Comment by p-e-w
2 years ago
> It is the perfect combination of crap.
I think that's being way too charitable.
In a world where people are incarcerated on a scale unprecedented in all of human history, and where prosecutorial success is measured by number of scalps taken, the assumption that this is plain malice designed to let the state rob a few more individuals of their freedom makes much more sense than it all being just a big pile of incompetence and misunderstandings.
> the assumption that this is plain malice designed to let the state rob a few more individuals of their freedom makes much more sense.
Of course it makes much more sense that there was a massive conspiracy across the medical, legal, prison industry, and press to put more people in prison. Rather than some doctors and legal professionals assuming SIDs was a simple explanation for a not very well understood medical phenomenon probably with many causes.
>Of course it makes much more sense that there was a massive conspiracy across the medical, legal, prison industry, and press to put more people in prison.
Not like it hasn't happened before. And you're overestimating the required massiveness of the conspiracy IMO.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
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In a world where people are incarcerated on a scale unprecedented in all of human history,
This is only true, because prior to these times, people were killed instead. Or beaten to within an inch of their lives. Local "justice", lynching, mob action, used to be far, far more common.
And of course, many people used to be worked to death. Or sold into slavery. Or die from horrid conditions in jail. Or forced into the foreign legion.
While I agree that something may be wrong in the US, there are many regions in the world where the above still happens.
> This is only true, because prior to these times, people were killed instead. Or beaten to within an inch of their lives. Local "justice", lynching, mob action, used to be far, far more common.
Hm, sounds like an assertion that ought to be checked by a historian, possibly ACoUP's blog? (Yes, the one who writes about Rome, he is sometimes featured in HN). He specializes in demolishing misconceptions people/Hollywood have about history.
For example, many historians have been writing, recently, about how medieval society was far less brutish and cruel than portrayed in pop culture. There were laws, rights the monarch gave their subjects, culture, etc. Lots of what we "know" about the middle ages from Hollywood is simply wrong.
Lots of what we "know" about from Hollywood is simply wrong :)
If you're interested in how criminal punishment changed from medieval times, Medieval Crime Museum is outstanding. https://www.germany.travel/en/cities-culture/medieval-crime-...
Source? Incarceration rate seems to be going down in western countries: https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/07/1096042
Their source could be your source, which you seem to be very seriously misreading.
> As the global population grew 21 per cent, between 2000 and 2019, the number of prisoners worldwide jumped by more than 25 per cent, according to the UNODC data.
So, worldwide trend is upward.
> While Northern America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe have experienced a long-term decrease in imprisonment rates of up to 27 per cent, other regions and countries, such as Latin America, Australia and New Zealand, have seen up to 68 per cent growth over the last two decades, the study revealed.
So apparently your definition of “western countries” includes sub-Saharan Africa but excludes most of Europe and all of Australia and New Zealand?
Overall your own source supports their point and contradicts your own.
> So apparently your definition of “western countries” includes sub-Saharan Africa but excludes most of Europe and all of Australia and New Zealand?
To be honest the text you are quoting doesn't talk about Western Europe at all, and I think if you exclude Western Europe, then "Northern America + Eastern Europe" is most of what remains of "western countries". Australia and New Zealand, while part of western countries, are so small that they are basically insignificant for statistics.
The data in the source[0], though, says the number of prisoners in Europe as a whole (as well as Northern America) has decreased (Figures 10, 12, and 13) confirming what GP said. Eastern Europe is quoted specifically because the decrease has been much more important (basically, the numbers are becoming similar to Western Europe).
There's no question that the trend in the West has been a decrease in incarceration rate, with Australia and New Zealand clear outliers.
[0]https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics...
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The scale of incarceration is still unprecedented. A reduction by 27 percent doesn't change that. Imprisonment was an extremely rare phenomenon for much of history (as was police, for that matter). Today's incarceration rates would have to be reduced by 99+% in order to reach pre-modern levels, where large cities often had only a handful of cells in total, and rural areas had none at all.
> Imprisonment was an extremely rare phenomenon for much of history (as was police, for that matter).
And crimes weren't solved, people not prosecuted, criminals not punished
For much of history life didn't even exist, that's not an argument for or against anything
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To be fair, for much of history there weren't enough resources for everyone, much less for keeping people fed for free in a prison for decades. For serious crimes you just got executed as soon as possible.
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well, you were beaten or killed for a lot of crimes- some only perceived.
So, one may perceive incarceration as an improvement.
Unfortunate. It frankly needs to go up in Western countries to get to half-decent crime rates.
>designed to let the state rob a few more individuals of their freedom
"The state" doesn't benefit in any way from locking people up. In fact, it costs them money (both directly and in lost taxes from the lost salaries and wages of those incarcerated).
An argument could be made that prosecutors benefit from higher incarceration rates through the incentives you described. And an argument could definitely be made that private corporations paying well-below-market rates for prison labour benefit.
Politicians benefit from locking people up because it gives them an easily measurable way to look "tough on crime".
Good point.
You think states don't benefit from spending more money? They're just like other organizations who try to expand their budgets year over year.
Except they can force people to pay them more, all they need is plausible justification (like combating crime, or terrorists, or drugs, or viruses, or whatever the current societal scare happens to be about).
Also, keep in mind, it costs the taxpayers money, not the people running the criminal justice system. They're motivated by climbing the ladder and scorekeeping.
I hate to break it to you, but the prison system has been the premiere, essential job-creation program for these United States ever since Appomattox 1865.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...
https://www.aclu.org/news/human-rights/captive-labor-exploit...
We got 800,000 or so right now. Fight unemployment? Lock more people up.
Yep and there are some specific product that rely heavily on prison labor- license plates come to mind.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37667150.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
"Sufficiently advanced ignorance/apathy is indistinguishable from malice"
> the assumption that this is plain malice designed to let the state rob a few more individuals of their freedom makes much more sense
That's a lot of work, a lot of malice, a lot of hate, from a lot of people, for a very meagre result.
If that's how you view your government you must live a really painful existence
It's just people "doing their jobs" and trying to get ahead.
That's the banality of evil.
Lest we forget the very systems enabling this behavior of banal evil were created and maintained by perhaps the most evil of them all.
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> for a very meagre result
Power is not a meagre result. For those people who live by it, it is the ultimate goal, and they will use any means to obtain and expand it, no matter the cost to others.