Well it’s pretty clear that nicer prison cells don’t encourage recidivism when you look at the statistics. So basically it comes down to social drives/desires...
The will of the people has spoken and citizens of the USA _want_ to see inhumane prisons because they feel the inmates deserve it. I don’t even say that while standing on terribly high ground... Australian prisons are much closer to American ones than Norwegian ones... especially for non-white inmates.
TLDR... Shits fucked and the thing I want most from the whole BLM 2020 protest movement is meaningful prison reform. Because it’s a long path to social reconciliation and meaningful integration... but it’s not anywhere near as long a road to prison reform.
Unpopular opinion: why do we need this? The people in prison are by and large human trash who have brought so much suffering to humanity. The quality of prisons in the US roughly correlates with the class of crime. I’d let it be.
The legal system certainly need a change - and finally states are moving to decriminalize marijuana possession (as it should always have been).
On the other hand, there are crimes where you should certainly be in prison. Hard to argue that a child molester or murderer should be living in great conditions off taxpayer dollars.
And that’s the problem. Anytime someone brings up prison reform, the whole “child molesters” and “murderers” argument comes up to detract from the fact that the majority of people in prison are for minor crimes, not murder or child molestation. And if a majority were in prison for that, maybe there’s something wrong with the society.
> the majority of people in prison are for minor crimes
If you're talking about prison as in convicted and sentenced, I disagree. Prisons are overcrowded as it is. Minor/nonviolent criminals are not the ones serving time.
If you're talking about jail as in people who are charged and awaiting trial, yes you will find more nonviolent offenders there and they may not be able to afford bail so they are stuck there. Even then in most places space is limited and first-time offenders and those seen as low risk are not held.
> citizens of the USA _want_ to see inhumane prisons because they feel the inmates deserve it
While I think that's true, I also think it's missing another major argument: that prison is a deterrent. I don't know enough to agree or disagree, but it's a big part of the discussion.
My feeling is that Nordic countries can have nice prisons because their social safety net is so strong. Maybe they can argue that being a free, poor person in a Nordic country is still better than being in their prisons.
The same is not true in the US, especially when you consider how harsh our culture is toward people who suffer from drug addiction. Abject poverty is much, much worse than the prisons in this tweet, and we don't have good non-criminal options for people who are both poor and deeply addicted to illegal drugs.
You can imagine a poor person in the US (with or without an addiction) trying to steal from someone's house and ending up shooting someone. If they go to a dangerous, filthy prison, they're probably worse off than when they were free.
If they go to a Nordic-style prison, their lifestyle has actually upgraded quite a lot. My understanding is that the latter option, the Nordic prison, would reduce their likelihood of having to resort to crime in the future.
But the question is how much violent crime is deterred by fear of prison and whether the Nordic style of prisons would instill enough fear.
I think I'm on the side of having nicer prisons, but I don't really know enough about it.
Not a Nordic country, but the case still holds value: Japan apparently has a problem with lonely, old ladies doing minor crimes with the intention of going to prison where they are less lonely. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-03-16/japan-s-p...
So there is a danger of prisons becoming too attractive.
It's interesting though that the motivation isn't about creature comforts but about social connection. I wonder how much the reverse is true and not seeing your loved ones is a deterrent from prison. So much comes down to a healthy, connected society.
I think one of the biggest drivers in US prison conditions is cost. The percent of the population that is incarcerated is quite high. This would increase the per tax payer cost to support the system, while also shrinking tax revenue (people in prison generally aren't making money to pay tax on).
I agree that reforms are needed. It would also be great to see a reduction in the incarceration rate by relying on other punitive measures when possible. And that people actual get a speedy trial instead of waiting years. And officers/judges actually following rule of law.
I think the real root issue of all of this is that the majority of people have no idea or experience in how broken to system is. The idea that people deserve it, and even seen that many people don't laws/rights and simply assume someone charged is likely guilty.
> I think the real root issue of all of this is that the majority of people have no idea or experience in how broken to system is.
You think that the root issue is the majority of people who (according to you) have no idea how the system works, and thus are not at all involved in the system itself? How on earth does that make sense?
I think you are underestimating the ignorance of public. Take poll of people. Most won't know that you have to wait years to get a trial. Most won't know that the majority of cases never make it to trial and are resolved plea deals (some of which are innocent people pleading guilty to avoid sitting in jail because they can't afford bail). Most won't know their civil rights (ask them about Brady vs MD, Miranda, the 4th ammendment, etc). How many do you think understand jury nullification?
These people fund the system through their taxes. They sit on juries. They elect people who commit abuses and allow abuses to happen. Even the ones who have been a victim of the system may not know it, the extent that it is common, or the other parts of the system they have not experienced.
For example, you could have a summary offense filed against you and the officer might amend the charge at the trial. If you aren't given a continuance, then it could violate your rights. If the change was made because the officer made a mistake and you didn't realize/understand it, if he will possible lie to the judge and say the change was for leniency (concealment of exculpatory evidence). At the very least, you wouldn't witness prison conditions for most summary offenses. For reference, approximately 8% of the population has been convicted of a felony and less than half of them have served time in prison. So the people with firsthand prison experience will be quite low (guessing less than 10%, but couldn't find those numbers).
Your article is irrelevant - and doesn't even support your claim. The article simply states that ordinary citizens have the least effect on policy creation (and they, self-admittedly, offer no data on how effective other participants are). Not that they have no effect. In fact, the purpose of a democratic republic is to provide protections against mob rule by limiting persons' individual effects. You are misinterpreting their study and misapplying it in your argument. Had your argument been valid, then you would be wasting your time anyways - why argue with people who have no effect (definition of a troll)?
So while individuals have relatively little effect on policy creation, you are completely leaving out their participation in policy execution - a major component of my argument. People can file complaints against bad officers or judges. People can file lawsuits when their rights have been infringed (look at policies that were enacted and the payouts against police departments in big cities). People can generate a combined effect on policy creation through voting. An easy way to view this would be to ask yourself what policy changes should take effect if one party or the other took full government control as this requires individual participation as voters and would likely lead to lawsuits against those new policies.
"I bet it makes software engineers in Seattle or SF feel very good about themselves when they can blame the woes of society on the median income household, but maybe you should try to go after people who actually have an impact."
You complain about invalid premises yet you engage in ad hominem fallacies? I wouldn't presume to know what devs in those areas think. I think it's also a stretch to claim that anyone is blaming the median income households - plenty of higher income people are ignorant of the problems as they are disproportionately unaffected.
Yes. There’s many examples of people who wanted the absolute worst for criminals, but once someone they care about goes to prison, they change their tune pretty quickly.
People don’t dig into things that don’t affect them that much. And when the problem is on the news, it’s justified through cognitive dissonance with “they probably did something to deserve it”
You are conveniently ignoring primaries, which tend to have more choices.
So you claim that businesses drive the candidates and that it's a problem? If that is really the case, then you are arguing against yourself. The true power is people being able to vote and to create their own parties (protected in numerous laws and court decisions). Then the poor candidate choices would be the result of ignorance on the part of the citizens in not self organizing or seeing what is going on.
"business interests and a couple of large political parties"
Who comprises these institutions? People!
"But some people are just too comfortable to understand such things."
Your arguments would be more effective if you focused on creating coherent arguments rather than consistently engaging in ad hominem attacks.
The will of the people is besides the point. The policy preferences of the bottom 90% of the US population are not reflected _at all_ in actual policy making (a Princeton study from some years back).
It's impossible to demonstrate that - to what extent the population drives policy and practice in all matters in which the state has a hand is just too socially complex.
It’s extremely difficult to model what people actually want. Stated policy preferences change dramatically when you go from the general to the specific and ask people to make specific trade-offs. For example: https://reason.com/2014/07/10/millennials-prefer-small-gover...
> At first glance millennials appear to prefer a "larger government providing more services" (54%) over a "smaller government providing few services" (43%). However, once tax rates are mentioned support for large government flips. Instead 57 percent favor "smaller government, providing fewer services, with low taxes" and 41 percent want "larger government providing more services, with high taxes." We also find that the race/ethnicity gap on the size of government disappears among Hispanic, Asian, and white millennials once tax rates are explicit.
Most policy polls are useless, because they don’t ask voters what they’d be willing to pay or give up in another area for that particular policy. For example, support for universal healthcare plummets when you mention taxes and losing private insurance:
> But the more revealing part of the survey, I think, comes from the questions focused on the costs of single payer, all of which caused support for Medicare for All to drop below 40 percent. Told that it would eliminate private health insurance and require people to pay more in taxes, for example, support fell to 37 percent. Told that it would cause some medical treatments and tests to be delayed, support dropped even further, to 26 percent.
It’s also the case that in a Republican form of government, politicians are specifically charged with implementing specific policies that reflect the public’s hierarchy of preferences. Poll after poll shows the economy as the dominant concern of most voters. (Apart from this year when covid because a main concern.) People might, in the abstract say they favor taxing the wealthy and corporations more heavily. But when Election Day rolls around, they reward politicians (especially at the state and local level) who convinced a big corporation to move to their area and punish politicians who caused corporations to leave.
That’s not what the Princeton study said. Regardless, the policy preferences of individuals drive our punitive prison system. Even among non-white people, under 1/4 of people polled in 2016 say the criminal justice system is “too tough.” Among non-whites, 30% say it’s not tough enough, and 40% say it’s appropriately tough. https://news.gallup.com/poll/196568/americans-views-shift-to...
In 2003 just 8% of non-whites said the justice system was “too tough” and 57% said it was “not tough enough.” It takes time for changes in public preference to be reflected in changed laws. Especially since the people who actually vote in state and local elections (where criminal justice system is mostly handled) are older and more conservative than the whole population of people represented in polls. 2003 was a decade after the 1993 crime bill, and the people who are the most affected by the criminal justice system overwhelmingly demanded an even tougher system. You’re starting to see laws changing now but it’s going to be a long process.
I don't see any way around the enormous hatred and desire to inflict suffering that many Americans have for anybody convicted of any crime that carries any prison term. As you said, to them it's all about what people "deserve", and that ideology is one of the most fundamental and powerful poisons in societies - a part of the id that civilized nations seek to keep out of the government's decisions. It's something straight out of the dark ages. I would never blame a person who wanted to inflict suffering on somebody who personally wronged them gravely enough, but to want that emotion enshrined in the system is immoral in the most extreme way. On this topic, I don't think it's unnecessarily dramatic or ad hominem to say that the viewpoint of many Americans is evil.
The US justice system is obviously totally broken, but one would do well to remember the absolutely incredible side of the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund.
What money is spent on what, and where did the money come from? You seem to be in the know.
How much does it cost society when one percent of the population is incarcerated? But I digress; the US is not exactly a place which has been blessed in terms of access to natural resources so it’s an unfair comparison.
Is there a stigma that haunts former inmates upon release? In the US it seems ones career is essentially over once convicted of anything more than a traffic violation.
It's the same in the nordics. Most jobs check for a criminal record, even in smaller IT companies.
At least in Sweden, the outcome of being sentenced (losing your job, making it very hard to find a new one) is factored into the sentence (that is, they decrease the prison sentence due to these factors as more punishment will be had after release).
One would also do well to remember that Norway has a population of 5m, vs US at 325m. Norway is also 85% ethnic Norwegians (making for a pretty culturally homogenous society).
The United States is operating at a scale that may break the Norwegian system. I don’t know that it would, but let’s see the Norwegian system work at five times the size (25m) before even entertaining the idea that it would work at 65 times the size.
Race is important because people tend to support more punitive policies against transgressors of other races[1]. The demographics and the history of racial tension in the U.S. means that resistance to the Norwegian criminal justice model go far beyond considerations of cost.
There's also the significant disparity in criminality across races, as many other Western countries are discovering the hard way now too with the recent acute increase in diversity.
Sociologists can argue until they're blue in the face about why that is (and I'm sure everyone reading this has their view) but it's a fact of which the Norwegians perhaps have the privilege of relative ignorance compared to the historically diverse USA.
Is there actually a disparity in crime? Or just a reported one? If police believe blacks are more likely to commit crimes, they pay more attention to them and the cycle repeats.
FBI crime stats are a great source. For example, of murders in 2019, "Black or African American" accounted for 51% of murderers of known race (despite just 13.4% of the general population being black).
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
Less formally, and I'm quite serious, if you have the stomach for it I encourage you to explore the types of websites that inadvertently document these trends through amateur video (WorldStarHipHop being the classic example, but there are more confronting ones).
But crime rates do not by themselves entail retributive or punitive punishments. Because some demographic has high crime rates says nothing about the effectiveness of rehabilitative policies. People simply are more likely to have a punitive stance when the offender is of a different race.
>I’m always amused by how fixated Americans (even liberals) are on race in this matter. America is very diverse when it comes to ethnicities but it has a strong program of secular-national indoctrination, which results in a very homogenous culture considering its size.
Race in this case shows up because the mind wants to find an explanation for the discrepancy in social and public trust. Norwegians trust their institutions much more than Americans do. We also know that public trust was higher until the US's "lost decade" in the '70s and figure it probably depends on some factors that have been recently changing.
We look for instinctive, emotional explanations because we're interested in "forcing functions": it's not interesting to say that low-quality government caused by low-trust society leads to low-trust society because that postulates a universal dynamical property of social trust that doesn't really distinguish between societies. The hysteria surrounding the presidency of Barack Obama and the reputational endurance of a tyrant who came into the political limelight spreading ludicrous conspiracy theories about the same, in light of his significance as the first non-white POTUS, is one of many common-knowledge observations lending credence to the idea that racial resentment and mistrust drives an unwillingness to cooperate in American society. And then, of course, it's not really that easy to find truly well-run multiracial societies. Singapore and Israel have both invested in top-down integration and racial justice initiatives but resentment and discrimination stick around -- yet those are probably the best examples. Trinidad might be another example, but may be coasting on easy money from oil extraction.
> Norway is also 85% ethnic Norwegians (making for a pretty culturally homogenous society).
Can you cite a source that shows that this matters?
It's pretty obvious how the difference in methods between the two prison systems can easily explain the difference in outcome, without having to jump to the 'race/culture'-card.
Simply put, having prisoners cost money. You have to pay for housing them, and the opportunity costs of them not being able to contribute to the economy is probably many times bigger.
European systems recognize this fact, and try their best to get prisoners out of prison as fast as possible.
Prisoners in European systems can get counseling for mental problems, access to education, and the structure in the prisons allow the prisoners to adopt a 'normal' lifestyle. They are supposed to get up themselves in the morning, go to their education, or labor, and having time off in the evening to do their own thing.
Although American media often shows otherwise, most crimes can be explained by circumstance, rather than a particular 'evilness' of the perpetrator. Nobody wants to be a criminal. European systems help prisoners to live a life free of crime. American prisons make it harder.
“the opportunity costs of them not being able to contribute to the economy is probably many times bigger.”
Can you cite a source that shows this is true? Skip the weasel word “probably” and set the opportunity cost to be the contribution of someone with their education and (lack of) social skills and many times as something > 3 times.
There is no such thing as a “culture card”. If there is any “science” to the social science of sociology, there is a measure of ethnic and cultural cohesion to societies that may or may not explain behaviors. That’s like saying to an engineer, “Well, if you want to play the material hardness card...”
Cultural conformity makes for a more manageable and cooperative populace. I’m not telling you this is a worthwhile trade off so give the sensitivity a rest. This factor (cultural conformity) is a measurable difference (along with population) that makes an easy comparison to the US impossible. Again, when you can show the Norwegian system operating at a scale five times its current size and cultural complexity, then it starts to become a conversation. Right now you’re essentially telling New York City that Billings, Montana has all the answers to its crime problems. It’s a non-starter, and for the exact same reasons.
it's not that the american justice system is broken; it's that the american nation itself is broken...or perhaps it might be accurate to say that the american nation never really existed, and that nowadays the nation is a mere shadow of what was in the past only a pseudo-nation
One would do well to remember that cause has to come before effect. The Norwegian criminal policy is decades older than that fund.
One would also do well to keep in mind that the main effect of that fund is to block the state from spending money. Taxes are diverted to the fund from the budget where it could be spent on prisons or other things.
This whataboutism comes up every single time anyone mentions any difference between Norway and any other country. It completely misses several important facts, most importantly:
- The other Nordic countries are very similar socially even though they do not have this source of wealth.
- AFAICT[1] it's being spent on pensions, not infrastructure, education, or other social programs.
Sentencing in Nordic countries is also much less than what you would expect for a similar crime in the US, there is no death penalty and the prison system is focused on reforming inmates and getting them back into society. Basically the exact opposite of the United States prison system.
It’s not just the Nordic countries. In many European countries, such as Germany and Italy, someone serving a life sentence for murder is eligible to apply for parole after 15 years.
I take your point about the death penalty but it's application is extremely if not unusually rare in the US. I think around 20 people were executed last year.
Don't take these photos as representative of Swedish prison cells. The photos are obviously pre-use, most cells in actual use look as grubby by nicotine stains and heavy wear as you'ld expect after a few years.
Author makes some big claims without much evidence. The poor conditions of US prisons, and lack of focus on rehabilitation is I think pretty well known for anyone who cares, along with the opposite reality for Nordic prisons.
But you can't just throw your hands up and say, "money! corruption! racism!" and completely ignore that the American people asked for this system in response to rising crime waves. No matter how little corruption you get the American people as their thoughts stand today will never adopt the Nordic system.
Back in 2002 there was a prison riot in the prison in the town I went to uni in. It was over the conditions. The conditions (room size, toilets, etc) were better than my first year accommodation. I of course was paying rent for the privilege.
History repeats itself. In the 1980s the State of Alabama was sued by prison inmates over the same concerns about the conditions they lived in. At trial the State pointed out that the student dorm rooms at Auburn University were not only smaller than the prison cells, but students had to pay for the privilege of living in them. Don't know how much of a difference it made, but the inmates lost their case.
You know that Alabama has just been sued a few days
ago by the DOJ over their cruel prison conditions. These prisoners are sleeping in what looks like dozens of stacked bunks in a large open room, hardly college dormlike conditions. That isn't the main issue in the suit though, it's the state's failure to protect inmates from rampant violence and abuse.
“These prisoners are sleeping in what looks like dozens of stacked bunks in a large open room, hardly college dormlike conditions”
Nope, more like the condition those who volunteered to serve their country by putting their actual physical lives on the line have to live in, along with the “hard labor” of boot camp and training. All for $1602 per month US dollars to start.
Cyber criminals move to finland so of they get caught, they can live in a "prison" and continue to communicate with their coconspirators because they have internet access
Things are much of the same here in FIN. Prison is generally good quality and you can get a good education while serving time.
I don't have an optimistic long-term look on the system however. The idea of second chances and social equality has been burrowed so deep into most of the people that they've effectively forgotten that in order for a social security system like this to function, you need an input of resources into it. It is also a mixed blessing; a social security system that is too effective can be very passivating (why would you slave away doing cleaning work if you can get the equal resources for nothing?)
It has created a large, growing class of people absolutely dependent and unlikely to ever exit the system; ever increasing taxation is causing big brain drain; national debt has doubled in the last 10 years; purchasing power has shot down a fifth in the last 10 years, and so forth..
It also practically taboo to speak against the system, but personally I think to uphold such a system for the long term it would need constant scrutiny, balancing, and also potentially tearing down some structures every now and then. Now the mentality is just to drive more benefits for people using the system and more costs for people upholding the system.
85 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 153 ms ] threadThe will of the people has spoken and citizens of the USA _want_ to see inhumane prisons because they feel the inmates deserve it. I don’t even say that while standing on terribly high ground... Australian prisons are much closer to American ones than Norwegian ones... especially for non-white inmates.
TLDR... Shits fucked and the thing I want most from the whole BLM 2020 protest movement is meaningful prison reform. Because it’s a long path to social reconciliation and meaningful integration... but it’s not anywhere near as long a road to prison reform.
On the other hand, there are crimes where you should certainly be in prison. Hard to argue that a child molester or murderer should be living in great conditions off taxpayer dollars.
If you're talking about prison as in convicted and sentenced, I disagree. Prisons are overcrowded as it is. Minor/nonviolent criminals are not the ones serving time.
If you're talking about jail as in people who are charged and awaiting trial, yes you will find more nonviolent offenders there and they may not be able to afford bail so they are stuck there. Even then in most places space is limited and first-time offenders and those seen as low risk are not held.
While I think that's true, I also think it's missing another major argument: that prison is a deterrent. I don't know enough to agree or disagree, but it's a big part of the discussion.
My feeling is that Nordic countries can have nice prisons because their social safety net is so strong. Maybe they can argue that being a free, poor person in a Nordic country is still better than being in their prisons.
The same is not true in the US, especially when you consider how harsh our culture is toward people who suffer from drug addiction. Abject poverty is much, much worse than the prisons in this tweet, and we don't have good non-criminal options for people who are both poor and deeply addicted to illegal drugs.
You can imagine a poor person in the US (with or without an addiction) trying to steal from someone's house and ending up shooting someone. If they go to a dangerous, filthy prison, they're probably worse off than when they were free.
If they go to a Nordic-style prison, their lifestyle has actually upgraded quite a lot. My understanding is that the latter option, the Nordic prison, would reduce their likelihood of having to resort to crime in the future.
But the question is how much violent crime is deterred by fear of prison and whether the Nordic style of prisons would instill enough fear.
I think I'm on the side of having nicer prisons, but I don't really know enough about it.
So there is a danger of prisons becoming too attractive.
It's interesting though that the motivation isn't about creature comforts but about social connection. I wonder how much the reverse is true and not seeing your loved ones is a deterrent from prison. So much comes down to a healthy, connected society.
I agree that reforms are needed. It would also be great to see a reduction in the incarceration rate by relying on other punitive measures when possible. And that people actual get a speedy trial instead of waiting years. And officers/judges actually following rule of law.
I think the real root issue of all of this is that the majority of people have no idea or experience in how broken to system is. The idea that people deserve it, and even seen that many people don't laws/rights and simply assume someone charged is likely guilty.
You think that the root issue is the majority of people who (according to you) have no idea how the system works, and thus are not at all involved in the system itself? How on earth does that make sense?
I think you are underestimating the ignorance of public. Take poll of people. Most won't know that you have to wait years to get a trial. Most won't know that the majority of cases never make it to trial and are resolved plea deals (some of which are innocent people pleading guilty to avoid sitting in jail because they can't afford bail). Most won't know their civil rights (ask them about Brady vs MD, Miranda, the 4th ammendment, etc). How many do you think understand jury nullification?
These people fund the system through their taxes. They sit on juries. They elect people who commit abuses and allow abuses to happen. Even the ones who have been a victim of the system may not know it, the extent that it is common, or the other parts of the system they have not experienced.
For example, you could have a summary offense filed against you and the officer might amend the charge at the trial. If you aren't given a continuance, then it could violate your rights. If the change was made because the officer made a mistake and you didn't realize/understand it, if he will possible lie to the judge and say the change was for leniency (concealment of exculpatory evidence). At the very least, you wouldn't witness prison conditions for most summary offenses. For reference, approximately 8% of the population has been convicted of a felony and less than half of them have served time in prison. So the people with firsthand prison experience will be quite low (guessing less than 10%, but couldn't find those numbers).
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/15/us/poll-finds-only-33-can...
So while individuals have relatively little effect on policy creation, you are completely leaving out their participation in policy execution - a major component of my argument. People can file complaints against bad officers or judges. People can file lawsuits when their rights have been infringed (look at policies that were enacted and the payouts against police departments in big cities). People can generate a combined effect on policy creation through voting. An easy way to view this would be to ask yourself what policy changes should take effect if one party or the other took full government control as this requires individual participation as voters and would likely lead to lawsuits against those new policies.
"I bet it makes software engineers in Seattle or SF feel very good about themselves when they can blame the woes of society on the median income household, but maybe you should try to go after people who actually have an impact."
You complain about invalid premises yet you engage in ad hominem fallacies? I wouldn't presume to know what devs in those areas think. I think it's also a stretch to claim that anyone is blaming the median income households - plenty of higher income people are ignorant of the problems as they are disproportionately unaffected.
People don’t dig into things that don’t affect them that much. And when the problem is on the news, it’s justified through cognitive dissonance with “they probably did something to deserve it”
So you claim that businesses drive the candidates and that it's a problem? If that is really the case, then you are arguing against yourself. The true power is people being able to vote and to create their own parties (protected in numerous laws and court decisions). Then the poor candidate choices would be the result of ignorance on the part of the citizens in not self organizing or seeing what is going on.
"business interests and a couple of large political parties"
Who comprises these institutions? People!
"But some people are just too comfortable to understand such things."
Your arguments would be more effective if you focused on creating coherent arguments rather than consistently engaging in ad hominem attacks.
Edit: maybe this was it: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
> At first glance millennials appear to prefer a "larger government providing more services" (54%) over a "smaller government providing few services" (43%). However, once tax rates are mentioned support for large government flips. Instead 57 percent favor "smaller government, providing fewer services, with low taxes" and 41 percent want "larger government providing more services, with high taxes." We also find that the race/ethnicity gap on the size of government disappears among Hispanic, Asian, and white millennials once tax rates are explicit.
Most policy polls are useless, because they don’t ask voters what they’d be willing to pay or give up in another area for that particular policy. For example, support for universal healthcare plummets when you mention taxes and losing private insurance:
> But the more revealing part of the survey, I think, comes from the questions focused on the costs of single payer, all of which caused support for Medicare for All to drop below 40 percent. Told that it would eliminate private health insurance and require people to pay more in taxes, for example, support fell to 37 percent. Told that it would cause some medical treatments and tests to be delayed, support dropped even further, to 26 percent.
It’s also the case that in a Republican form of government, politicians are specifically charged with implementing specific policies that reflect the public’s hierarchy of preferences. Poll after poll shows the economy as the dominant concern of most voters. (Apart from this year when covid because a main concern.) People might, in the abstract say they favor taxing the wealthy and corporations more heavily. But when Election Day rolls around, they reward politicians (especially at the state and local level) who convinced a big corporation to move to their area and punish politicians who caused corporations to leave.
In 2003 just 8% of non-whites said the justice system was “too tough” and 57% said it was “not tough enough.” It takes time for changes in public preference to be reflected in changed laws. Especially since the people who actually vote in state and local elections (where criminal justice system is mostly handled) are older and more conservative than the whole population of people represented in polls. 2003 was a decade after the 1993 crime bill, and the people who are the most affected by the criminal justice system overwhelmingly demanded an even tougher system. You’re starting to see laws changing now but it’s going to be a long process.
How much does it cost society when one percent of the population is incarcerated? But I digress; the US is not exactly a place which has been blessed in terms of access to natural resources so it’s an unfair comparison.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say here, but that's the exact opposite of what I believe is true.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor...
At least in Sweden, the outcome of being sentenced (losing your job, making it very hard to find a new one) is factored into the sentence (that is, they decrease the prison sentence due to these factors as more punishment will be had after release).
In practice, though... At least it's automatically erased after (IIRC) five years, depending on severity.
The United States is operating at a scale that may break the Norwegian system. I don’t know that it would, but let’s see the Norwegian system work at five times the size (25m) before even entertaining the idea that it would work at 65 times the size.
[1] https://nicic.gov/race-and-punishment-racial-perceptions-cri...
Sociologists can argue until they're blue in the face about why that is (and I'm sure everyone reading this has their view) but it's a fact of which the Norwegians perhaps have the privilege of relative ignorance compared to the historically diverse USA.
Less formally, and I'm quite serious, if you have the stomach for it I encourage you to explore the types of websites that inadvertently document these trends through amateur video (WorldStarHipHop being the classic example, but there are more confronting ones).
Race in this case shows up because the mind wants to find an explanation for the discrepancy in social and public trust. Norwegians trust their institutions much more than Americans do. We also know that public trust was higher until the US's "lost decade" in the '70s and figure it probably depends on some factors that have been recently changing.
We look for instinctive, emotional explanations because we're interested in "forcing functions": it's not interesting to say that low-quality government caused by low-trust society leads to low-trust society because that postulates a universal dynamical property of social trust that doesn't really distinguish between societies. The hysteria surrounding the presidency of Barack Obama and the reputational endurance of a tyrant who came into the political limelight spreading ludicrous conspiracy theories about the same, in light of his significance as the first non-white POTUS, is one of many common-knowledge observations lending credence to the idea that racial resentment and mistrust drives an unwillingness to cooperate in American society. And then, of course, it's not really that easy to find truly well-run multiracial societies. Singapore and Israel have both invested in top-down integration and racial justice initiatives but resentment and discrimination stick around -- yet those are probably the best examples. Trinidad might be another example, but may be coasting on easy money from oil extraction.
Can you cite a source that shows that this matters?
It's pretty obvious how the difference in methods between the two prison systems can easily explain the difference in outcome, without having to jump to the 'race/culture'-card.
Simply put, having prisoners cost money. You have to pay for housing them, and the opportunity costs of them not being able to contribute to the economy is probably many times bigger.
European systems recognize this fact, and try their best to get prisoners out of prison as fast as possible.
Prisoners in European systems can get counseling for mental problems, access to education, and the structure in the prisons allow the prisoners to adopt a 'normal' lifestyle. They are supposed to get up themselves in the morning, go to their education, or labor, and having time off in the evening to do their own thing.
Although American media often shows otherwise, most crimes can be explained by circumstance, rather than a particular 'evilness' of the perpetrator. Nobody wants to be a criminal. European systems help prisoners to live a life free of crime. American prisons make it harder.
Can you cite a source that shows this is true? Skip the weasel word “probably” and set the opportunity cost to be the contribution of someone with their education and (lack of) social skills and many times as something > 3 times.
There is no such thing as a “culture card”. If there is any “science” to the social science of sociology, there is a measure of ethnic and cultural cohesion to societies that may or may not explain behaviors. That’s like saying to an engineer, “Well, if you want to play the material hardness card...”
One would also do well to keep in mind that the main effect of that fund is to block the state from spending money. Taxes are diverted to the fund from the budget where it could be spent on prisons or other things.
- The other Nordic countries are very similar socially even though they do not have this source of wealth.
- AFAICT[1] it's being spent on pensions, not infrastructure, education, or other social programs.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor...
But you can't just throw your hands up and say, "money! corruption! racism!" and completely ignore that the American people asked for this system in response to rising crime waves. No matter how little corruption you get the American people as their thoughts stand today will never adopt the Nordic system.
Is this a joke? Do you expect someone to convey a compelling case for a broken prison system in the space of a tweet?
https://eji.org/news/justice-department-finds-alabama-prison...
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/10/944879818/justice-dept-sues-a...
Remember that a typical American prison cell, shared by two to four prisoners, has a toilet in it as well. Not so in a college dorm.
Your story has gone around on Reddit but the ultimate source is this "bhamwiki" site which has no citations. https://www.bhamwiki.com/w/Auburn_University#Housing
Sounds like an apocryphal college legend to me. You're welcome to provide some better citations for it.
Nope, more like the condition those who volunteered to serve their country by putting their actual physical lives on the line have to live in, along with the “hard labor” of boot camp and training. All for $1602 per month US dollars to start.
I don't have an optimistic long-term look on the system however. The idea of second chances and social equality has been burrowed so deep into most of the people that they've effectively forgotten that in order for a social security system like this to function, you need an input of resources into it. It is also a mixed blessing; a social security system that is too effective can be very passivating (why would you slave away doing cleaning work if you can get the equal resources for nothing?)
It has created a large, growing class of people absolutely dependent and unlikely to ever exit the system; ever increasing taxation is causing big brain drain; national debt has doubled in the last 10 years; purchasing power has shot down a fifth in the last 10 years, and so forth..
It also practically taboo to speak against the system, but personally I think to uphold such a system for the long term it would need constant scrutiny, balancing, and also potentially tearing down some structures every now and then. Now the mentality is just to drive more benefits for people using the system and more costs for people upholding the system.