> The few neighborhoods where Black and white boys grew up to have similar adult outcomes were low-poverty areas that also had high levels of “father presence.”
The biggest problem - and one that the author conveniently and completely ignores - is that the US justice and incarceration system is set up for biblical an-eye-for-an-eye revenge with ludicrous sentencing ("three strikes", decades for nonviolent drug offenses, people getting summarily executed by police regularly, ...) and not, like in Europe, for real, measurable rehabilitation.
Also, people in the US receive no education during their prison stay that helps them to gain useful employment after their release, they start with significant debts from the prison system and often enough from loan sharks, there is no meaningful assistance system to help them gain housing and jobs after being released, and forget about physical and mental healthcare - often, people will leave prison in a way worse state than when they entered: malnourishment, denial of healthcare, trauma from assaults both by fellow inmates and officers...
And finally: When employers and even landlords are allowed to do routine comprehensive background checks and everything about a person's history is up for a google grab "thanks" to public record laws, it is no surprise that arrests for low level shit like petty theft or smoking weed sets up people for a life in poverty.
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it: if the US wants to fix their society, the process has to start with their attitude towards criminals, criminality and healthcare.
> US justice and incarceration system is set up for biblical an-eye-for-an-eye revenge with ludicrous sentencing
Apart from financial crimes and financial restitution, there is little literal "eye for an eye" punishment, not to include capital punishment with which I disagree. Capital punishment is reserved for the most heinous of cases, though I think from a moral perspective we should stop it, since it involves state authorization to execute a citizen, and does not enable us to fix a wrongful execution if it already happens. The Innocence Project [1] has been able to overturn some wrongful convictions but I am not sure if that is possible after an execution. If we kill someone we cannot make restitution to that person.
If you'd like to make that claim there is literal eye for an eye, please provide well sourced examples of convicted criminals having the violent crimes they enacted on victims (shootings/stabbing) perpetrated back on them
> "three strikes"
Here are the states with 3 strikes laws, and dates of enactment
Arkansas (since 1995);
Arizona (since 2005);
California (since 1994);
Colorado (since 1994);
Connecticut (since 1994);
Delaware (since 1973);
Florida (since 1995);
Georgia (since 1994);
Indiana (since 1994);
Kansas (since 1994);
Louisiana (since 1994);
Maryland (since 1975 but amended in 1994);
Massachusetts (since 2012);
Montana (since 1995);
Nevada (since 1995);
New Jersey (since 1995);
New Mexico (since 1994);
New York (since 1797);
North Carolina (since 1994);
North Dakota (since 1995);
Pennsylvania (since 1995);
South Carolina (since 1995);
Tennessee (since 1994);
Texas (since 1952);
Utah (since 1995);
Vermont (since 1995);
Virginia (since 1994);
Washington (since 1993); and
Wisconsin (since 1994).
Sourced at [2]
I hope you are not claiming that these states implemented these laws for racist reasons. Is that your claim?
> decades for nonviolent drug offenses
Did you miss a qualifier on that, by selling a dealer amount of drugs the penalties increased also? The last I saw the amount for cocaine was around 180 grams. Are you saying that someone with 180 grams is doing this for personal use?
There is a mistake in serious hard drug distribution, that delivery/supplying large amounts of people with drugs does not involve death. Due to the mistakes in cutting heroin/coke for example with fetanyl, people can regularly die from hot batches. A good example of that is the recent deaths of Fuquan Johnson and Enrico Colangeli [3]
> people getting summarily executed by police regularly
Please provide evidence of regular summary executions by police where the criminal did not have a gun, or use deadly force against the officer, where the officer has not been arrested and charged with a murder.
> Europe, for real, measurable rehabilitation
European prisons vary greatly. With fairly liberal prisons in Nordic countries, and a mixed bag elsewhere.
> trauma from assaults both by fellow inmates and officers...
I agree completely that we need to improve prison conditions. I don't think a sentence should involve assaults/sex assaults by other criminals, and I think the govt which is enforcing the sentence, also has a duty to protect the criminal, and to make restitution to the victims of crime, if it happens under the government's care.
I hope you are not claiming that these states implemented these laws for racist reasons. Is that your claim?
In USA, 1.1% of blacks are incarcerated, compared to 0.02% of whites. [0] Obviously the average black person does not commit 55 times the amount of crime of the average white person. Is this system something other than racist?
The men-women multiplier shouldn't be 10 (or 20, or whatever), so yes that is sexist. However, men's violence does seem to physically hurt people more often, and some studies suggest that young men are more prone to risky behavior than young women, so the existence of a multiplier itself isn't necessarily sexist. No similar statistical backing for a black-white multiplier exists.
I can't say I'm shocked to see a conservative argument that relies on ignoring the difference between 10 and 55. Innumerate sophist says what?
Call me surprised. That's the result of racist drug policies intended to go specifically after Black men (and hippies): https://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-...
The biggest problem - and one that the author conveniently and completely ignores - is that the US justice and incarceration system is set up for biblical an-eye-for-an-eye revenge with ludicrous sentencing ("three strikes", decades for nonviolent drug offenses, people getting summarily executed by police regularly, ...) and not, like in Europe, for real, measurable rehabilitation.
Also, people in the US receive no education during their prison stay that helps them to gain useful employment after their release, they start with significant debts from the prison system and often enough from loan sharks, there is no meaningful assistance system to help them gain housing and jobs after being released, and forget about physical and mental healthcare - often, people will leave prison in a way worse state than when they entered: malnourishment, denial of healthcare, trauma from assaults both by fellow inmates and officers...
And finally: When employers and even landlords are allowed to do routine comprehensive background checks and everything about a person's history is up for a google grab "thanks" to public record laws, it is no surprise that arrests for low level shit like petty theft or smoking weed sets up people for a life in poverty.
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it: if the US wants to fix their society, the process has to start with their attitude towards criminals, criminality and healthcare.