Yeah, if you want a soundbyte explanation of why the US is a carceral state (which it really is), then it's because we have the expectations for law and order of a small Swiss village, but the criminality of a Brazilian port city (exagerrated for humorous effect, but not really).
That schizophrenia between demands for law and order, and the reality of law and order, is why we lock so many people up and have fairly tough policing.
One option is to accept that hey, the government can't really stop all this crime, so let's not investigate or prosecute that much. This is the approach taken by the latest crop of liberal DAs. And it's been a disaster for local communities.
That's also when you start seeing stores with their own armed guards, and armed gated communities as the wealthy privatize security for themselves -- and the poor are subject to a lot of violence. I remember visiting the Phillipines and seeing men with shotguns outside basically normal stores and in shopping malls.
But hey, you don't have government jails filled with people and the police are a lot less visible. So, there is an upside, it's not necessarily a bad approach as long as we are willing to tolerate private security engaging in private violence against criminals.
But what you can't do is pretend that we should have Swiss levels of incarceration while at the same time having a much larger criminal class and a completely different society.
Fun Fact: In Switzerland, if you leave your windows open during the winter, people will call the cops on you (for wasting energy). It's a much more rules-following society that would drive most Americans nuts.
This phrase omits the key issue: Crime, physical abuse, and political suppression by the legal system (including law enforcement officers), unrelated to reducing crime. When police arrest or shoot, DAs prosecute, and courts jail innocent people, it doesn't reduce crime. And criminalizing harmless activity, such as using marijuana, increases crime (including by creating a black market) and does nothing for public safety.
If we're going to be 'tough on crime', why aren't we tough on people in power or on ethnicities with power. How is that related to reducing crime?
> One option is to accept that hey, the government can't really stop all this crime, so let's not investigate or prosecute that much. This is the approach taken by the latest crop of liberal DAs.
That's not the approach, only the false characterization by political enemies. The approach is that the behavior I described above has nothing to do with reducing crime; it is criminal and should stop (this seems so obvious that it doesn't bear explanation). And that mass incarceration hasn't worked - the war on drugs was ineffective (and arguably a means of political oppression of minorities) - damages communities socially and economically (when large segments lose parents and felons are unable to work productively), and of course is harmful to its victims. let's find out what works and implement it.
Some things that work to reduce drug crime are sites where people can obtain and use drugs safely, decriminalization of drugs (especially harmless ones such as marijuana), and treatment of drug addiction as illness (which is what is already done to drugs for wealthy people). Also, providing services to young people, including activities, quality schooling, mental healthcare and counseling, as well as means for a hopeful future, do a lot to reduce crime.
> And it's been a disaster for local communities.
Do you have evidence of that? Crime is generally at generational lows, though shootings have been up during the pandemic. Can you show a correlation between these new approaches and increased crime?
Critically, people in those communities don't agree: They've long asked for these approaches and vote in large numbers for these DAs. It's people outside those communities that, bizarrely, try to overrule them and impose these things on them. That looks like political oppression to me; what other business do these outsiders have?
That schizophrenia between demands for law and order, and the reality of law and order, is why we lock so many people up and have fairly tough policing.
One option is to accept that hey, the government can't really stop all this crime, so let's not investigate or prosecute that much. This is the approach taken by the latest crop of liberal DAs. And it's been a disaster for local communities.
That's also when you start seeing stores with their own armed guards, and armed gated communities as the wealthy privatize security for themselves -- and the poor are subject to a lot of violence. I remember visiting the Phillipines and seeing men with shotguns outside basically normal stores and in shopping malls.
But hey, you don't have government jails filled with people and the police are a lot less visible. So, there is an upside, it's not necessarily a bad approach as long as we are willing to tolerate private security engaging in private violence against criminals.
But what you can't do is pretend that we should have Swiss levels of incarceration while at the same time having a much larger criminal class and a completely different society.
Fun Fact: In Switzerland, if you leave your windows open during the winter, people will call the cops on you (for wasting energy). It's a much more rules-following society that would drive most Americans nuts.