Incarceration, studied

 From here:

Conclusion

For four decades, the U.S. has been engaged in a globally unprecedented experiment to make every part of its criminal justice system more expansive and more punitive. As a result, incarceration has become the nation’s default response to crime, with, for example, 70 percent of convictions resulting in confinement — far more than other developed nations with comparable crime rates. Our new analysis of incarceration rates and crime rates across the world reveals that the U.S.’s high incarceration rates are not a rational response to high crime rate, but rather a politically expedient response to public fears and perceptions about crime and violence.

Today, there is finally serious talk of change, but little action that would bring the United States to an incarceration rate on par with other stable democracies. The incremental changes made in recent years aren’t enough to counteract the bad policy choices built up in every state over decades. For that, all states will have to aim higher, striving to be not just better than the worst U.S. states, but among the most fair and just in the world.

...

Notice how even "enlightened" California has higher rates of caging people than most other NATO countries. Even the U.S. most "enlightened" states (e.g. Massachusetts) have incarceration rates that exceed the supposedly terrible dictatorships like Iran and Cuba.

Meanwhile, Sacramento County just voted to expand its jail with a $450 million addition. The City of Sacramento is going to purchase an armored vehicle ("The Rook") for the police. Supervisor Frost excitedly states in her latest newsletter about how (finally!) we're going to be able to compel non-criminals to take their medication. That's right, our justice system is going to beat those non-criminals until their morale improves.

And no, Supervisor Frost did not talk about spending $450 million on treatment facilities for the mentally ill homeless, or some housing vouchers. Just to remind you: the City of Denver experimented with giving homeless people housing vouchers and found arrests declined by 40%. Seventy-seven percent of those who took those vouchers stopped being homeless.

So...my question: how bad does it have to be before we do something different?

Just asking...

 

 

Update #1: Police are now either lazy or incompetent. Excerpt:

Since clearance rates have been declining for decades and since the response to that has been to increase budgets, there really is no reason for police to do their jobs. In fact, not doing their jobs is probably the strategy that works best: it’s easier, they get to say crime is out of control and claim that more money is needed.

If not doing your job leads to more money not less, why do your job, especially when you’ve been trained to think it’s a dangerous job, when being a policeman isn’t even as dangerous as being a farmer, logger, or fisherman.