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[Reelya]

If you let murderers vote then they'll vote for murder to be legal, that's the type of argument they give. Then suddenly you have Purge Night happening. See where it leads?

[hector13]

It's crazy. It's exactly one of those things that is punishing to a minority of the population and is built in such a way that it won't get changed.

That is rather the point.

Remove the minority so the only people left around are people you like like you.

The only problem is the people in the group of people you like like you will get refined so it’s smaller and smaller until there’s no one left but people you like like you you.

[Reelya]

There is also good data suggesting tough on crime approaches may well just be making things worse:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2107806-men-are-more-violent-when-there-are-more-women-around/

More men inevitably means more testosterone-fuelled violence, right? Wrong, according to a comprehensive analysis exploring how a surplus of men or women affect crime rates across the US.

In areas where men outnumber women, there were lower rates of murders and assaults as well as fewer sex-related crimes, such as rapes, sex offences and prostitution. Conversely, higher rates of these crimes occurred in areas where there were more women than men.

Ryan Schacht of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and his colleagues analysed sex ratio data from all 3082 US counties, provided by the US Census Bureau in 2010. They compared this with crime data for the same year, issued by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. They only included information about women and men of reproductive age.

For all five types of offence analysed, rising proportions of men in a county correlated with fewer crimes– even when accounting for other potential contributing factors such as poverty. The results suggest that current policies aimed at defusing violence and crime by reducing the amount of men in male-dominated areas may backfire.

To a lot of people that's going to sound counter-intuitive so they're going to reject the findings outright, but them's the breaks. Sometimes reality doesn't fit neatly into how we conceptualize things, requiring us to rejig how we think about things. Read that and consider how it relates to black neighborhoods.

The reason I think nobody is talking about this stuff is that the finding is too out of left-field, so neither side of politics can see how they can "weaponize" this insight to hurt the other side; that's all they care about. To acknowledge anything like this, the right would have to acknowledge that their tough on crime stuff is backfiring, and the left would have to grapple with a "more men equals less crime" finding, which I think would explode too many heads. So, a major factor that leads to more rapes among other things gets totally ignored by activists, because it doesn't fit the narrative.

 It's like radon gas: kills a bunch of people but the left can't blame capitalists for it, and the right can't blame the Democrats for it, so neither side pushes for anything to be done. It's not a real problem unless you can hit someone over the head with blame, right?

[Lord Shonus]

The answer is far more simple. Tough On Crime laws persist because politicians promised that these laws would make people safe to get votes. Once a politician takes a position on an issue, it is very hard to change positions because they lose face - the voters hate a "flip-flop" from a politician more than they hate the politician being wrong, especially if it contradicts something that the voters very much want to be true (in this case, the notion that tough enough laws will mean they never ever have to encounter criminal activity). Equally important, changing your views often does you very little good, because a large percentage of the electorate will refuse to admit you've really changed.

So, 99% of the time the first position a politician takes on an issue is carved into stone forever. Most politicians in power today have supported Tough On Crime laws in the past (in many cases before the data showing that such laws do not work was available). Therefore their support for Tough On Crime is eternal and uncompromising.

[Reelya]

For things like Broken Windows Policing, they managed to hitch a ride on the general decline in violent crime in the 1990s. Despite NYC being completely average compared to other big cities at the time on this measure.

The lead poisoning from gasoline thing is actually the most plausible explanation for why everywhere declined in crime at the same time. Who would have guessed that not driving around in machines that spew neurotoxins would be a good idea?

[sluissa]

There is also good data suggesting tough on crime approaches may well just be making things worse:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2107806-men-are-more-violent-when-there-are-more-women-around/

More men inevitably means more testosterone-fuelled violence, right? Wrong, according to a comprehensive analysis exploring how a surplus of men or women affect crime rates across the US.

In areas where men outnumber women, there were lower rates of murders and assaults as well as fewer sex-related crimes, such as rapes, sex offences and prostitution. Conversely, higher rates of these crimes occurred in areas where there were more women than men.

Ryan Schacht of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and his colleagues analysed sex ratio data from all 3082 US counties, provided by the US Census Bureau in 2010. They compared this with crime data for the same year, issued by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. They only included information about women and men of reproductive age.

For all five types of offence analysed, rising proportions of men in a county correlated with fewer crimes– even when accounting for other potential contributing factors such as poverty. The results suggest that current policies aimed at defusing violence and crime by reducing the amount of men in male-dominated areas may backfire.

To a lot of people that's going to sound counter-intuitive so they're going to reject the findings outright, but them's the breaks. Sometimes reality doesn't fit neatly into how we conceptualize things, requiring us to rejig how we think about things. Read that and consider how it relates to black neighborhoods.

The reason I think nobody is talking about this stuff is that the finding is too out of left-field, so neither side of politics can see how they can "weaponize" this insight to hurt the other side; that's all they care about. To acknowledge anything like this, the right would have to acknowledge that their tough on crime stuff is backfiring, and the left would have to grapple with a "more men equals less crime" finding, which I think would explode too many heads. So, a major factor that leads to more rapes among other things gets totally ignored by activists, because it doesn't fit the narrative.

 It's like radon gas: kills a bunch of people but the left can't blame capitalists for it, and the right can't blame the Democrats for it, so neither side pushes for anything to be done. It's not a real problem unless you can hit someone over the head with blame, right?

I'm wondering if they didn't get that conclusion flipped around a little bit.

Is it that areas with a higher ratio of males to females causes better behavior through some social pressure or is it that areas with a higher ratio of males to females exist because crime is, in general, lower in those areas, causing both less homicide (and thus more males) and less rapes?

It's been fairly long understood that human biology, through some manner, produces a slightly higher ratio of males to females at birth. But that males, through various processes, both natural and social tend to die off quicker, evening off to something closer to 50/50. An area with a safer environment that is less inclined to make males take risks through participating in crime, or via economic factors where males aren't pushed to take on riskier jobs, will tend to have more males, while an area where males are pushed to take more risks, and thus die more, will tend to have less.

The paper is suspiciously absent of any mention of those sorts of economic, class, or cultural factors.

[scriver]

Yes  i was thinking the same thing, but just in terms of prison (which might not make sense in the numbers). If you have an area which is more violent and prone to jail time crime for socio-economical and cultural reasons, more men from this area will go to jail. This will mean the area will have a much lesser ratio of men to women, but the socio-economic and cultural reasons that cause the criminal behaviour will remain (or even, particularly with the economics, increase).

[Bumber]

Yes  i was thinking the same thing, but just in terms of prison (which might not make sense in the numbers). If you have an area which is more violent and prone to jail time crime for socio-economical and cultural reasons, more men from this area will go to jail. This will mean the area will have a much lesser ratio of men to women, but the socio-economic and cultural reasons that cause the criminal behaviour will remain (or even, particularly with the economics, increase).

Are they not still counted as living there when in jail?

[scriver]

That's a good point. I assumed they would be written at the place their prison is at.

[Starver]

Interesting question. What's their official address on their Voter Registration forms..?

(/snark?)

[scriver]

We are no longer discussing America's vote issues so your snark is misplaced.

...Actually it is an interesting question. Only felons lose their right to vote, right? Can people imprisoned on lesser charges still vote from prison?

For me I would be fine with criminals losing voting rights while paying for their crime but 99% of all crimes should have that right returned when they've served their time (and that includes when they're let out on parole and similar lessening of the punishment).

The people who should not have their voting rights returned are people guilty of things like bribing politicians or other similar corruption, high level economic crime, organised crime, international crime, as a statement of them having betrayed society. No, I do not have any ideas for how to turn this moral judgement into actual realistic policy. It's just what I see is just.

[Random_Dragon]

Interesting question. What's their official address on their Voter Registration forms..?

(/snark?)

Weird thought: if they repealed the "felons can't vote" thing, I wouldn't be surprised if some connection to the place they were incarcerated at was added to voter registration and still used for voter tracking and suppression...

[voliol]

We are no longer discussing America's vote issues so your snark is misplaced.

...Actually it is an interesting question. Only felons lose their right to vote, right? Can people imprisoned on lesser charges still vote from prison?

For me I would be fine with criminals losing voting rights while paying for their crime but 99% of all crimes should have that right returned when they've served their time (and that includes when they're let out on parole and similar lessening of the punishment).

The people who should not have their voting rights returned are people guilty of things like bribing politicians or other similar corruption, high level economic crime, organised crime, international crime, as a statement of them having betrayed society. No, I do not have any ideas for how to turn this moral judgement into actual realistic policy. It's just what I see is just.

Just letting everyone vote would be both easier and cheaper. If the ballots are secret enough to keep these bribers (the mafia?) from threatening people over votes, their votes should simply be that, the votes of a few horrible people that won't do much when diluted with more sensible people's. It's not like the US needs more precedents of keeping people from voting, and a (weak) statement aimed at a very small minority isn't really worth it. Especially since this minority knows how to influence elections without voting I doubt they'd really care.

The problem with "criminals" not being able to vote is that law enforcement can meddle with the election by convicting people likely to vote against them in the right time-span before it. Say, minorities for drug crimes.

[scriver]

Should a vote count as from the place they're currently in or the place they came from?

Here in Sweden you're always supposed to vote in the place you live in (and you're supposed to be written in the place you luve). I have absolutely no idea how we do with prisons. Then again, the largest prison in Sweden only have 450 inmates, a sliver of the amount of people living in the commune (or "counties" are called communes). I'm not sure how that compares to American counties in general but the biggest prison in the US is apparently located in Louisiana with 6300 inmates and the parish it's in only has 16000 inhabitants rounded up.

So while I want to say "people should count as where they are at" for the sake of simplicity it would probably be a bit unfair to the the rest of the parish to demand that suddenly one fourth of their voting population would be criminals.

So I must contend that despite my OCD don't liking it I must say that voting registration where you were before you got sentenced is the way to go.

We are no longer discussing America's vote issues so your snark is misplaced.

...Actually it is an interesting question. Only felons lose their right to vote, right? Can people imprisoned on lesser charges still vote from prison?

For me I would be fine with criminals losing voting rights while paying for their crime but 99% of all crimes should have that right returned when they've served their time (and that includes when they're let out on parole and similar lessening of the punishment).

The people who should not have their voting rights returned are people guilty of things like bribing politicians or other similar corruption, high level economic crime, organised crime, international crime, as a statement of them having betrayed society. No, I do not have any ideas for how to turn this moral judgement into actual realistic policy. It's just what I see is just.

Just letting everyone vote would be both easier and cheaper. If the ballots are secret enough to keep these bribers (the mafia?)

When it comes to the bribe point I was thinking more of corporation associated people than organised crime. And as stated the removal of their right to vote would be more of a statement of them no longer being trusted to be of service to society.

The problem with "criminals" not being able to vote is that law enforcement can meddle with the election by convicting people likely to vote against them in the right time-span before it. Say, minorities for drug crimes.

Drugs alone wasn't on my list of crimes I think it reasonable lose voting rights over.

[Starver]

The people who should not have their voting rights returned are people guilty of things like bribing politicians or other similar corruption, high level economic crime, organised crime, international crime, as a statement of them having betrayed society. No, I do not have any ideas for how to turn this moral judgement into actual realistic policy. It's just what I see is just.

Crimes involving (by a given standard, edge cases may need to be established) voting/representation are disqualifying events for life?

Bank robbery, pickpocketing (even of a politician), tax evasion/fraud/insider-trading (without a political dimension, e.g. abuse of an office) do not affect voting upon finally serving your tariff/gaining parole, where applicable.

One might wonder whether illegal trespass on government property or riotous behaviour at a protest might count (I'd say not, instinctively) but that might be where the consideration (or allowance of discretion/punitism, given 1st Amendment stuff, etc) would need to be focussed if/when implemented.

(Yes, voliol, there's room to mess with people's encranchisement, but only if there's quite obvious "this mugging prevented the victim from voting", "this burglary took that household's ballot papers", "this aftempt to blackmail an Ex wth intimate photos was to force them to vote differently" Every Single Time someone gets convicted of <whatever> and fits with the targetted suppression demographic. If it'scommon enough to be worthwhile, it'd be blindingly obvious to the average court-reporter, and thus the public. Or so maybe I naïvely imagine.)

((If you mean increased criminalisation/imprisonment for suppression during the time of incarceration, which is something maybe that is easier to imagine as part of "removed from society" punishment, unless you grant them the ability to absentee vote/set up ballet booths in the institution, then that's what's badically happening now, and then not getting the vote back upon release.))


As an interesting equivalence, if you are imprisoned in the UK you are not liable to pay Council Tax (local authority taxation) unless you are in prison for not paying your Council Tax... (Typically that would be due to refusal, rather than inability, which can be more leniently dealt with. So the point is that you don't 'get away with' the time you spend inside.)



(((Ninjas shouldn' be allowed to vote!)))