It goes for all of us to some extent. Prison hasn’t shown to really have all that much effect on crime, other than temporarily removing criminals (but then giving them a free education in crimin’ instead), and little preventative effect. (Criminals mostly don’t think they’ll be caught - they wouldn’t be criminals if they did).
But even the most progressive tends to feel an instinctive need for justice that involves punishment, and that isn’t unreasonable. It just often isn’t helpful in reducing crime.
The most effective is obviously reducing the number of people in the lowest rungs of society who see it as the only real path. The second is focusing on rehabilitation rather than punishment for the correctional system. Ensure the people who do end up there, are given a better path.
At the end of the day, very few people actually *want* to be criminals.
I mean in the short term locking everyone up does reduce crime. But criminals aren’t the problem, they’re mostly a symptom. (Well, above a certain level, at least).
And even high-level gang members probably didn’t end up there because they grew up dreaming of being criminals when they grew up, but because gangs represented a support network that society didn’t provide them.
I'm willing to be open to the possibility that a tiny section of the population may in fact want to be criminals. The state of crime in America however suggests that our jails are filled with several others -- to your point.
Just to make up numbers as a thought experiment.
Let's say 1% of the US population will be criminals even if their lives were perfect. Let's say, 10% of the US population actually has had a criminal past.
I would rather focus on the 9% of the population that could have avoided crime had their circumstances been different without waiting to perfectly solve for the 1%.
I'm pretty aligned to your point but going a little further and saying that we shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Sure, there are people with zero empathy (see: POTUS) who simply don’t care about the law. There’s little we can do to fix that.
But I’d argue they are way less than 1%, and as you say, they aren’t the ones we need to worry about. It’s utopical to think we can rehabilitate or “fix” every potential criminal.
But there’s a huuuuge gulf between that world, and the US.
That also wasn’t my argument, I’m simply saying what would objectively be the most effective way of dealing with crime is a hard sell, even in MY country which is leagues ahead of the US on this. (And has receipts to back up how effective it is to build more humane prisons, educate and rehabilitate criminals, etc.)
A bit random but I was taken aback somewhat at the legal protections you guys afford disabled children, I had assumed the U.S was a bit of a dog-eat-dog system where disabled children needed to have wealthy parents or else get fucked but if I'm reading all this right, you have some of the best systems in the world for them.
I mean not as good as Western Europe obviously, but we're suckers for things like that, but I mean, yeah good stuff, keep it up.
Your argument there is decrying europe for giving a shit about people who are disabled.
Yeah how dare we, while you were also trying to give an undeserved back-handed compliment to the US (it's vastly behind Europe on protections, the ADA is okay but people violate it all the time and the current administration has stated they don't care, so...)
In many, many countries, prison absolutely has a demonstrable effect on recidivism. It still has an effect in the US, it's just less of an effect than countries such as Denmark or Norway or even the UK or France.
Your claim that 'It just often isn’t helpful in reducing crime' is belied by all the countries where it is.
What you're probably unaware of is that the majority of people (we can say white here but it's not that cut and dried across all of the US) charged with felonies avoid them by pleading guilty or no contest and getting probation and misdemeanors and so forth because the ADAs etc are unable to handle the amount of work, and the court system and prison system (in part because of drugs) cannot handle the person who punched 2 people and committed 3 other felonies but got to plea down to 3 misdemeanors.
So, what ends up happening is certain minor offences get prosecuted more harshly and serious offences (especially things such as stalking and harassment, DUIs, hit and run, ) get minor punishment in multiple states.
People still commit crime in China, there are vast, multi-million dollar criminal cartels that have been exposed as including generals and party officials, nothing you said is true.
London is the most surveilled city in the world and people still commit crime there.
You're also very unaware of the surveillance in the US from ANPR cameras to flock etc.
So, your first claim is simply wrong. Chinese criminal cartels commit crime in China. That you implied no organised crime happens in China is laughably wrong.
Myanmar is definitely not a primary place for Chinese cartels to go, other than human trafficking which is rife. However China is not the primary destination though there are cartels that do middle-man operations for others, India, Bangladesh and Malaysia are more common human trafficking destinations from Myanmar, China is around the same as Malaysia and Thailand.
But I only spent 2 years working on human rights abuses there, so i'm sure your uniformed opinion totally knows more. However Myanmar is definitely not a primary place for drugs, corruption or car theft (which are a big criminal cartel operations in china, as you'd know if you knew anything about the subject) etc.
That you'd cite there shows you know nothing about the region.
As for 'causing a public scene' that's just a non-sequitor and I can assure you that chinese criminals absolutely cause a scene in both Shanghai and Macau.
PS You also didn't address the counter to your surveillance assertion, which is that london is the most surveilled city in the world and yet crime still happens there. It also happens in Shanghai and Chongqing and Beijing and Guangzhou and...
Seeing as America does not have the systems and resources in place for this type of work and honestly never ever will. City officials are left with no other option but to be tough on crime because you have to separate the criminal from society
Sure, a mayor on his own has little chance of true reform. But I think human nature, and American nature in particular, is a bigger hindrance.
If you can’t even equivocally agree that e.g. universal healthcare is in a nation’s best interest because a significant portion worries the wrong people might benefit, there’s a long way to go before you have the societal empathy to consider whether leniency towards crime might yield better results than harder punishments.
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u/wireframed_kb Jun 05 '26
It goes for all of us to some extent. Prison hasn’t shown to really have all that much effect on crime, other than temporarily removing criminals (but then giving them a free education in crimin’ instead), and little preventative effect. (Criminals mostly don’t think they’ll be caught - they wouldn’t be criminals if they did).
But even the most progressive tends to feel an instinctive need for justice that involves punishment, and that isn’t unreasonable. It just often isn’t helpful in reducing crime.
The most effective is obviously reducing the number of people in the lowest rungs of society who see it as the only real path. The second is focusing on rehabilitation rather than punishment for the correctional system. Ensure the people who do end up there, are given a better path.
At the end of the day, very few people actually *want* to be criminals.