Land of The Free (1 Viewer)

[RickER]

I wouldnt of said it.

Nevermind on my question.

 

[Holadem]

Eh thanks Chuck. I was starting to wonder if I was writing in English . A friend of mine, appalled at those numbers, seriously advocated a harsher penal experience, including forced labor. I his experience, people he knew who had been in jail just weren't afraid enough of going back.

Needless to say I disagreed with his solution, but the point is that even someone whose approach to the problem would be the polar opposite of mine needed no convincing that there is a problem to begin with, that those numbers just aren't good.

--
H

 

[Garrett Lundy]

A significant portion of our prisoners are imprisoned for DUI and drug possession charges. I for one think that is a good thing, would you be happier if they were all murderers? If that were the case you could hardly leave your home without being killed! We are fortunate that our criminals are so non-violent.

That could be used in the tourism pamphlets: The United States; Our convicted felons are relatively harmless, imagine how nice your waitresses will be!

 

[drobbins]

It is not bad for those who are being protected from crimes. It is bad for those who have committed them. It also has a price tag. We all have one life & they have freely chosen to waste theirs and are being punished. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying they shouldn't.
Just asking: Why do we have the highest number? Do we have more/stricter laws that put people in jail or are we just better at catching the bad guys? As a result, is the USA the safest place to live?

 

[Brandon_T]

Maybe its because we have the best law enforcement personnel that help catch the criminals? We are willing to pursue it farther to get the conviction?

 

[drobbins]

You know... When I first posted this, I was surprised at the statistics and honestly I didn't give much thought to how this would work with the forums rules

. This could very easily go down a wrong road. Thanks for being civil. Maybe we should return to our regular scheduled Britney thread.

 

[ThomasC]

What countries do you think have more freedom?

 

[Holadem]

This might help:

Democracy Index - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(PDF of the actual report is here: http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/D...EX_2007_v3.pdf)

Freedom in the World (report - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

--
H

 

[KurtEP]

At the very least, these statistics suggest that whatever we are doing to fight crime isn't working. When it comes to criminal justice, I want something that works and is cost effective. Incarceration seems to accomplish neither goal that well. Despite the high incarceration rate, there are still plenty of places in my city I where I wouldn't walk after dark.

If I had the time (and I don't), I'd dig through the state by state data. Of course, you'd need to know what people were doing time for and some idea of how the states' penal code works, but it would be instructive to know whether a few states are driving this, or if it's an overall malaise.

 

[Kirk Gunn]

Hmmm... would be interesting to research what % of the Soviet Russia populace was incarcerated when the gulags were running at full capacity.

Would also be interesting to consider punishment types in comparative countries. Perhaps other countries allow you to get pay a fine, versus doing time. Or, their punishments are so draconian that the populace lives in fear of certain behavior, while we can "push the envelope" with only the fear of a minor punishment.

Another theory I recall reading (though I can't place it), is that countries reporting their "criminal" incarceration were categorizing "political" prisoners under different reporting rules so the numbers are skewed low. Believe this was for a UN study, I'll try and track down the source.

But Steve has a point, we should impress this 1% of our population into the Armed Services to protect the world's oil - somebody's gotta do it !

 

[Chuck Mayer]

Well, I think we are as competent at fighting crime as anyone, but perhaps not as good at PREVENTING it.

I agree we are a bit harsh on drugs, but I'd argue we aren't hard enough on DUIs, a most irresponsible crime.

Thomas, I don't say that to knock our democracy. I think that we have more laws than some Eurotrash countries so they might be a bit more free.

 

[Eric_L]

I disagree about DUI enforcement to a degree. The prohibition crowd has gone overboard with BAC. Even the founder of MADD walked away from the zealots. A few years ago I saw a study which proved that a person with a .08 BAC is no more impaired than a person speaking on a cell phone. (I've yet to see a study which compares a person speaking on a cell phone vs speaking to a live person in the vehicle - but I'd bet it is similar)

The US incriminates too many people for nominal infractions of ridiculous standards. The accountant with a .08 BAC is not the one running over a busload of nuns. The loser with a BAC of .25 is - and they probably have been arrested several times and had their licenses suspended - yet our justice system does little to prevent them from repeating themselves. For more on this see getMADD.com BAC, .08, madd, lies, crash, statistics, ridl, alcohol, use, abuse, drinking, drunk,

Rather than ruining the lives of innocent people they should be working on enforcement and punishment of the actual dangerous offenders.

We also have a nation which is still too entwined with puritanical values and questionable double standards. Have consensual sex with a woman in CA who is intoxicated and you could be accused of rape - even if you are intoxicated also. Impregnate a 17 yr old and you are a pedophile. (Did you know that estimates are that the Virgin Mary was about 15 at the time of the immaculate conception? Given our standards what would that say about Joseph or even God? ) We have a guilty until proven innocent system of law when it comes to a womans word against a man's. (Duke Lacrosse anyone?)

Something else the US has which few other nations have to deal with is considerable ethnic diversity. Most nations in the world are fairly ethnically homogeneous. Racial tensions comparable to the US simply don't exist in places like Finland, Japan or Iran. There just isn't enough of a minority to matter and their history is limited. Considering the close proximity of so many different peoples in the US it is little wonder that the crime rate between races is so high. (And on a pro-rata basis you may be surprized to find it is not white people who commit the most so called 'hate' crimes)
Hate crimes is another - what a friggin oxy-moron. We punish the crime AND the motive? Killing someone because they are a different race is worse than killing someone because they looked at you funny? If there are 'Hate Crimes' are there also 'Love Crimes'? 'Don't-really-like-you-very-much crimes' and 'used-to-like-you-but-changed-my-mind crimes'?

Political pressures, puritanical hypocrisy and ethnic tensions (lack of common community) are the primary reasons the US has such a high incarceration rate. What is the solution?

I would suggest step one would be eliminating the more stupid laws and raising the definition of poor behavior to actual poor behavior. That alone would free up the court systems and prison systems considerably.
Step two - stronger enforcement for dangerous offenders. Step 3 - social engineering - strengthen families and communities. One effective way to discourage domestic abuse is a very assertive brother in law. Step 4 - Eliminate social barriers which separate people by race, religion, gender, orientation or whatever. Initiate a common language, common cultural values. Different colored people can still have a homogeneous culture - and that would go very far in creating 'community'.


On a side note - freedom and incarceration are one issue - but what about other freedoms? Try building onto your house, operate any business, work in most professions, hunt, fish or operate a vehicle without first getting permission from the government. Until they issue you a license you are NOT free to do it. Try this - open a bank account without giving them your social security number or name. Can't do it - and it is not the BANK who needs that - it is so they can be in compliance with the government - essentially being an agent of the government. Try getting phone service without giving your name and ssn. Try it with cable, utilities, anything. It is virtually impossible to get most services in the US without giving detailed information about yourself which has little relevance to the actual product or service you are buying... We have become so used to giving that information that nobody ever really asks "exactly why does the pre-paid cellular phone company need my name and social security number if I am pre-paying for my minutes?"

Free? My ass.

 

[Edwin-S]

Deleted.

 

[drobbins]

Eric,
I do agree with a lot of what you are saying in concept, but some of your examples are not freedoms, they are organizational laws. We have all seen movies from the 30s before traffic laws. Think driving in a city is bad now, imagine if it were unregulated. Needing a permit to paint you house is too much, but having regulated building codes is a good thing. The cool thing about it though. Small neighborhoods are free to in act silly laws like painting your house a certain color, and you are free not to have to live there. Now if the state or feds were doing it, that would be a different story.

 

[Eric_L]

Traffic laws are actually a perfect example of bureaucracy run amok. They began with the express intent of regulating traffic - a noble and sound use of government powers. At some point the emphasis turned form regulating traffic to revenue production and enforcement for enforcements sake. Remember the 55 speed limit and how it was supposed to save lives? When it was finally raised lo-and-behold traffic deaths went DOWN....
Or - look at how much is spent on traffic enforcement (roadblocks, patrols, cameras, etc. ) yet something as elementary as maintaining and managing existing traffic signals is neglected to the point of they have a substantial negative effect on traffic. http://www.ite.org/reportcard/2005/NTS_ExecSummary.pdf

crap - gotta go to work... Oh well - you can infer the rest of my point - and traffic enforcement is only a convenient parallel to other inefficient government beurocratic programs which impune or freedoms.

 

[KurtEP]

I attribute this problem at least in part to the media. As crime rates go down (and they have dramatically over the past few hundred years), crimes become rarer, so they become a news event. Now, a random mugging is something to talk about instead of just another happening. Of course, the media makes it look as though we are in dire danger every time we step outside our house. If they can't find crime in their area, they'll go outside of the area to find something tragic.

The net result of this is creating an atmosphere where people feel a lot less secure than they should. Of course, people react to this by clamoring for tougher laws and longer jail sentences.

Annoying, but I don't have any answers as to what can be done about it.

 

[Lew Crippen]

This premise is not correct. The national 55MPH speed limit was imposed during OPEC’s oil embargo in 1974. The purpose was to reduce gasoline consumption, not to save lives (although this may well have been mentioned or emphasized in the effort to make the reduction palatable).

I was not aware that traffic deaths went down in 1995 when the limit was removed and I’d be interested in seeing some data—of course some States (e.g. Pennsylvania) have 55 MPH speed limit laws except for limited access highways so the data needs to be normalized, something I’m sure was done.

And I assume that there was a corresponding increase in traffic deaths when in 1974 when the limit was put in place. Will you point me to that data as well?

 

[KurtEP]

I've seen those statistics as well, but I don't have them readily at hand (Car and Driver published them a few years ago). The point was that auto deaths have been on a downward decline for a few decades, due to dramatically increased safety in autos. This trend continued after the speed limit went up because cars were so much better. Had cars remained the same as they were in 1974, this might not have been the case. The point seems to be that people are still arguing for increased speed enforcement for safety, when much of it is done for revenue.

 

[Lew Crippen]

That’s why one needs to look at the 74 and earlier stats as well as the post 95 numbers. If there were a death/speed correlation, then it would occur both when the limits were reduced and when they were increased. My initial thoughts were along your better car/safety lines Kurt, mostly because the statistic quoted was deaths and not accidents. If accidents remained constant (or went up or down) while the death count declined, that might well indicate that cars were being constructed with safety in mind (certainly my Acura is a far better car from that perspective than was my Olds Cutlass of that period)

But in any case the 1974 nationwide speed limit was put in place to save fuel, not for reasons of safety.

 

[KurtEP]

It's tough to make any kind of real comparison there, unfortunately, since cars now are so different. From the few pre 1974 automobiles I've owned or driven, I remember wandering steering, dire handling and lousy tires. Toss in better brakes, and the changes are bound to have an impact on accidents as well as deaths. My interpretation of the statistics is simply that speed had far lower impact on death rate than automobile construction. I don't think it makes sense to argue that speed has no impact, just that it's too small to worry about too much. It seems to have a much greater impact on fuel mileage.

In any event, I'd argue that even increased administrative local laws and regulations reduce freedom, sometimes even more than more sweeping federal laws do. The problem is that freedom is a virtue, but it's not an absolute one. 100% freedom is anarchy. I don't want to live under that any more than I want to move to North Korea. The question with how much/little freedom you have is where to draw lines and how much you are giving up when drawing them. I'd argue that if you take away freedom (both to do something and someone's individual freedom), you need to get something back. The evidence suggests that we have a lot of laws and incarcerations but aren't getting as much back for them as a country such as one of the Northern European Scandinavian countries that seem to favor a balance tilted differently.