oh and by the way:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/09/06/washington-national-cathedral-to-remove-stained-glass-windows-honoring-robert-e-lee-stonewall-jackson/?hpid=hp_local-news_cathedral-1045am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.37f792ef4352

"Saying the stories told in the two 4-foot by 6-foot windows were painful, distracting and one-sided, a majority of the Cathedral’s governing body voted to remove the windows Tuesday night."

Painful, distracting, and one-sided. That's really all you have to say. Any statue that meets that criteria should come down, unless you can come up with a way to present it in a less painful, distracting, and one sided way.

[gtn130]

Now I know that "hate the sin, love the sinner" is used to dog whistle homophobia, but I think it really does apply in discussions about racism.

Statements can be racist, but I don't think it's at all productive to label people as racist. What does that even mean anyway. When you label someone as racist, you remove any possibility of convincing them not to be racist. It feels good to yell "racist racist" but it doesn't solve the problem, on the contrary.

Nate is very committed to the idea that black people are inherently more violent than white people. A naive interpretation of the data supports that, so we can either shout "racist racist" or we can present an alternative hypothesis:

1) We observe that black people, being on average more poor than white people, commit more crimes.
2) We conclude that black people are inherently more violent than white people.
3) We design an institutionally racist criminal justice system to unfairly target black people, creating lifelong barriers to earnings potential that perpetuates the income disparity between the two groups.
4) The crime statistics from an institutionally racist criminal justice system, based on *convictions,* will show an even greater tendency towards crime then can be explained just by income, further supporting Nate's erroneous conclusion.

I propose to Nate that the only way to prove who is right, me or Nate, is experiment for at least a few generations with reforming the criminal justice system to stop unfairly targeting black people, at least for non-violent crimes. If incomes among African Americans rise, and crime drops, then I'm right. If the tendency to be convicted of violent crimes stays higher even despite a rise in income, or if incomes don't rise because African Americans are genetically incapable of taking advantage of wealth generating opportunities in the United States, then Nate is right.

But, I further propose, Nate cannot legitimately conclude that African Americans are inherently violent without doing this experiment.

I further further propose, to the board, that trying to convince people like Nate to consider an experiment, where we stop targeting African Americans for non-violent crimes, is a more productive discussion to have than shouting "racist racist."

It's got nothing to do with whether it is possible for people to be inherently, unchangeably racist, and whether Nate is such a person. It doesn't matter.

We live in a passively racist country, where our fear of minorities has lead us to create an institutionally racist criminal justice system. A white person with no experience of what it's like to live as a minority in the United States, presented with conviction statistics and an unsophisticated approach to econometrics (forgiveable for a non-economist), might reasonably conclude that African Americans as a group are indeed inherently violent. The number of people in this country who fall for this fallacy is extremely large, and it includes liberal urban dwelling white people. Yelling "racist racist" at someone honest enough to say "but isn't this what the facts say?" is really not helpful.

I applaud the effort here, but you gotta understand that Nate is someone who aggressively pursues material that supports his conclusions - there is no intellectual curiosity here. He believes what feels best to him, and he is locked and loaded with fake news that supports his safeguarded beliefs. He has no interest in your thought experiment. He's not about to let some internet poster bozo mess with his sacred cow.

There is a massive difference between Nate, and say, some ignorant 16-year-old white dude in Mississippi who casually parrots what his parents say at home. I understand wanting to play nice with someone who could maybe stop being racist, but that requires addressing the subject and seeing it to its conclusion. Playing nice with a racist until the end of the time just results in enabling their beliefs.

And let's be real for a minute - if people like me weren't routinely dunking on Nate in this thread, he'd be front and center in here sharing his Breitbart/InfoWars research on the circumference of the black man's cerebral cortex or whatever. Me being impolite to Nate has more or less forced him back into his safe space where he only posts his screeds in the Breitbart comment section instead of places where decent people post.

[Wizardspride]

Read this my friends.

Read on Twitter

[dckingsfan]

So, Daca is now done and Trump has thrown it back to the legislature that has never been able to get legislation through.

The clock is now ticking - 6 months to get it done. Let's see if they step-up.

Congress has had years to pass immigration reform and they haven't managed to do it. They're not going to do this in 6 months and Trump is using them as cover for when this eventually fails. Republicans are already talking a out using this as a bargaining chip for border security.

Damn - the political process - tradeoffs - go figure!

Hoping it gets done...

[dobrojim]

[SNIP]

I applaud the effort here, but you gotta understand that Nate is someone who aggressively pursues material that supports his conclusions - there is no intellectual curiosity here. He believes what feels best to him, and he is locked and loaded with fake news that supports his safeguarded beliefs. He has no interest in your thought experiment. He's not about to let some internet poster bozo mess with his sacred cow.

While I profoundly disagree with the vast preponderance of what Nate has posted in the pol thread,
I think the above paragraph could be written about a whole lot of people. It's human nature to a very
significant degree.

I do not in any way intend this to be a defense of Nate's positions. The above paragraph is
not why I believe him to be wrong.

Rigorous thinking is very hard to do. But it's also how we grow and become better people.
Treat those things that you agree with with as much skepticism as what you disagree with
and you have begun the journey.

[dckingsfan]

Republicans control the house, the senate, and the Presidency. If they can't fix DACA they have no one but themselves to blame.

Govern, mfers! No excuses now!

I feel the same way. But I felt the same way in 2000.

[dckingsfan]

[SNIP]

I applaud the effort here, but you gotta understand that Nate is someone who aggressively pursues material that supports his conclusions - there is no intellectual curiosity here. He believes what feels best to him, and he is locked and loaded with fake news that supports his safeguarded beliefs. He has no interest in your thought experiment. He's not about to let some internet poster bozo mess with his sacred cow.

While I profoundly disagree with the vast preponderance of what Nate has posted in the pol thread,
I think the above paragraph could be written about a whole lot of people. It's human nature to a very
significant degree.

I do not in any way intend this to be a defense of Nate's positions. The above paragraph is
not why I believe him to be wrong.

Rigorous thinking is very hard to do. But it's also how we grow and become better people.
Treat those things that you agree with with as much skepticism as what you disagree with
and you have begun the journey.

You are clearly racist...

[nate33]

Now I know that "hate the sin, love the sinner" is used to dog whistle homophobia, but I think it really does apply in discussions about racism.

Statements can be racist, but I don't think it's at all productive to label people as racist. What does that even mean anyway. When you label someone as racist, you remove any possibility of convincing them not to be racist. It feels good to yell "racist racist" but it doesn't solve the problem, on the contrary.

Nate is very committed to the idea that black people are inherently more violent than white people. A naive interpretation of the data supports that, so we can either shout "racist racist" or we can present an alternative hypothesis:

1) We observe that black people, being on average more poor than white people, commit more crimes.
2) We conclude that black people are inherently more violent than white people.
3) We design an institutionally racist criminal justice system to unfairly target black people, creating lifelong barriers to earnings potential that perpetuates the income disparity between the two groups.
4) The crime statistics from an institutionally racist criminal justice system, based on *convictions,* will show an even greater tendency towards crime then can be explained just by income, further supporting Nate's erroneous conclusion.

I propose to Nate that the only way to prove who is right, me or Nate, is experiment for at least a few generations with reforming the criminal justice system to stop unfairly targeting black people, at least for non-violent crimes. If incomes among African Americans rise, and crime drops, then I'm right. If the tendency to be convicted of violent crimes stays higher even despite a rise in income, or if incomes don't rise because African Americans are genetically incapable of taking advantage of wealth generating opportunities in the United States, then Nate is right.

But, I further propose, Nate cannot legitimately conclude that African Americans are inherently violent without doing this experiment.

I further further propose, to the board, that trying to convince people like Nate to consider an experiment, where we stop targeting African Americans for non-violent crimes, is a more productive discussion to have than shouting "racist racist."

It's got nothing to do with whether it is possible for people to be inherently, unchangeably racist, and whether Nate is such a person. It doesn't matter.

We live in a passively racist country, where our fear of minorities has lead us to create an institutionally racist criminal justice system. A white person with no experience of what it's like to live as a minority in the United States, presented with conviction statistics and an unsophisticated approach to econometrics (forgiveable for a non-economist), might reasonably conclude that African Americans as a group are indeed inherently violent. The number of people in this country who fall for this fallacy is extremely large, and it includes liberal urban dwelling white people. Yelling "racist racist" at someone honest enough to say "but isn't this what the facts say?" is really not helpful.

I appreciate your attempt at debating on the matter honestly. But you are incorrectly summarizing why I believe blacks (on average, as a population group) are intrinsically more violent. There are other ways of examining the issue that do not rely upon data from the criminal justice system. For example, Ron Unz performed a study of homicides in cities over 250,000. He didn't look at convictions, or identity of murderers. He simply looked at the number of murdered people - a number that is pretty difficult to fake or show any sort of racial bias. He then compared that number to the racial composition of the city. He then calculated the population weighted cross correlations. The result is as follows:



Basically, there is an extremely high correlation between number of blacks present and number of homicides. There is modestly negative correlation with all other races. This has nothing to do with racist cops or racial bias in the justice system. It's just dead bodies and black people. The same pattern shows up in other types of crime BTW.



I'm also aware of the affect of poverty on violent crime. Poor people commit more crime than wealthy people, and blacks are more likely to be poor. But wealth issues are only a very small contributor. When adjusted for wealth, blacks still commit a lot more homicide than whites:



And of course, we could simply look at country data. Countries that are mostly black commit murder at alarming rates, even ones that are administrated by blacks who presumably wish to be fair to blacks. Countries that are white do not:


The same pattern holds at the county level in the United States:



But enough with the numbers. You are an economist and I'm sure you understand that we don't often get opportunities to run massive social experiments over a period of decades with perfect control groups. It would be nice to run the experiment that you suggest, but we both know it'll never happen. You have to go with the data that you have. For now, ALL the data we have, in whatever country, city or county you want to pick, whether you normalize for poverty or not, will show blacks having a higher violent crime rate than whites. At some point, you need to apply Occum's Razor.

[Dat2U]

I appreciate your attempt at debating on the matter honestly. But you are incorrectly summarizing why I believe blacks (on average, as a population group) are intrinsically more violent. There are other ways of examining the issue that do not rely upon data from the criminal justice system. For example, Ron Unz performed a study of homicides in cities over 250,000. He didn't look at convictions, or identity of murderers. He simply looked at the number of murdered people - a number that is pretty difficult to fake or show any sort of racial bias. He then compared that number to the racial composition of the city. He then calculated the population weighted cross correlations. The result is as follows:



Basically, there is an extremely high correlation between number of blacks present and number of homicides. There is modestly negative correlation with all other races. This has nothing to do with racist cops or racial bias in the justice system. It's just dead bodies and black people. The same pattern shows up in other types of crime BTW.



I'm also aware of the affect of poverty on violent crime. Poor people commit more crime than wealthy people, and blacks are more likely to be poor. But wealth issues are only a very small contributor. When adjusted for wealth, blacks still commit a lot more homicide than whites:



And of course, we could simply look at country data. Countries that are mostly black commit murder at alarming rates, even ones that are administrated by blacks who presumably wish to be fair to blacks. Countries that are white do not:


The same pattern holds at the county level in the United States:



But enough with the numbers. You are an economist and I'm sure you understand that we don't often get opportunities to run massive social experiments over a period of decades with perfect control groups. It would be nice to run the experiment that you suggest, but we both know it'll never happen. You have to go with the data that you have. For now, ALL the data we have, in whatever country, city or county you want to pick, whether you normalize for poverty or not, will show blacks having a higher violent crime rate than whites. At some point, you need to apply Occum's Razor.

I won't be as civil as Zonk. I'll call a spade a spade. Nate33, at the very least is intellectually dishonest. Which basically makes him a pathetic piece of sh*t. I could use the word "racist" to describe Nate and it would fit quite comfortably. However It also lets him off easy. I find racism & ignorance go hand & hand. The more racist a person is, generally the less educated they tend to be. I find no redeeming quality in a person that should be smart & educated enough to not draw conclusions based on skin color but does so anyway. I'm even more personally insulted when this a**hole tries to use statistics and science to make a case that someone like myself is predisposed to violence. That basically I'm not much better than an undomesticated animal b/c I don't know any better!

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Well Dat2U, I think you should say what you really think.


I don't visit this forum very often. I think Nate knows I'm black. I don't think he's a racist. I know he's not ignorant.

Some people believe **** are violent.

I've been arrested before and accused of threatening people's lives. Falsely accused of course. But I still went through a world of s*** in 2014.

Thankfully that's all better now.

I got too many real issues to care much about politics. People are going to be divided along color lines and gender lines and other biases forever.

Continue to have fun in this thread or continue to trash each other in this thread -- I don't give a f***.


Have a nice day




Sent from my Moto G (4) using RealGM mobile app

[nate33]

I won't be as civil as Zonk. I'll call a spade a spade. Nate33, at the very least is intellectually dishonest. Which basically makes him a pathetic piece of sh*t. I could use the word "racist" to describe Nate and it would fit quite comfortably. However It also lets him off easy. I find racism & ignorance go hand & hand. The more racist a person is, generally the less educated they tend to be. I find no redeeming quality in a person that should be smart & educated enough to not draw conclusions based on skin color but does so anyway. I'm even more personally insulted when this a**hole tries to use statistics and science to make a case that someone like myself is predisposed to violence. That basically I'm not much better than an undomesticated animal b/c I don't know any better!

In what way do you think I'm being intellectually dishonest. Is my data false? Do you have other data to prove otherwise?

I agree with you completely that one must not draw conclusions about individuals based on skin color. Individual blacks can be good or bad, bright or stupid, peaceful or violent, just like anybody else. Do you think I've treated you differently because you are black? I knew you were black the moment I joined this board because you used to have an "N" in your name. But for 15 years I've treated you fairly and honestly and have always praised your contribution to this board and your understanding of the game. Heck, I went to bat for you to rescind your ban from the General Board.

But treating people as individuals does not preclude one from recognizing patterns among large population groups. Me saying blacks are more likely to be violent than whites is no different than me saying men are more likely to be violent than women. It's obviously not true for every individual man and woman, but it's always true that a large population of randomly selected men will have a higher violent crime rate than a large population of randomly selected women.

I'm just applying pattern recognition. It's something everyone else does too, but I'm honest enough to admit it. How many nice white liberal guys on this board are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in property costs and endure longer commute times just to avoid living among blacks in the city and inner suburbs? They'll commute from freaking Frederick or Manassas instead of living in Glenarden or Cheverly. And if they happen to live in an area with a high percentage of blacks, I can guarantee that they're sending their kids to private school. Heck, rich blacks do the same thing. How many black congressmen live in the inner suburbs of Maryland or in eastern Washington DC? Nope, they'll live in Georgetown or Arlington.

[montestewart]

I won't be as civil as Zonk. I'll call a spade a spade. Nate33, at the very least is intellectually dishonest. Which basically makes him a pathetic piece of sh*t. I could use the word "racist" to describe Nate and it would fit quite comfortably. However It also lets him off easy. I find racism & ignorance go hand & hand. The more racist a person is, generally the less educated they tend to be. I find no redeeming quality in a person that should be smart & educated enough to not draw conclusions based on skin color but does so anyway. I'm even more personally insulted when this a**hole tries to use statistics and science to make a case that someone like myself is predisposed to violence. That basically I'm not much better than an undomesticated animal b/c I don't know any better!

In what way do you think I'm being intellectually dishonest. Is my data false? Do you have other data to prove otherwise?

I agree with you completely that one must not draw conclusions about individuals based on skin color. Individual blacks can be good or bad, bright or stupid, peaceful or violent, just like anybody else. Do you think I've treated you differently because you are black? I knew you were black the moment I joined this board because you used to have an "N" in your name. But for 15 years I've treated you fairly and honestly and have always praised your contribution to this board and your understanding of the game. Heck, I went to bat for you to rescind your ban from the General Board.

But treating people as individuals does not preclude one from recognizing patterns among large population groups. Me saying blacks are more likely to be violent than whites is no different than me saying men are more likely to be violent than women. It's obviously not true for every individual man and woman, but it's always true that a large population of randomly selected men will have a higher violent crime rate than a large population of randomly selected women.

I'm just applying pattern recognition. It's something everyone else does too, but I'm honest enough to admit it. How many nice white liberal guys on this board are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in property costs and endure longer commute times just to avoid living among blacks in the city and inner suburbs? They'll commute from freaking Frederick or Manassas instead of living in Glenarden or Cheverly. And if they happen to live in an area with a high percentage of blacks, I can guarantee that they're sending their kids to private school. Heck, rich blacks do the same thing. How many black congressmen live in the inner suburbs of Maryland or in eastern Washington DC? Nope, they'll live in Georgetown or Arlington.

Wow, suddenly the Politics Thread has a "who farted" feel, complete with an Occum's Razor, for that close AFM shave.

Nate, you're one of a handful of people I know who openly apply a razor sharp intellect to racialist hooey.

You've painted yourself into too many corners to leap out of all at once, but your statement:

But you are incorrectly summarizing why I believe blacks (on average, as a population group) are intrinsically more violent.

doesn't do much for your statement:

I agree with you completely that one must not draw conclusions about individuals based on skin color.

and you migrate back to the original sentiment with:

I'm honest enough to admit it. How many nice white liberal guys on this board are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in property costs and endure longer commute times just to avoid living among blacks...

What a mess! A bottomless file cabinet of stats and facts supporting the lesserness of blacks, but I wonder why you have bothered to compile such an arsenal of data to support a claim that you surely know is getting no mileage around here. Who are you trying to convince?

[gtn130]

I'm just applying pattern recognition. It's something everyone else does too, but I'm honest enough to admit it. How many nice white liberal guys on this board are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in property costs and endure longer commute times just to avoid living among blacks in the city and inner suburbs? They'll commute from freaking Frederick or Manassas instead of living in Glenarden or Cheverly. And if they happen to live in an area with a high percentage of blacks, I can guarantee that they're sending their kids to private school. Heck, rich blacks do the same thing. How many black congressmen live in the inner suburbs of Maryland or in eastern Washington DC? Nope, they'll live in Georgetown or Arlington.

Buddy, let me explain something to you:

You live your life believing that everyone is racist like you, but the elitist PC culture liberals choose to self-censor as a form of virtue/class signaling. You're wrong. Beyond the other provincial pearl-clutching racist cowards over at Breitbart, literally nobody believes the bull you're spewing.

Additionally, it's pretty hilarious (and telling) how you conclude white people don't want to live with black people because they commute from Manassas into DC or whatever. I'm pretty sure people do that because they just want more land and a bigger house lmao. But, no, in Nate World it's because they're all secretly racist like him!

[gtn130]

Guys, remember, to our knowledge Nate has never said anything racist before. Let's cut him some slack, folks.

[dckingsfan]

I think regardless of statistics there are three issues that need to be addressed. The falling rates of crime, The economic consequences of dealing with incarceration and the remedies we apply to those convicted of crime.

First, we should note that crime rates are falling and have been falling for many years. We should build on this, shout about this. Instead, tough on crime is still the louder messages from the media. They are doing us a disservice.

We had a long set of posts previously showing that incarcerating our people for long periods of time hurts us economically. Moreover, we can no longer afford this at the state and local level. Municipalities are literally going bankrupt. We need to figure out a way to break the prison industrial complex. This is a near term imperative for many states and communities.

Lastly, it is becoming clear that incarcerating those for minor offenses to then turn them into profession criminals is really stupid. Additionally, we now have studies that show that individuals become far less violent in time. So, the remedy of long-term incarceration vs. long-term rehabilitation is a very poor choice (see the Netherlands).

So, even with the statistical data - it is clear that our current methodology of dealing with crime hurts our current path of reducing crime, hurts the economy and is a terrible way to deal with those that have committed a crime.

[nate33]

You've painted yourself into too many corners to leap out of all at once, but your statement:

But you are incorrectly summarizing why I believe blacks (on average, as a population group) are intrinsically more violent.

doesn't do much for your statement:

I agree with you completely that one must not draw conclusions about individuals based on skin color.

and you migrate back to the original sentiment with:

I'm honest enough to admit it. How many nice white liberal guys on this board are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in property costs and endure longer commute times just to avoid living among blacks...

What a mess! A bottomless file cabinet of stats and facts supporting the lesserness of blacks, but I wonder why you have bothered to compile such an arsenal of data to support a claim that you surely know is getting no mileage around here. Who are you trying to convince?

I'm honestly struggling to see the inconsistency that you seem to think is obvious.

Let's look at height to take the emotions out of this. Any individual can be tall or short. Some are extremely tall and some are extremely short. There is a bell curve distribution of height among all humans, with the average male being about 5-8 and the standard deviation being about 3 inches. However, the bell curve distribution of height among Scandinavians (who have an average height of 5-11) is different than the bell curve distribution of height among Vietnamese (who have an average height of 5-4). If you told me I was drafting a center for my Y-league team, and my only choices were a randomly selected Scandinavian and a randomly selected Vietnamese, I'd be racist and take the Scandinavian. However, if I was choosing between Sven the 5-7 overweight accountant on my cul-de-sac, and Nguyen, the 5-9 triathlete who lives down the street, I'd take Nguyen despite my clear prejudice against Vietnamese basketball players.

Well, the same applies to violence and blacks and whites. If I'm meeting an individual black person, I don't assume he is violent and I take the time to get to know him if appropriate. But if I'm moving to a brand new neighborhood and I'm choosing between one that is 90% black and one that is 90% white, I can be pretty damn sure that the white neighborhood will have a lower crime rate and that's going to factor into my decision. Have I made a logical error? Do you honestly think that most other people wouldn't have made the same decisions that I made in those two scenarios?

[gtn130]

Oof

Nate, buddy, it's that you think black people are genetically predisposed to violence instead of the far more obvious and commonly accepted belief that black people commit more crime because of massive socioeconomic factors and institutionalized inequality.

[nate33]

I think regardless of statistics there are three issues that need to be addressed. The falling rates of crime, The economic consequences of dealing with incarceration and the remedies we apply to those convicted of crime.

First, we should note that crime rates are falling and have been falling for many years. We should build on this, shout about this. Instead, tough on crime is still the louder messages from the media. They are doing us a disservice.

We had a long set of posts previously showing that incarcerating our people for long periods of time hurts us economically. Moreover, we can no longer afford this at the state and local level. Municipalities are literally going bankrupt. We need to figure out a way to break the prison industrial complex. This is a near term imperative for many states and communities.

Lastly, it is becoming clear that incarcerating those for minor offenses to then turn them into profession criminals is really stupid. Additionally, we now have studies that show that individuals become far less violent in time. So, the remedy of long-term incarceration vs. long-term rehabilitation is a very poor choice (see the Netherlands).

So, even with the statistical data - it is clear that our current methodology of dealing with crime hurts our current path of reducing crime, hurts the economy and is a terrible way to deal with those that have committed a crime.

I agree with all of this.

I think we need to revisit mental institutions. A lot of people are in prison because they are mentally disturbed and need help. They are neglected by society until they commit a serious crime, and then they are incarcerated. I think these people can be helped before they commit crimes, and even if they are institutionalized, the institutionalization is likely to be more humane and rehabilitative than incarceration. I read in article a while back that the frequency of mass shootings has doubled since the 1970's when we abandoned institutionalization.