Eliminate poverty by promoting a middle class. That means increase federal spending on schools, improve public transportation, universal health care, treat addiction like the health problem it is... ...just for a start.
Racial inequalities in American justice
- Thread starter Willy
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John99 said:
I know it's not your fault, but I really wish someone would have challenged the crack statistics six or seven years ago, when I started using them. In the meantime, I'm having a little bit of trouble finding my original source.
However, in the spirit of your criticism, I'm sure you can provide evidence that the dealers are getting prosecuted. Oh, and I should also point out that by "dealers", I include the kingpins and midlevel bosses who generally walk while the mules and users serve time.
It is impossible, since we are all the same species. Why would I not like someone just because they were convicted in our crappy system of a "crime"?
Willy said:
I try to assess people according to who they are, not some stupid label demanded by half-wit fanatics.
It is possible, Willy, to have a statistical correlation contained within an ethnic group in a specific setting. However, it is inappropriate to transfer that correlation to an assertion of cause in such a manner that blames the ethnicity alone.
For instance, in certain minority communities (e.g. hispanics, blacks) there are characteristics of machismo that attract some attention. I don't get the tough-guy attitude, I don't think it's smart or useful. The machismo even endangers the people who live by it, and not just in the guns and gangs way. There are a number of ill effects: it increases violence, reduces trust between members of a community, creates fear, and contributes to higher STD rates among blacks and hispanics.
It's not a matter of blaming blacks or hispanics for people who behave like this. I find white machismo at least as disgusting. And therein lies a point: it's not about ethnicity. In repressed communities, the social mechanisms that disarm idiotic notions like machismo are not as readily available. The reasons for the changes are less apparent.
Tell you what, Willy. Let's do an experiment. Let's give a bunch of black people a whole lot of money, allow them to follow the same historical processes as whites (including the enslavement and oppression of whites), organize centuries of government effort against whites on behalf of the black money, and after about two hundred years, we can tally up a milestone report. You'll find at least two important results: (1) Whites will behave poorly, and (2) Established blacks will blame the poor behavior on people's whiteness.
The only real correlation between ethnicity and violent crime is that oppressed ethnicities do not perform as well as established and protected ethnicities. This works pretty much for any group. Look at heterosexuality where it's at least partly closeted (e.g. teenagers, prostitution, &c.); it's a disaster. The farther into the closet you stuff it, the more dangerous it becomes. Behavior differently constrained will produce different results.
Consider the idea that of blackmales born in 1980, only about half have survived without going to prison. (There's still three years left for them to round the number.) Think of it: a third of them were dead by their eighteenth birthday. A third of the remainder would or will encounter a prison cell before their thirtieth birthday (e.g. 2010). These statistics haven't moved much since the 1980s.
So consider, please: half the black male population has done time. There exists a stigma against ex-cons that is as much the fault of the criminals as it is the justice system that expects our prisons to be rehabilitative without putting any effort into it.
Crimes some twenty years ago, then, still reverberate within society. There is a population out there trying to carry on beneath an unjust burden. Do we look to the burden, or blame the blackness? Blaming the blackness is the simple solution for simple minds. Considering the burden and its myriad implications is more difficult. Flip a coin if you can't decide, but your hint is that the simpleton's solution is untenable and not demonstrable.
In the end, that there is a greater statistical concentration of crime among dark-skinned minorities tells me more about crime than it does the dark-skinned people.
A black man is still a man. A black woman is still a woman. They're both human beings.
Approach it with an eye toward human nature and processes instead of blaming skin color, and you'll find at once that you're treading neck deep in something quite unfamiliar to your arguments: honesty.
Now then, please provide some sort of affirmative thesis that can actually be explored, considered, supported, rejected, or otherwise treated in a rational manner. Untenable, inarguable, inflammatory assertions against skin color and ethnic heritage might make a person feel better, but they have no merit and do no real good.
tiassa:
Conjecture.
But then, I've noticed you have a habit of substituting hard evidence for a whole lot of words. As the old saying goes: "If you can't dazzle em with brains, baffle em with bullshit! Haw haw."
I'd like to see some sort of statistical backing for the above. Demonstrate that poverty is the primary cause of the high crime rate in black communities.
This will involve explaining why Asians, an ethnicity which is not coddled by white laws, and many of whom arrived in America with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, have a far lower crime rate than the poor oppressed blacks.
Conjecture.
But then, I've noticed you have a habit of substituting hard evidence for a whole lot of words. As the old saying goes: "If you can't dazzle em with brains, baffle em with bullshit! Haw haw."
I'd like to see some sort of statistical backing for the above. Demonstrate that poverty is the primary cause of the high crime rate in black communities.
This will involve explaining why Asians, an ethnicity which is not coddled by white laws, and many of whom arrived in America with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, have a far lower crime rate than the poor oppressed blacks.
No he's right. There have been some excellent studies on this; one resource-
http://www.amazon.com/Social-Outcas...4371347?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185233391&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Ostracism-Sil...2717219-4371347?ie=UTF8&qid=1185233391&sr=8-1
tiassa:
Only when you donate some cash to my Study Fund, which aims to demonstrate the inherent violent tendency of the negro.
And SAM, quoting a book title isn't exactly convincing. Especially when I have the suspicion that you probably haven't even read the book yourself.
You can argue that poor old blacky had a rough and tough time, which has resulted in him turning to crime. But this begs the question of why other ethnicities who have 'had it tough' have a far lower rate of crime. This includes the Asians, Hispanics, Italians and Greeks.
And given that there is now equal rights in America (in fact, I'd argue that reverse discrimination routinely occurs), there is no fucking excuse. In my opinion, people like tiassa fuck everything up. Some blacks have a victim inferiority complex, and then sympathizers like tiassa pat these blacks on the head, and soothingly tell them 'You're right, you're discriminated against, you have it oh so rough.' Hence, the black victim mentality remains, and they continue to sponge on others.
As Johnny Rebel once sang: "Quit your whingin', nigger.".
Only when you donate some cash to my Study Fund, which aims to demonstrate the inherent violent tendency of the negro.
And SAM, quoting a book title isn't exactly convincing. Especially when I have the suspicion that you probably haven't even read the book yourself.
You can argue that poor old blacky had a rough and tough time, which has resulted in him turning to crime. But this begs the question of why other ethnicities who have 'had it tough' have a far lower rate of crime. This includes the Asians, Hispanics, Italians and Greeks.
And given that there is now equal rights in America (in fact, I'd argue that reverse discrimination routinely occurs), there is no fucking excuse. In my opinion, people like tiassa fuck everything up. Some blacks have a victim inferiority complex, and then sympathizers like tiassa pat these blacks on the head, and soothingly tell them 'You're right, you're discriminated against, you have it oh so rough.' Hence, the black victim mentality remains, and they continue to sponge on others.
As Johnny Rebel once sang: "Quit your whingin', nigger.".
I have read the studies by Kip Williams; if you like I can link you to them.
I have quoted his work elsewhere in sciforums too; I actually attended a Sigma Xi conference where his post grads were presenting their work; they also work with the government and I was surprised by the breadth of applications of his work.
I suggest you actually read some of his work before reaching your own conclusions.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/e...ez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
He's even written on the effects of being ignored over the internet:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/e...ez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
I linked the books because they are more detailed and comprehensive, especially the one on Silence.
Is that how the evolution of Europeans happened, somebody gave a bunch of white people "a whole lot of money"?
Mountainhare said:
I overlooked this earlier. It's a simple answer: Different experiences will lead to different results. For instance, though exploited, Asians did not endure the slavery-war-emancipation-Jim Crow process. We could also draw some insight from Vonnegut's futuristic speculation (Hocus Pocus) that Asians are "honorary whites". As an Asian American, I can say that social acceptance of Asians has greater ties to money--the true equalizer in the U.S.--than character.
Hell, I've been beaten for causing World War II. And Korea. And Vietnam. I've been offered a moral out through genetics for the alcohol problem that has never come to fruition. But the one thing I never hear about when people actually praise my character is ethnic heritage. And well it should be. After all, I may still be an outcast or spectacle among some whites, but I'm raised squarely in white culture. This has more effect on my character and behavior than ethnicity.
Culture and environment, Mountainhare. It's why people of any color raised in the American middle class are less prone to violent crime than people of any color raised in poverty.
I see, so untill Europeans got a hold of a hole bunch of money they had no way to buy the things needed to control other races.
tiassa:
Conjecture. Different experiences can still result in the same personality. And individuals may react differently to the same set of environmental stimuli.
Asians have experienced war, civil strife, poverty, and political oppression. In fact, many European migrants also shared similar experiences. However, unlike the Blacks, very few concessions have been granted to them. You're just making bullshit excuses, as racists tend to do.
I've snipped your drivel and meandering bullshit...
So black culture could make the individuals within it more prone to violence?
Conjecture. Different experiences can still result in the same personality. And individuals may react differently to the same set of environmental stimuli.
Asians have experienced war, civil strife, poverty, and political oppression. In fact, many European migrants also shared similar experiences. However, unlike the Blacks, very few concessions have been granted to them. You're just making bullshit excuses, as racists tend to do.
I've snipped your drivel and meandering bullshit...
So black culture could make the individuals within it more prone to violence?
The first round's on me
Some data to consider, from the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty:
And that's not all. Now comes the longer excerpts:
You won't find any complete answers in all that. What you will find, however, is ample evidence that no situation is as simplistic as the willfully ignorant demand. One might be tempted to accuse the authors of a con, of perpetuating myths in order to get grant money. However, if the answer is, so obviously, that ethnic and racial disparities in American justice are explained by the inherent inferiority of nonwhite groups, well, that answer would be obvious.
What we have in this material is a testament to the complexity and subtlety of the situation. Read through it. You can go to the IRP's site to get the full 96 pages in PDF format, if you like. Take your time. I know there's a lot there, and I do understand that it's confusing for those accustomed to inventing simplistic myths to explain humanity. There is much important information in the paper, including the long excerpt about drugs, though many will notice that the information is actually long strings of fairly intuitive processes explained with many words. To the one, I'm always surprised that people need the simple notions spelled out so painstakingly. To the other, though, I'm also aware that simplistic minds tend to attack what they are incapable of understanding, so it's best to leave as little room for misinterpretation as possible.
Oh, and then remember: the information here, at best, is one small tile in a mosaic that spreads in all directions beyond the horizon.
Enjoy.
____________________
Notes:
Some data to consider, from the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty:
A nation's incarceration rate at any given point in time is determined by both the criminal behavior of a nation's residents as well as by policy choices made by the electorate, elected officials, and representatives of the criminal justice system. The relationship between criminal behavior and incarceration is simple and mechanical: the more people engage in criminal activity, the greater the proportion of the population at risk of "doing time". The determinants of criminal behavior, however, are complex and multifaceted and may include economic conditions, demographic characteristics, the incentives created by the criminal justice system, and the institutional supports for individuals with a high propensity to offend. (Raphael and Stoll, 2)
In recent decades, we have observed several important demographic changes that bear directly on criminal offending and changes in incarceration rates. First, the proportion of the population foreign-born has increased substantially. Recent research by Butcher and Piehl (1998, 2006) indicates that immigrant men are considerably less likely to be incarcerated, and thus increased immigration should have reduced incarceration rates all else held equal. (Raphael and Stoll, 38)
... American adults have become more educated. Increases in average educational attainment have occurred within all racial and ethnic groups. There is a strong negative association between education and the likelihood of committing a crime. Moreover, recent research by Lochner and Moretti (2004) suggests that the relationship between education and the likelihood of going to prison is indeed causal. (Raphael and Stoll, 40)
An additional factor that has received much attention that we have not addressed is the impact of the legalization of abortion on changes in the composition of the population beginning around 1990. Donohue and Levitt (2001) hypothesize that the legalization of abortion has shifted the composition of those born towards wanted pregnancies and away from unwanted pregnancies. To the extent that children born under the latter category are more likely to commit crimes as a young adult, legalization should have had a lagged effect on criminal behavior, a supposition consistent with the aggregate movement in violent and property crime rates. (Raphael and Stoll, 40-41)
The deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill juxtaposed against the increases in incarceration rates as welll as the high incidence of severe mental illness behind bars begs the question of whether the mentally ill have been trans-institutionalized from mental hospitals to prisons and jails. To the extent that the mentally ill are more likely to commit crimes, the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill may have contributed to growth in U.S. incarceration rates. (Raphael and Stoll, 42)
• • •
In recent decades, we have observed several important demographic changes that bear directly on criminal offending and changes in incarceration rates. First, the proportion of the population foreign-born has increased substantially. Recent research by Butcher and Piehl (1998, 2006) indicates that immigrant men are considerably less likely to be incarcerated, and thus increased immigration should have reduced incarceration rates all else held equal. (Raphael and Stoll, 38)
• • •
... American adults have become more educated. Increases in average educational attainment have occurred within all racial and ethnic groups. There is a strong negative association between education and the likelihood of committing a crime. Moreover, recent research by Lochner and Moretti (2004) suggests that the relationship between education and the likelihood of going to prison is indeed causal. (Raphael and Stoll, 40)
• • •
An additional factor that has received much attention that we have not addressed is the impact of the legalization of abortion on changes in the composition of the population beginning around 1990. Donohue and Levitt (2001) hypothesize that the legalization of abortion has shifted the composition of those born towards wanted pregnancies and away from unwanted pregnancies. To the extent that children born under the latter category are more likely to commit crimes as a young adult, legalization should have had a lagged effect on criminal behavior, a supposition consistent with the aggregate movement in violent and property crime rates. (Raphael and Stoll, 40-41)
• • •
The deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill juxtaposed against the increases in incarceration rates as welll as the high incidence of severe mental illness behind bars begs the question of whether the mentally ill have been trans-institutionalized from mental hospitals to prisons and jails. To the extent that the mentally ill are more likely to commit crimes, the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill may have contributed to growth in U.S. incarceration rates. (Raphael and Stoll, 42)
And that's not all. Now comes the longer excerpts:
The increase in U.S. incarceration rates since the mid-1970s coincides with profound changes in the distribution of earnings and income. Beginning inthe mid-1970s, wage inequality increased greatly, with real absolute declines in the earnings of the least skilled workers and stagnating wages for workers at the center of the wage distribution (Autor and Katz, 1999). Coincident with these changes in the earnings distribution are pronounced declines in the labor force participation rates of less skilled men (Juhn and Potter, 2006). In particular, the labor force participation and employment rates of relatively less educated black men have dropped precipitously (Raphael, 2005).
The potential connection between these labor market changes and the increase in incarceration is relatively straightforward. The wage that one's time can command in the legitimate labor market represents the opportunity cost of allocating one's time towards other uses, such as participating in crime, taking leisure, engaging in home production, etc. The lower one's potential earnings, the more attractive are criminal opportunities with income-getting potential. For individuals who are amoral and who are risk-neutral, necessary and sufficient conditions for committing a crime are that the expected return to devoting a small amount of time to crime must exceed both the value placed on free time (one's reservation wage) as well as potential legitimate earnings should this time be supplied to the labor market. For those morally averse to criminal activity and averse to risk, participating in criminal activity requires that the difference between the expected returns to crime and returns to legitimate work exceed a threshold that is increasing in the degree of moral as well as risk aversion. Regardless, the likelihood of engaging in criminal activity (or stated differently, one's supply of time to the criminal pursuits) should increase as potential earnings in legitimate employment decline.
Declining wage offers for the least skilled workers will induce a greater proportion to participate in crime, as the more risk averse and the least morally predisposed towards crime are peeled out of the legitimate labor market and into criminal activity on the margin. This relatively larger pool of criminals increases the fraction of the group at risk for incarceration and, holding the incarceration risk constant, increases the incarceration rate.
There is now considerable evidence that economically motivated crime increases with unemployment and decreases with average wages, especially the average wages of low-skilled workers. For example, Raphael and Winter-Ebmer (2001) find consistently positive effects of higher unemployment rates on property crime in an analysis of state-level panel data covering roughly the last quarter of the 20th century. Using similar data, Gould, Weinberg and Mustard (2002) find that property crime decreases with increasing wages. Grogger (1998) models the decision to participate in crime as a function of the wages one could earn in the labor market using microdata from the 1979 Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) and finds that a ten percent increase in wages decreases the likelihood of participating in income-generating criminal activity by roughly 2.5 percentage points. As a final example, Freeman (1987) finds that those youth who believe that they could earn more on the streets than in legitimate employment are more likely to engage in criminal activity. (Raphael and Stoll, 47-48)
The last half of the 20th century witnessed the rise and fall of several illicit drug epidemics. Each of these epidemics entails separate subcultures of use and sales, idiosyncratic economic relationship and market organizations, and particularly pathways by which drug use and sales likely impacted crime and incarceration. During the 1960s and 1970s, intravenously injected heroin was the hard drug of choice among urban users in American inner cities. During the late 1970s and 1980s, recreational use of powder cocaine, injected through inhaling or freebasing, became popular and widespread. The introduction of crack cocaine in the mid-1980s greatly increased cocaine use in relatively poor minority neighborhoods, and is commonly cited as a key determinant of the spike in violent crime occurring between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s. Finally, with the waning of the crack epidemic, marijuana use among criminally active youth increased substantially during the 1990s (Johnson, Golub and Dunlap, 2000).
The effects of these individual drug epidemics on incarceration growth operate primarily through an impact on crime. Moreover, the introduction of a new drug can be thought of as a behavioral shock to the criminality of a nation's residents. Johnson, Golub and Dunlap (2000) lay out three avenues by which specific drug epidemics are likely to impact criminality that provide a useful framework for thinking about the consequences of recent drug epidemics for crime and incarceration. First, each drug has unique psychopharmacological effects on users that may impact aggression, heighten a sense of paranoia, or alter other psychological factors that may predispose one towards violence. Second, users may turn to income-generating crime to support their habits. Such "economic-compulsive" criminal behavior may take the form of drug dealing, robbery, or burglary. Finally, as drug transactions are not governed by the legal system--i.e., there are no formal mechanisms for contract enforcement and the protection of property rights--violent crime is likely to arise in the process of settling disputes, protecting market share, and in collecting payments.
The timing of the crack epidemic along with the particular connections between the market for crack and violence suggests that this particular behavioral shock may have been an important behavioral contributor to growth in incarceration. First, while the exact timing of the start of the epidemic is uncertain, two careful studies of this question date the introduction of crack to 1984 at the earliest, with sales and use spreading through the country by 1988 (Grogger and Willis, 2000; Fryer et al., 2005). ... (T)his corresponds to a time period when prison admissions for drug related crimes increased absolutely, proportionally to the population, and proportionally to all prison admissions.
Second, the psychopharmacological effects of crack cocaine are more likely, relative to other drugs, to predispose the user towards violence. In contrast with heroin and marijuana, which are depressants, cocaine is a stimulant that includes hyperactive states.
Third, the number of transactions per user is particularly high for crack cocaine, reflecting its sale in small, relatively inexpensive quantities. A higher frequency of contact between users and sellers increases the number of opportunities for violence. Each contact carries a risk of the user victimizing the dealer, the dealer victimizing the user, or a third party bent on robbery victimizing either the user, the dealer, or both.
Finally, the structure of the crack cocaine market was such that many young men were effectively employed by drug-selling operations in various capacities (MacCoun and Reuter, 2001), with competing organizations often engaging n violent confrontations with one another over market share. At least one author (Grogger, 2000) has hypothesized that the waning of violent crime during the 1990s was driven in part by a greater level of cooperation among drug-selling gangs and a greater propensity to rely on nonviolent means for settling turf conflicts.
A number of studies have attempted to estimate the effect of the crack cocaine epidemic on crime rates. For example, Blumstein (1995) attributes the sharp increases in homicide among minority youth to the introduction of crack cocaine, the widespread availability of handguns, and the ensuing violence between rival suppliers of the drug. Grogger and Willis (2000) exploit differences in the timing of the introduction of crack cocaine across cities to estimate the effect of the drug on various aggregate crime rates. The authors conclude that, had crack cocaine not been introduced, the peak in urban crime rates in 1991 would have been roughly 10 percent lower than actually observed, and would have been below the earlier 1981 peak (which it actually exceeded by 6 percent). Fryer et al. (2005) develop an index of crack cocaine usage that varies by city and state based on several indicators of the intensity of use, including cocaine related emergency room visits, cocaine related deaths, arrests, and drug busts, and the relative frequency of newspaper articles that mention crack cocaine. In a series of panel data regressions of various outcomes on the constructed crack index, the authors find that the introduction of crack cocaine predicted sizable portions of the increase in black male youth homicide rates, changes in the proportion of black babies that are low birth weight, as well as changes in the proportion of births among black women born to unwed mothers. Estimates of the effect of crack on overall crime rates in this study, however, are rather imprecise and with a few exceptions are statistically insignificant.
Despite the timing of the epidemic and clear connections between crack and violent crime, there are reasons to believe that the potential role of cocaine in explaining the explosion in incarceration growth is limited. First, the decomposition of the increase in prison admissions presented above indicated that even under relatively extreme assumptions pertaining to the the counterfactual crime rate in the absence of the prison increase, changes in criminal behavior can explain a relatively small portion of the increase in incarceration (no more than 20 percent). Second, the crack epidemic has diminished since 1990 while the incarceration has continued to grow. Johnson, Golub and Dunlap (2000) document a sharp decline in the proportion of young men arrested in New York City who have ever used crack relative to older arrestees. Moreover, through their ethnographic work, the authors document a cultural shift away from crack cocaine driven in large part by the negative experiences with the drug of the older generation. To the extent crack drives growth in incarceration during the 1980s, the waning of the epidemic should have given rise to a decline during the 1990s (with fewer prison admissions for crack cocaine violations and with the release of earlier offenders). (Raphael and Stoll, 54-57)
Why are so many American men in prison? We find that the answer to this question lies mostly with the collective series of policy innovations at the state and federal level. In other words, so many American men are in prison because, through our collective public choices regarding sentencing and punishment, we have decided to place so many American men in prison. For those who would have been sentenced to prison in past years, we have increased the amount of time that such offenders will serve. For many other less serious offenders, we now punish with a spell in prison many who n the past would have received an alternative, less punitive sanction. Collectively, these changes in who goes to prison (expansion along the extensive margin) and for how long (expansion along the intensive margin) explain 80 to 85 percent of prison expansion over the last quarter century. Thus the characterization by William Spelman (2000) of the doubling of the prison population between the mid-1970s and 1980s and then doubling once more through the end of the century as one of the largest policy experiments of the 20th century is indeed correct.
To be sure, we do find evidence that there have been changes to some of the underlying fundamental determinants of criminal behavior that have militated towards higher criminal activity. With regards to shocks that are likely to have increased crime, the severely mentally ill are much less likely to be institutionalized today than in the past, a factor likely to contribute to some violent crimes and the amount of public order violations. Moreover, the labor market prospects of low-skilled men, especially low-skilled minority men, have deteriorated considerably starting around the mid-1970s. Finally, the introduction of crack cocaine in the mid-1980s clearly wreaked havoc on American inner cities, contributing substantially to youth homicide and likely contributing to growth in the incarceration rate.
Nonetheless, we have shown that the likely impact of each of these shocks to behvior is small. We also presented evidence of demographic shifts that all else held equal should have reduced criminal offending as well as incarceration rates. Specifically, the U.S. population has aged, the fraction immigrant has increased (a factor associated with lower crime and incarceration rates), and the U.S. adult public has become considerably more educated with declines in the fraction who are high school dropouts and increases in the proportion with some college education observed within all ethnic and racial groups. All of these shifts would have decreased crime and incarceration rates not increased within demographic groups defined by age, race, and education groups. Moreover, research by John Donohue and Steven Levitt (2001) pertaining to the crime-abating effects of legalized abortion suggests another factor likely to have reduced the overall tendency towards criminal behavior among the noninstitutionalized (and perhaps, even the institutionalized) public.
In conclusion, while there were some quite visible shocks to criminal behavior as well as public order, there were many less visible underlying changes in the nation's demography that tended to counter the effects of the former on crime rates. In the end, it's not surprising that we find a small role for behavior in explaining the increase in the nation's incarceration rate.
Assuming that our characterization of the increase in incarceration is correct, the obvious question that this research raises is whether the benefits of this policy experiment justify the costs. In 2004, the nation spent roughly $60 billion on corrections, with roughly two-thirds of these expenditures attributable to prisons. Several states' corrections systems currently operate under severe overcrowding (California being the most salient example) and face pressing choices regarding whether and by how much to expand prison capacity and whether to alter sentencing in a manner that diverts a greater portion of offenders to alternative sanctions. Certain states, New York, for example, as described in Jacobson (2005), have chosen the latter route and have presided over recent declines in their state incarceration rates. Clearly, the "correct" choice depends on the extent to which marginal changes in incarceration at this point in history impact crime rates and the value we place on crime-abatement relative to the value placed on the benefits from alternative public investments or private expenditures. The choice also depends on whether there are other viable options, such as early childhood interventions, job trainings, or even public works campaigns, that may have similar crime-abating effects at lower public cost (as explored by Donohue and Siegelman, 1998). (Raphael and Stoll, 59-61)
The potential connection between these labor market changes and the increase in incarceration is relatively straightforward. The wage that one's time can command in the legitimate labor market represents the opportunity cost of allocating one's time towards other uses, such as participating in crime, taking leisure, engaging in home production, etc. The lower one's potential earnings, the more attractive are criminal opportunities with income-getting potential. For individuals who are amoral and who are risk-neutral, necessary and sufficient conditions for committing a crime are that the expected return to devoting a small amount of time to crime must exceed both the value placed on free time (one's reservation wage) as well as potential legitimate earnings should this time be supplied to the labor market. For those morally averse to criminal activity and averse to risk, participating in criminal activity requires that the difference between the expected returns to crime and returns to legitimate work exceed a threshold that is increasing in the degree of moral as well as risk aversion. Regardless, the likelihood of engaging in criminal activity (or stated differently, one's supply of time to the criminal pursuits) should increase as potential earnings in legitimate employment decline.
Declining wage offers for the least skilled workers will induce a greater proportion to participate in crime, as the more risk averse and the least morally predisposed towards crime are peeled out of the legitimate labor market and into criminal activity on the margin. This relatively larger pool of criminals increases the fraction of the group at risk for incarceration and, holding the incarceration risk constant, increases the incarceration rate.
There is now considerable evidence that economically motivated crime increases with unemployment and decreases with average wages, especially the average wages of low-skilled workers. For example, Raphael and Winter-Ebmer (2001) find consistently positive effects of higher unemployment rates on property crime in an analysis of state-level panel data covering roughly the last quarter of the 20th century. Using similar data, Gould, Weinberg and Mustard (2002) find that property crime decreases with increasing wages. Grogger (1998) models the decision to participate in crime as a function of the wages one could earn in the labor market using microdata from the 1979 Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) and finds that a ten percent increase in wages decreases the likelihood of participating in income-generating criminal activity by roughly 2.5 percentage points. As a final example, Freeman (1987) finds that those youth who believe that they could earn more on the streets than in legitimate employment are more likely to engage in criminal activity. (Raphael and Stoll, 47-48)
• • •
The last half of the 20th century witnessed the rise and fall of several illicit drug epidemics. Each of these epidemics entails separate subcultures of use and sales, idiosyncratic economic relationship and market organizations, and particularly pathways by which drug use and sales likely impacted crime and incarceration. During the 1960s and 1970s, intravenously injected heroin was the hard drug of choice among urban users in American inner cities. During the late 1970s and 1980s, recreational use of powder cocaine, injected through inhaling or freebasing, became popular and widespread. The introduction of crack cocaine in the mid-1980s greatly increased cocaine use in relatively poor minority neighborhoods, and is commonly cited as a key determinant of the spike in violent crime occurring between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s. Finally, with the waning of the crack epidemic, marijuana use among criminally active youth increased substantially during the 1990s (Johnson, Golub and Dunlap, 2000).
The effects of these individual drug epidemics on incarceration growth operate primarily through an impact on crime. Moreover, the introduction of a new drug can be thought of as a behavioral shock to the criminality of a nation's residents. Johnson, Golub and Dunlap (2000) lay out three avenues by which specific drug epidemics are likely to impact criminality that provide a useful framework for thinking about the consequences of recent drug epidemics for crime and incarceration. First, each drug has unique psychopharmacological effects on users that may impact aggression, heighten a sense of paranoia, or alter other psychological factors that may predispose one towards violence. Second, users may turn to income-generating crime to support their habits. Such "economic-compulsive" criminal behavior may take the form of drug dealing, robbery, or burglary. Finally, as drug transactions are not governed by the legal system--i.e., there are no formal mechanisms for contract enforcement and the protection of property rights--violent crime is likely to arise in the process of settling disputes, protecting market share, and in collecting payments.
The timing of the crack epidemic along with the particular connections between the market for crack and violence suggests that this particular behavioral shock may have been an important behavioral contributor to growth in incarceration. First, while the exact timing of the start of the epidemic is uncertain, two careful studies of this question date the introduction of crack to 1984 at the earliest, with sales and use spreading through the country by 1988 (Grogger and Willis, 2000; Fryer et al., 2005). ... (T)his corresponds to a time period when prison admissions for drug related crimes increased absolutely, proportionally to the population, and proportionally to all prison admissions.
Second, the psychopharmacological effects of crack cocaine are more likely, relative to other drugs, to predispose the user towards violence. In contrast with heroin and marijuana, which are depressants, cocaine is a stimulant that includes hyperactive states.
Third, the number of transactions per user is particularly high for crack cocaine, reflecting its sale in small, relatively inexpensive quantities. A higher frequency of contact between users and sellers increases the number of opportunities for violence. Each contact carries a risk of the user victimizing the dealer, the dealer victimizing the user, or a third party bent on robbery victimizing either the user, the dealer, or both.
Finally, the structure of the crack cocaine market was such that many young men were effectively employed by drug-selling operations in various capacities (MacCoun and Reuter, 2001), with competing organizations often engaging n violent confrontations with one another over market share. At least one author (Grogger, 2000) has hypothesized that the waning of violent crime during the 1990s was driven in part by a greater level of cooperation among drug-selling gangs and a greater propensity to rely on nonviolent means for settling turf conflicts.
A number of studies have attempted to estimate the effect of the crack cocaine epidemic on crime rates. For example, Blumstein (1995) attributes the sharp increases in homicide among minority youth to the introduction of crack cocaine, the widespread availability of handguns, and the ensuing violence between rival suppliers of the drug. Grogger and Willis (2000) exploit differences in the timing of the introduction of crack cocaine across cities to estimate the effect of the drug on various aggregate crime rates. The authors conclude that, had crack cocaine not been introduced, the peak in urban crime rates in 1991 would have been roughly 10 percent lower than actually observed, and would have been below the earlier 1981 peak (which it actually exceeded by 6 percent). Fryer et al. (2005) develop an index of crack cocaine usage that varies by city and state based on several indicators of the intensity of use, including cocaine related emergency room visits, cocaine related deaths, arrests, and drug busts, and the relative frequency of newspaper articles that mention crack cocaine. In a series of panel data regressions of various outcomes on the constructed crack index, the authors find that the introduction of crack cocaine predicted sizable portions of the increase in black male youth homicide rates, changes in the proportion of black babies that are low birth weight, as well as changes in the proportion of births among black women born to unwed mothers. Estimates of the effect of crack on overall crime rates in this study, however, are rather imprecise and with a few exceptions are statistically insignificant.
Despite the timing of the epidemic and clear connections between crack and violent crime, there are reasons to believe that the potential role of cocaine in explaining the explosion in incarceration growth is limited. First, the decomposition of the increase in prison admissions presented above indicated that even under relatively extreme assumptions pertaining to the the counterfactual crime rate in the absence of the prison increase, changes in criminal behavior can explain a relatively small portion of the increase in incarceration (no more than 20 percent). Second, the crack epidemic has diminished since 1990 while the incarceration has continued to grow. Johnson, Golub and Dunlap (2000) document a sharp decline in the proportion of young men arrested in New York City who have ever used crack relative to older arrestees. Moreover, through their ethnographic work, the authors document a cultural shift away from crack cocaine driven in large part by the negative experiences with the drug of the older generation. To the extent crack drives growth in incarceration during the 1980s, the waning of the epidemic should have given rise to a decline during the 1990s (with fewer prison admissions for crack cocaine violations and with the release of earlier offenders). (Raphael and Stoll, 54-57)
• • •
Why are so many American men in prison? We find that the answer to this question lies mostly with the collective series of policy innovations at the state and federal level. In other words, so many American men are in prison because, through our collective public choices regarding sentencing and punishment, we have decided to place so many American men in prison. For those who would have been sentenced to prison in past years, we have increased the amount of time that such offenders will serve. For many other less serious offenders, we now punish with a spell in prison many who n the past would have received an alternative, less punitive sanction. Collectively, these changes in who goes to prison (expansion along the extensive margin) and for how long (expansion along the intensive margin) explain 80 to 85 percent of prison expansion over the last quarter century. Thus the characterization by William Spelman (2000) of the doubling of the prison population between the mid-1970s and 1980s and then doubling once more through the end of the century as one of the largest policy experiments of the 20th century is indeed correct.
To be sure, we do find evidence that there have been changes to some of the underlying fundamental determinants of criminal behavior that have militated towards higher criminal activity. With regards to shocks that are likely to have increased crime, the severely mentally ill are much less likely to be institutionalized today than in the past, a factor likely to contribute to some violent crimes and the amount of public order violations. Moreover, the labor market prospects of low-skilled men, especially low-skilled minority men, have deteriorated considerably starting around the mid-1970s. Finally, the introduction of crack cocaine in the mid-1980s clearly wreaked havoc on American inner cities, contributing substantially to youth homicide and likely contributing to growth in the incarceration rate.
Nonetheless, we have shown that the likely impact of each of these shocks to behvior is small. We also presented evidence of demographic shifts that all else held equal should have reduced criminal offending as well as incarceration rates. Specifically, the U.S. population has aged, the fraction immigrant has increased (a factor associated with lower crime and incarceration rates), and the U.S. adult public has become considerably more educated with declines in the fraction who are high school dropouts and increases in the proportion with some college education observed within all ethnic and racial groups. All of these shifts would have decreased crime and incarceration rates not increased within demographic groups defined by age, race, and education groups. Moreover, research by John Donohue and Steven Levitt (2001) pertaining to the crime-abating effects of legalized abortion suggests another factor likely to have reduced the overall tendency towards criminal behavior among the noninstitutionalized (and perhaps, even the institutionalized) public.
In conclusion, while there were some quite visible shocks to criminal behavior as well as public order, there were many less visible underlying changes in the nation's demography that tended to counter the effects of the former on crime rates. In the end, it's not surprising that we find a small role for behavior in explaining the increase in the nation's incarceration rate.
Assuming that our characterization of the increase in incarceration is correct, the obvious question that this research raises is whether the benefits of this policy experiment justify the costs. In 2004, the nation spent roughly $60 billion on corrections, with roughly two-thirds of these expenditures attributable to prisons. Several states' corrections systems currently operate under severe overcrowding (California being the most salient example) and face pressing choices regarding whether and by how much to expand prison capacity and whether to alter sentencing in a manner that diverts a greater portion of offenders to alternative sanctions. Certain states, New York, for example, as described in Jacobson (2005), have chosen the latter route and have presided over recent declines in their state incarceration rates. Clearly, the "correct" choice depends on the extent to which marginal changes in incarceration at this point in history impact crime rates and the value we place on crime-abatement relative to the value placed on the benefits from alternative public investments or private expenditures. The choice also depends on whether there are other viable options, such as early childhood interventions, job trainings, or even public works campaigns, that may have similar crime-abating effects at lower public cost (as explored by Donohue and Siegelman, 1998). (Raphael and Stoll, 59-61)
You won't find any complete answers in all that. What you will find, however, is ample evidence that no situation is as simplistic as the willfully ignorant demand. One might be tempted to accuse the authors of a con, of perpetuating myths in order to get grant money. However, if the answer is, so obviously, that ethnic and racial disparities in American justice are explained by the inherent inferiority of nonwhite groups, well, that answer would be obvious.
What we have in this material is a testament to the complexity and subtlety of the situation. Read through it. You can go to the IRP's site to get the full 96 pages in PDF format, if you like. Take your time. I know there's a lot there, and I do understand that it's confusing for those accustomed to inventing simplistic myths to explain humanity. There is much important information in the paper, including the long excerpt about drugs, though many will notice that the information is actually long strings of fairly intuitive processes explained with many words. To the one, I'm always surprised that people need the simple notions spelled out so painstakingly. To the other, though, I'm also aware that simplistic minds tend to attack what they are incapable of understanding, so it's best to leave as little room for misinterpretation as possible.
Oh, and then remember: the information here, at best, is one small tile in a mosaic that spreads in all directions beyond the horizon.
Enjoy.
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Notes:
Raphael, Steven and Michael A. Stoll. Why Are So Many Americans in Prison? IRP Discussion Paper #1328-07. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty, 2007.
mountainhare:
There is no data that says that black people have a 12 times greater "propensity" to committing violent crime.
Turn on your brain. A 12 times greater conviction or charge rate doesn't necessarily mean a 12 times greater crime rate. Read the stuff about racial profiling from earlier in the thread. Educate yourself.
This sounds like racism to me.
What has happened to you? You're a seemingly intelligent person, studying for a tertiary qualification. But at the same time you trot out racist views, you're against certain religions and you're an anti-semite. You live in one of the most culturally diverse and tolerant cities on the planet, but I wonder whether you actually get out enough and look around you.
Do you feel oppressed? Do you feel that society is not giving you what you "deserve"? Because that's how you sound. You sound like somebody who thinks that you are special and are somehow owed a living. Many racists are the same - they rationalise the assumption that they are special by giving it a "reason" - that they are special because they are white or black or yellow.
Grow up, mountainhare.
You haven't even looked at crime statistics, have you? At least, not real ones. You just trawl the racist websites, I assume.
Have you been to America? Have you lived and worked there? Once again, you talk about something I suspect you know next to nothing about. It sounds like you're just parrotting racist websites again. Stop hanging out at stormfront. You have the ability, I assume. So use it.
There is no data that says that black people have a 12 times greater "propensity" to committing violent crime.
Turn on your brain. A 12 times greater conviction or charge rate doesn't necessarily mean a 12 times greater crime rate. Read the stuff about racial profiling from earlier in the thread. Educate yourself.
This sounds like racism to me.
What has happened to you? You're a seemingly intelligent person, studying for a tertiary qualification. But at the same time you trot out racist views, you're against certain religions and you're an anti-semite. You live in one of the most culturally diverse and tolerant cities on the planet, but I wonder whether you actually get out enough and look around you.
Do you feel oppressed? Do you feel that society is not giving you what you "deserve"? Because that's how you sound. You sound like somebody who thinks that you are special and are somehow owed a living. Many racists are the same - they rationalise the assumption that they are special by giving it a "reason" - that they are special because they are white or black or yellow.
Grow up, mountainhare.
You haven't even looked at crime statistics, have you? At least, not real ones. You just trawl the racist websites, I assume.
Have you been to America? Have you lived and worked there? Once again, you talk about something I suspect you know next to nothing about. It sounds like you're just parrotting racist websites again. Stop hanging out at stormfront. You have the ability, I assume. So use it.
Then mountainhare is someone who would understand this subject best.
Your not getting out much if you believe all people are all the same.
- Status