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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023

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this: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/dofp12.pdf says 52% of inmates are in for drug offenses and only 4.8% for violent offenses. If everybody who is in jail for drugs were convicted of violent crimes, I don't think there would be 10x difference. In fact, 44% of marijuana convicts and 48% of cocaine convicts have no previous criminal history.

This is a quirk that is the result of plea bargains. Possession crimes are impossible to beat without a 4th amendment violation so everyone cops to that and gets the other stuff dropped. Or its not even charged in the first place because the cops just picked up a bunch of people fleeing a crime scene and don't have the time to bother.

To the extent that actual mere possessors are picked up, unfortunately they tend to be from wealthier super-safe suburbanites who do live in a bit of a police state due to the problem of the efforts required to avoid urban spillover.

Or its not even charged in the first place because the cops just picked up a bunch of people fleeing a crime scene and don't have the time to bother.

That very well may be the case, but in this case I don't think we have much basis for the claim that all of them were violent dealers? I mean, just fleeing doesn't really give us enough data to make such a conclusion, does it?