site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   36201 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

20
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

So it looks like WNBA’s Brittney Griner’s 9-Year Prison Sentence Upheld In Russian Appeal Court.

One thing I find interesting about the whole ordeal is the similarities between her case and the Jan6 detainees, in both an hostile government dishes disproportionate punishment to a member of an opposing tribe.

While I feel for Ms. Griner I can't help, but chuckle at the parallels and remind myself that in the real world there aren't good guys, just your guys and theirs.

Jan. 6 detainees say a D.C. jail is so awful that they'd like a transfer to Guantanamo

Jan. 6 detainees say a D.C. jail is so awful that they'd like a transfer to Guantanamo

Glossing over the performative nature of this gesture, you'd think the travails of the Jan. 6 rioters would engender a degree of sympathy for criminal justice reformers. Instead, the reaction seems to be outrage that Upstanding Citizens like themselves should be subject to the same conditions as common criminals.

If they were subject to the same conditions as common criminals, they'd have been released without bail and then had the charges quietly dropped.

If this is how common criminals are treated, how does the US end up with one of the highest incarceration rates in the world?

I assuming you're asking in good faith. If not, please pardon the overlong answer.

The United States is nearly unique among countries of the world in that it has both a high rate of violent crime and also the state capacity to investigate and prosecute crime. In the 1980s and 1990s, a "tough on crime" stance prevailed as the political consensus, epitomized by tough mandatory sentencing and "three strikes" laws. During this period, the prison population swelled and violent crime rates plummeted.

Things have changed since then. A new consensus formed, especially in blue states, that prior sentencing laws were too strict. Many localities elected district attorneys and judges who took an extremely lenient stance on crime. This was also exacerbated by the Covid epidemic when jailing criminals was seen as unsafe to their health. The per capita prison population peaked in 2008, and the murder rate reached a low in 2014.

Today, in many cities such as San Francisco and Seattle, criminals are routinely released on no bail even when they have several prior convictions on their record. In some cases, they immediately commit serious crimes upon release. While the most serious offenses are still prosecuted, most arrests never lead to charges or prosecution.

A new consensus formed, especially in blue states, that prior sentencing laws were too strict. Many localities elected district attorneys and judges who took an extremely lenient stance on crime. This was also exacerbated by the Covid epidemic when jailing criminals was seen as unsafe to their health. The per capita prison population peaked in 2008, and the murder rate reached a low in 2014.

I don't deny that incarceration rates have significantly dropped in recent years (esp pandemic-related), but that doesn't support claiming that common criminals get "released without bail and then have charges quietly dropped". If that's how "common criminals" are being treated, is the implication that the 2 million or so people currently behind bars are by definition uncommon?

They can be considered legacy criminals. The new kind get the kid glove treatment, unless otherwise ideologically indicated

but that doesn't support claiming that common criminals get "released without bail and then have charges quietly dropped".

That is precisely what's happening in many jurisdictions in the country. The 2 million people in prison are there from other jurisdictions or from long ago. A high percentage of common criminals are very much having charges quietly dropped in places like Seattle and San Francisco.

No, they are common criminals who were jailed under older, less lenient policies, because the incarceration rate lags policy changes that affect the flow of incarceration. And despite that lag the rate has decreased several times faster than it increased even during the most murderous years of American history.

Come on man. The whole "it's not happening" thing gets really old. I get it if you support prison abolition or whatever, but why not just be forthright about it?

Right, you tried to hand-wave away the 400,000 or so people in pretrial detention by claiming they are there for murder. It would be helpful if you were more precise with your claims, and maybe if you brought forth actual evidence.

As someone involved in criminal defense you're aware the US incarceration rate has already plummeted due to such policies, and the advocates say they will not stop until it drops to zero.

So I'm curious why you asked the question, really.

You made a claim about "common criminals". Are you implying that the 2 million people currently behind bars are by definition "uncommon"?

  • -10

The incarceration rate in state and local prisons has dropped to its lowest level since 1990 despite serious crimes such as murder increasing by 30-40%+ in the last few years. Are you suggesting that common criminals are still being jailed at the same rates, or do you acknowledge the enormous policy changes that have caused this?

bailey: "common criminals get released without bail and then have their charges quietly dropped"

motte: "the incarceration rate has gone down in recent years"

In fairness your original comment was rather ambiguous, but had you just claimed the latter I wouldn't have taken any issue.

The flow of new criminals into incarceration has slowed dramatically despite skyrocketing crime rates due to criminals now being released without bail even after multiple offenses

If crime was plummeting you could claim that the burden of proof was on me to prove the incarceration drop wasn't simply due to everyone becoming more law-abiding. But the "crime isn't going up, you're just imagining things" tactic failed back in 2021, and everyone responsible already swept it under the rug.

Actually, that's something I'd love to ask our local forum historians about, because I distinctly remember those claims being made even after the 2020 murder rate stats came out.

More comments

Because we have an unusually high rate of uncommonly violent criminals. Please don't make me do the whole Norwegian Prisoners argument.

Do you think this accurately reflects the state of criminal prosecution in the United States, and if so, how do you account for the hundreds of thousands of people in pre-trial detention?

There's an awful lot of multiple felons in on murder charges who even "abolitionists" can't get released without bail. It's not complicated.

You think there are 400,000 people in pre-trial detention for homicide?

For one thing, because the median time to release from state prison is only 1.3 years and trials take far too long, you would always expect a significant proportion of people to be in pretrial detention even with very high bail rates. And those who have their charges dropped don't even enter the statistics (until they're rearrested enough times to finally be held without bail).

Here's an interesting case study from NYC, where pretrial detention rates halved after the new law let most suspects free without bail. By 2021 their detention rates had reached the old level due to increased crime rates and rollbacks to the bail law requiring detainment of people who committed felonies while still out on probation. The comptroller stresses that bad people are trying to draw a connection between leniency and all the new crime, but that he will acknowledge No Evidence for this. He finishes his report with a demand to defund the police and prosecutors, which will definitely solve the problem this time.

So yes, my take would be that both criminal suspects and convicts were suddenly treated very leniently. Then the crime rate exploded and COVID happened, and now we're back to having a high number of people in pretrial detention--and even higher proportional to the number of convicts due to how many of them were released.

Here's the Prison Policy Initiative chart of what they're in for. I dunno, "only" 16k are for murder charges, but the rest seems like pretty bad stuff on the whole.

I'm trying to find a source for how many held in pretrial detention were already in the legal system for something else before the current offense. It's only 10k for simple parole violations, but that doesn't account for "we brought this guy in for burglary and he was already on probation/out on bail for a burglary offense"

Also gotta see if I can find the same chart from 2019, see if COVID backlog changed anything.

Guys like prisonpolicy are such a research rabbit hole because you know there's useful stats they're very carefully not putting in the infographic, buried somewhere in appendix C of some BJS report.

The Prison Policy Initiative, the group pushing the 400,000 number you're quoting, attributes it to the median bail cost for felony charges at 10,000USD which is apparently out of reach for the demographics typically charged with a felony.

Was this intended as a refutation of the 400,000 number? It seems like you're suspicious the number is real but all you've offered is pointing out that the organization has a leftist agenda.

I offered their reasoning as well which was far more than the original uncited argument. Activist organization provided numbers are generally suspect and InfluenceWatch is somewhat reasonable in terms of mapping various activist networks so it seemed a worthwhile inclusion. Infer why someone bothered to check the source of a specific numerical claim all you want.

More comments

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats