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Comment by chroma

3 years ago

Recidivism rates are astonishingly high in all countries. Norway has the lowest at 20% within 2 years. The real rate is higher because most crimes aren’t solved. So in the best case, rehabilitation makes someone 300x more likely to commit crime than the average Norwegian.

27 comments

chroma

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modeless  3 years ago

It's unfair to say it "makes" them that way. They were incarcerated because they already proved willing to commit a crime. It failed to change them back into an average citizen, sure. Understandably a very difficult problem. It's quite possible that it makes them worse instead of better but we'd need different evidence to show that.

  • closewith  3 years ago

    The average citizen in every country is already willing to commit a crime. The difference between the average criminal and you is a couple of meals.

    • morgante  3 years ago

      This is completely untrue and does a tremendous disservice to the many impoverished people who do not become criminals.

      > The difference between the average criminal and you is a couple of meals.

      This is an insane point of view! Most criminals aren't stealing food.

  • BirAdam  3 years ago

    Not everyone who is incarcerated committed a crime. Some are in custody for having marijuana which has since been decriminalized in some areas. Others are there because they plea bargained due to pressure. Almost no one who is in custody ever had a trial despite this being a “right” in the USA.

    • modeless  3 years ago

      We're talking about averages here. Certainly there are plenty of individuals wrongly incarcerated, etc.

halffullbrain  3 years ago

By that logic, the worst possible recidivism rate (surely 100%) would make someone 1500x more likely to commit crime than a non-offender. That’s still a pretty good case for having effective rehabilitation (unless you insist on the death sentence for all prisonable offences)

  • chroma  3 years ago

    You don’t have to execute them, just lock them up until they’re too old to be a threat.

    I’ve been a victim of violent crime at least a dozen times in my life. I wasn’t the first victim for any of my attackers. Far from it. And I wasn’t the last. Every single one of them escaped. They probably got caught on some other occasion, and maybe they spent some time in prison for that crime. And then they got out and continued robbing and assaulting innocent people. They’ll keep doing this as long as they are physically able.

    I don’t really care what happens to them, because they’re basically constantly-exploding bombs that force the rest of us to pay more in taxes for police, invest in more security systems, avoid certain areas at certain times, and generally worry about safety much more than we otherwise would. Most criminals have been given countless chances to not commit crime, and they keep doing it. The sooner they’re separated from society, the better off we’ll all be.

    • andai  3 years ago

      >I’ve been a victim of violent crime at least a dozen times in my life.

      I can't think of a way to say this without sounding insensitive, but have you considered moving?

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