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Here's a little bit of incomplete thinking about the classic "13/53" number, which is a ballpark figure (varying year to year) that represents the fact that black people are overrepresented by a factor of about 5x in crime. I see a lot of people tend to interpret this number as "black people are 5x more likely to commit crimes", but that might not actually be the case.
Concretely, there's two ways this stat could come about:
a. There are 5x as many black criminals per capita and each black criminal commits crimes at 1x the rate of white criminals.
b. There are 1x as many black criminals per capita and each black criminal commits crimes at 5x the rate of white criminals.
There is of course a continuum between them, but I think it's useful to focus on the two endpoints because the endpoints have totally different policy responses and also suggest totally different causes.
For example, the policy response to (a) is that we need more police to catch a lot more black criminals. The policy response to (b) is that we need longer prison sentences for the criminals we have in order to prevent the same guy from doing 4 more crimes.
They also suggest different causes. Scenario (a) suggests something (HBD, special kinds of poverty not reflected in census stats) causes blacks to have a higher criminal propensity, whereas (b) suggests police might just be extra lenient towards black criminals thereby giving them more time on the street in which they commit more crimes.
Interestingly, while the theory of police abandonment will get you cancelled today, it was very much the theory pushed by black community leaders in the 90's. It was one of the things leading to "3 strikes" laws (long prison sentences for the 3'rd crime in order to get rid of the very worst criminals).
I have recently discovered some weak evidence in favor of theory (b) while going down an internet rabbithole on a totally different topic. Specifically, look at the first graph in this analysis:
https://github.com/propublica/compas-analysis/blob/master/Compas%20Analysis.ipynb
The "decile score" of the x-axis is a reasonably predictive index of a convicted criminal committing new crimes. The dominant features in the model generating the index are things like "# of previous crimes", "was the current crime violent", etc. As can be seen from the graph, white criminals are overrepresented on the left tail (little repeat crime risk) of the graph, whereas black criminals are spread evenly. Of course, this evidence is very weak - it's only about criminals up for parole in a certain region of Florida.
Does anyone know of more data on this?
I wanted to comment on this bit specifically because it's reflective of the conflation that happens everywhere on this subject with criminal justice policy and policing policy. I think under-policing in deprived neighbourhoods actually is a problem, and as you say most black leaders and the black public broadly did and do agree with this. Getting more police on the streets is a good thing. However, this is a completely different area to criminal justice policy. The academic consensus seems to be that, within reason, what really deters crime is not harsh punishments but the high clearance rates - actually catching more criminals. So more police is definitely part of the solution to crime, but once criminals have been caught I think the evidence in favour of meting out very harsh punishments is minimal.
There's two methods of stopping crime: deterrence (not committing a crime due to fear of getting caught) and incapacitation (not doing crimes because he's in jail). Most of the "harsh sentences don't work" arguments are based on ignoring incapacitation.
But this is exactly where it's important to distinguish between scenario (a) and (b) in my comment above.
Suppose the average criminal commits crimes at a rate of 3/year between age 20 and 35, meaning that in the absence of policing his career will consist of 45 crimes. Two methods of policing:
a. Put a lot of effort into clearances, solve 2/3 of crimes, and lock him up for a year. He commits an average of 1.5 crimes before getting locked up for a year, meaning every 1.5 years he commits 2 crimes and then spends a year in jail. He commits 10 crimes before age 35. Total crimes = num_criminals x 10, total jail time = 10 years.
b. Solve 1/3 of crimes and lock them up forever. The criminal successfully commits 3 crimes before getting caught on average. He's locked up forever and has committed 3 crimes before his 35'th birthday. Total crimes = num_criminals x 3, total jail time = 14 years.
In this scenario, for doubling clearance rates to work even as well as harsh prison sentences, it would need to cut num_criminals by 70%.
In a "few criminals, lots of crimes/criminal" scenario, even a low clearance rate results in any individual criminal eventually getting caught.
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Incapacitation shouldn't be overlooked. A small percentage of people is undeterrable and will commit a hugely disproportionate share of total crime if they are able to do so. They need to be identified and locked up as long as they remain undeterrable. Roughly, this cohort is largely male, aged 16-35, and disproportionately black. The main benefit of 3 strikes laws is that it is a mechanical fallback that achieves this objective in a way that is immune to special pleading and undue sympathy from judges. It's a hard thing to give a 19-year-old a 20+ year sentence when you're faced with the tear-stained face of the kid and his sobbing family all dressed in their Sunday best and clutching the kid's old teddy bear, surrounded by earnest ACLU types unloading the best emotional weapons that the entire field of social justice has developed, but there are many cases where it is absolutely vital to do so.
Every cop I've ever asked for their take has told me the following story- these kids don't make it to 18 without committing crimes that would be worthy of harsh punishment if we were willing to carry it out. Most of these crimes are relating to substances, firearms, or assault. That 19 year old armed robber has lots of juvenile charges that were dismissed because juveniles don't get prosecuted unless they do something horrible.
Most will proceed to blame this on broken homes and a lack of corporal punishment. But it seems like being willing to lock up juveniles is a necessary patch if we can't bring back 50's families.
When you live in the city adjacent a high crime neighborhood (like I used to) you constantly notice people doing things that would be an immediate arrest in the suburbs. Teens drinking and smoking marijuana around garbage can fires, for example. Contrast this with a suburb where 11 teens being a little loud inside of a house at 9:30 results in 4 squad cars pulling up and arresting everyone involved. Heck, I was once tackled and handcuffed at the age of 21 for "underage drinking" in my friend's backyard. The difference is stark. And the enforcement gap seemingly grows as crime gets worse. Armed robbery in that area of the city happens weekly, if not daily, and happened once in my hometown during my 4 years of high school. And it wasn't a small town, certainly 2-3x the population of this particular crime ridden neighborhood. Its like a 1000x incidence rate.
The thrust of these cops’ story is that after they’ve been arrested for a beating, or carrying a gun in a burglary, or whatever, they’re subsequently let go without charges by the people who actually make charging decisions. A lack of arrest for public marijuana use is probably a symptom of that, not a cause.
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I think Becker was probably wrong that criminals would do an EV calculation on getting caught and therefore reasonable punishment is probably not itself a deterrent (most criminals are dumb and therefore wouldn’t do the right EV calc).
But is there a lot of evidence that incapacitation doesn’t affect future crime? That is, I can buy that harsh punishments have little effect on a particular criminals decision BUT I can buy that harsh punishment can affect the population of criminals.
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Walmart has this policy or always calling the cops. more stores should adopt this, but perhaps in some areas cops are busy and do not get involved for such small crimes, so criminals target those stores and areas. It depends if the DA actually files charges.
I would imagine that someone involved in more serious crimes might be persuaded to avoid shoplifting if it at least means that the police arrest them.
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This is why I said 'within reason'; clearly, if you decrease punishments enough you'd get to the point that potential criminals would not see it as a considerable deterrent. However, the point is that above a certain point you get diminishing returns, and the 'tough on crime' sentencing policies usually touted like three strikes laws are at the point where your returns have diminished to almost nothing.
As others have said, 3 strikes isn't about deterrence. The cohort subject to 3 strikes have already shown to be non-responders to intervention. Thus incapacitation via long term incarnation to protect the public.
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Sure, but is that because of a deterrent effect scaring Johnny the cop stabber into cleaning up his life, or is that because of long prison sentences meaning he just doesn’t spend enough time on the street to commit the same number of cop stabbings?
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This is especially true when the criminal community is high in narcissism and fractured into competing gangs, as they see themselves as fundamentally different than their opps (opponents) in character and predestination. The music that they listen to celebrates criminality and are essentially odes to egomania. Once they learn that a single opp committed a crime and got away with it, their competitive egomaniacal drive tells them that they can do the same, even if they know of many instances where other perpetrators were caught.
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Another factor in favour sterner punishment, is that it prevents recedivism even if it has no deterence effect. A criminal behind bars can't predate on the innocent, even if would be criminals do not see him as a cautionary tale.
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