#173 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Tuesday October 19)
Good morning!
CRIME
I have long been arguing that one must separate good policing and protecting the public from the issues surrounding our gulag of overpopulated prisons, mass incarceration, and a parole system that offers little hope to those who have demonstrated contrition and have been rehabilitated. Ridding ourselves of “three strikes” rules, eliminating minimum sentencing, not allowing victims’ families and prosecutors to participate in parole hearings, materially reducing sentencing and finding ways to rehabilitate without long prison sentences are crucial steps on the road to reform. But the cruelty and inhumanity of our criminal justice sentencing is not an argument to “defund the police,” nor are the current spate of police overreach and murder justification for protecting us less.
Crime is rising. There are many reasons posited for it. Adam Torson weighs in that “I'm not sure there is good evidence for the belief that rising crime is a result of lax policing. ”
Adam continues as follows: There is anecdotal evidence militating in the opposite direction, e.g. the periods when crime when down in NYC during NYPD work slow-downs. And crime is up as much in jurisdictions with tough-on-crime prosecutors pushing aggressive policing as in jurisdictions with progressive reformers at the helm.
There is also decent evidence that guns are a primary driver of the rise in murders. But I suspect the main culprit is the pandemic, causing unprecedented social disruption, destroying millions of jobs, pushing many families into poverty, and, perhaps most important, taking a bunch of adolescents out of school, the group most likely to commit crime. There is a reason that countries whose schools and social safety nets function better than ours also have significantly lower crime rates, notwithstanding less aggressive policing and less penal criminal justice systems in general.
But a lot of that is hunch, I'm open to hearing more evidence. Obviously policing policy is some part of the answer (though I doubt the right solution is more aggressive detention practices). This article is good at describing why explaining crime rates is complicated, and gives a good overview of the existing evidence: https://www.vox.com/22578430/murder-crime-2020-2021-covid-19-pandemic”
Hard to argue with Adam on the proliferation of guns being tied to violent crimes. I think we find in the coming years that this proliferation of sophisticated weaponry will provide the ammunition for increasingly more frequent mass shootings and, frighteningly, more politically motivated violence.
HIGH SCHOOL HI-JINX
I sometimes share with our kids some of the crazy things we did in high school, including the occasional fisticuffs (there’s a good old-fashioned word), landing helicopters on school campus, being caught off-campus when the campus was a “closed campus” and other such things. Our kids note that today any of these behaviors would have resulted in immediate suspension from school. This is yet another example where “zero tolerance” translates to “zero logic.” We are unable to see innocent goofing off, moderate risk taking, and relatively harmless confrontation as part of growing up.
I’ve been collecting stories of friends’ most ridiculous high school experiences. The best thus far is the story of a woman who pawned $30,000 of her mother’s jewelry (that seems like a lot of jewelry) for $100, in order to buy some weed. Now there’s a statement on priorities, immediate needs and perspective…
THE ADMINISTRATION KNEW (AS WE ALL SUSPECTED)
Trump advisers privately warned of ‘critical mistakes’ as pandemic loomed "From now on, the government must be honest," one adviser urged in February 2020, even as then-President Donald Trump insisted the virus was contained.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/09/14/trump-advisers-pandemic-warning/
Have a great day,
Glenn
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