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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35390 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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Optimistic evaluations state that the best treatment programs can reduce recidivism by between 10 to up to nearly 40% (Lipsey, M. W., och Cullen, F. T (2007) page 303). Somber analysts have pointed out that the lower bound of 10% is probably the more realistic one (Sipes, Jr, Leonard A. 2016). Even these figures are possibly optimistic, seeing as only 2% of serious crimes lead to convictions, it is possible that a substantial amount of criminals who are deemed to be rehabilitated, in fact merely develop better techniques for avoiding prosecution over their lifespans.

I think this part of it. Unreported crime is not part of the stats.

A government report from Swedish crime prevention agency reached the same conclusion: "Developments in recent decades with significant efforts put into, for example, social- and labor market politics, taking place parallel with a strong increase in crime — gives a clear indication that improved economic and social conditions generally does not reduce crime."

I agree. This is why store detectives are trained to screen for everyone, not just single out people who fit a certain stereotype of a shoplifter. Yes, teens may be more likely to shoplift overall, but plenty of older people, even people in suits do to. I think the Nordic incarceration 'miracle' is somewhat oversold and I think ignores factors such as unreported crime, or other factors. I am really skeptical.

I first realized that the welfare crime linkage was mistaken when studied crime rate change since World War II. Improved welfare and economic changes, especially for the 1960s and 1970s, correlated with more crime! I next recognized something was wrong with the hypothesis when I learned that Sweden's crime rates increased 5-fold and robberies 20-fold during the very years (1950 to 1980)

Yup, these European countries have surprisingly high levels of crime, [https://imgur.com/SnwgD83] which runs against a popular media narrative that those countries have superior criminal justice systems. Of course, some of this may be due to immigration, and crime stats may not delineate between native populations and immigrants or second generation immigrants. Pickpockets have been a problem in Europe forever.

As I said in the past here on a thread here a 3 weeks ago, I think long prison sentences are an effective deterrent against most crimes (except possibly impulsive crimes), particularly white collar and organized crime. The Five Families, from its peak of power in the early 80s, in the span of a decade dissolved by the early 90s, in large part due to huge sentencing guidelines...sentences were so long that everyone ratted on each other, bosses were sent away for life, and the crime network collapsed. Certainty of punishment matters too, if having to choose between longer sentences vs. certainty, but if sentences are too lenient than instead of being an effective deterrent it becomes a cost of doing business, which you don't want if crime prevention is your objective. This is why some major Mafia families avoided dealing with drugs, because the risk of prison was so high that it wasn't worth it.

Mafia families are very much a specific set of crime, that was crime as a business. That’s a very small percentage of a criminal population. Chicago’s murder issues are not protecting some profitable business. And those people are the types who fail the marshmallow test. So long sentence do less to prevent crime. And a broken windows theory works better.

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