US Supreme Court in 2023

[Josh]

Stop producing so many in the first place. How about that?

Yet they are already here, so what should be done with them? I think innocent victims should come first, not violent perpetrators.

Today we are reaping the results of decisions we made 10, 20, 30, even 40 and 50 years ago.

In 10, 20, and 30 years we will still be reaping the results of decisions we make today. That is how the world works.

Okay. So should innocent victims be protected or not?

I think you’re saying that you feel that violent criminals have no agency and it’s someone else’s fault, for example, when a violent criminal rapes and kills someone. Do I have that correct?

[Ken]

Yet they are already here, so what should be done with them? I think innocent victims should come first, not violent perpetrators.

Today we are reaping the results of decisions we made 10, 20, 30, even 40 and 50 years ago.

In 10, 20, and 30 years we will still be reaping the results of decisions we make today. That is how the world works.

Okay. So should innocent victims be protected or not?

I think you’re saying that you feel that violent criminals have no agency and it’s someone else’s fault, for example, when a violent criminal rapes and kills someone. Do I have that correct?

You are confusing and conflating punishment with prevention. They are not the same thing at all. Locking people up AFTER a crime has already been committed does nothing to protect the victims of that crime.

Locking people up for 50 years does nothing to "protect innocent victims" if we do nothing to address the social conditions that lead to crime in the first place. We are locking people up at rates that are 3 to 10-times the rates of every other western country with very little if anything to show for it. Is America a 10-times more immoral place than say Germany or Sweden? Is it 10-times safer? Or is our society doing something wrong?

We actually do know what sort of social conditions lead to increased crime. It is not a mystery. Maybe we should be seeking to address them instead.

[Josh]

Locking up a violent rapist does actually protect victims since violent criminals are likely to reoffend.

I find the idea that violent criminals shouldn’t be punished at all an interesting one but one I disagree with. Ken, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but are you saying a violent criminal shouldn’t be locked up or otherwise punished because it’s “society’s fault”?

[Ken]

Locking up a violent rapist does actually protect victims since violent criminals are likely to reoffend.

I find the idea that violent criminals shouldn’t be punished at all an interesting one but one I disagree with. Ken, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but are you saying a violent criminal shouldn’t be locked up or otherwise punished because it’s “society’s fault”?

No, I'm not saying that at all. Violent rapists should be locked up. They are also a small percentage of the prison population Far more people are locked up for things like drug offenses.

The vast majority of crimes in most cities are drug related. Either nonviolent drug possession offenses, property crime driven by addiction, homelessness driven by substance abuse, or violence and domestic violence also driven by substance abuse.

Yet we have an ENORMOUS scarcity of addiction treatment facilities in this country. So we rely on the criminal justice system to do it and it does a horrible job of it. One alternative would be to build a separate system of drug rehabilitation prisons. You commit any drug-related offense you get routed there instead of regular prison for whatever appropriate length of time it takes to get people truly clean. People who don't cooperate get tossed back into regular prison with an extended sentence. Repeat offenders keep getting sent back

We could do the same thing with mental health. Commit any crime as a consequence of mental illness and get sent to a mandatory mental health corrections facility. Same principle. It gets around the whole problem of consent which is what hamstrings most mental health treatment because it is voluntary. If it is part of your sentence it is mandatory.

And, of course, long term you start addressing social issues that lead to crime in the first place. Which means starting at the preschool and kindergarten level. And also things like investing in inner city communities rather than neglecting them as we do now.

Complicated problems have complicated solutions. That is the reality. But you have to start someplace. Usually the easiest and best place to start is to stop doing the wrong things.

[Josh]

No, I'm not saying that at all. Violent rapists should be locked up. They are also a small percentage of the prison population Far more people are locked up for things like drug offenses.

The vast majority of crimes in most cities are drug related. Either nonviolent drug possession offenses, property crime driven by addiction, homelessness driven by substance abuse, or violence and domestic violence also driven by substance abuse.

Ken, the topic at hand was violent crime and sentencing for that. The state I live in has very mild punishments for simple possession of eg marijuana - a $100 ticket. Do you have a problem with that?

Yet we have an ENORMOUS scarcity of addiction treatment facilities in this country. So we rely on the criminal justice system to do it and it does a horrible job of it. One alternative would be to build a separate system of drug rehabilitation prisons. You commit any drug-related offense you get routed there instead of regular prison for whatever appropriate length of time it takes to get people truly clean. People who don't cooperate get tossed back into regular prison with an extended sentence. Repeat offenders keep getting sent back

Addiction treatment facilities are both expensive and addicts don’t want to go there. My area of the state has full services for addiction treatment - anyone who wants it can get it - plus a special “diversion” court for drug related offences.

Turns out a lot of addicts want to use drugs and a lot of drug dealers want to keep selling drugs. What do you propose be done with such people?

We could do the same thing with mental health. Commit any crime as a consequence of mental illness and get sent to a mandatory mental health corrections facility. Same principle. It gets around the whole problem of consent which is what hamstrings most mental health treatment because it is voluntary. If it is part of your sentence it is mandatory.

That already exists, but most people don’t want to be locked up in a mental ward for life, which is what “not guilty by reason of insanity” means. Mentally unstable violent people can’t be out on the streets.

And, of course, long term you start addressing social issues that lead to crime in the first place. Which means starting at the preschool and kindergarten level. And also things like investing in inner city communities rather than neglecting them as we do now.

As already documented, Baltimore has some of the highest per pupil spending in the country. What “investing” do you propose? I don’t want to “invest” money in a war zone with constant crime and break ins since I’ll lose my investment, and can’t have a business there either since my employees would get assaulted and their car stolen. See the problem?

Complicated problems have complicated solutions. That is the reality. But you have to start someplace. Usually the easiest and best place to start is to stop doing the wrong things.

Punishing criminals for committing crimes is not a “wrong thing”. Committing crimes is a “wrong thing”. The best place to start is that people using drugs, dealing them, and committing burglaries, carjackings, and violent crime need to stop, and if they refuse to stop, they should be punished appropriately.

[Ken]

As already documented, Baltimore has some of the highest per pupil spending in the country.

Just to address this one point. These sorts of statistics can be very deceptive because education funding is usually separated into separate categories of capital spending (on school buildings, facilities, infrastructure, technology) and operations spending (mostly salaries).

Many urban districts like Baltimore do have high operations spending because they are in high cost-of-living areas where salaries are necessarily higher than in rural areas, and tend to have higher staffing needs for things like special and remedial education, intensive training and support for immigrant kids speaking 50+ languages, and so forth. While at the same time their capital spending on facilities is decades behind.

I don't specifically know the situation in Baltimore but I have seen it in other big cities which I suspect are similar. You often have aging poorly-maintained infrastructure and buildings that have suffered decades of deferred maintenance due to budgetary issues, the schools are often in the wrong places and were built for population distributions from 1900 or 1920 rather than 2023. Remodeling or rebuilding is often hamstrung by politics and things like historic preservation districts. And can cost much more than simply building new on virgin farmland in the suburbs. And so yes, you can have high per-pupil spending on things like salaries while still having school facilities that are crumbling and wholly inadequate compared to those in wealthier newer suburban districts. And that are tremendously more expensive to maintain and operate compared to new modern schools in the suburbs.

You see the same exact thing with old churches in the inner city. They eventually become too expensive for congregations to maintain compared to new buildings in the suburbs. For example, here is an old church in New York City with a small congregation of several dozen that wants to sell it while wealthy neighbors are trying to block the sale.



From the article: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/26/nyre ... =url-share

Estimates for how much it would cost in total to renovate it are around $50 million, including $14 million to deal with crumbling facades and $4 million to comply with building and fire code violations.

$50 MILLION would build a LOT of new churches in the suburbs, or schools as the case may be. Many urban school districts find themselves in a similar situation with 100+ year old buildings that have similar maintenance and renovation costs and that get caught up in intense neighborhood and political battles about school closings, renovations, rebuilding, etc.

[Josh]

So, in other words, despite the highest spending in education they still get terrible results. Okay.

Baltimore is not NYC and a quick check shows large amounts of money spent on new construction in addition to plenty of state grants for maintenance, so no, that doesn’t add up.

As far as teacher salaries being higher: why are suburbs with lower-paid teachers getting such better results than Baltimore? Sounds like every dollar spent on schools in Baltimore is wasted compared to a well functioning school district.

[Ken]

So, in other words, despite the highest spending in education they still get terrible results. Okay.

Baltimore is not NYC and a quick check shows large amounts of money spent on new construction in addition to plenty of state grants for maintenance, so no, that doesn’t add up.

As far as teacher salaries being higher: why are suburbs with lower-paid teachers getting such better results than Baltimore? Sounds like every dollar spent on schools in Baltimore is wasted compared to a well functioning school district.

I don't know that it is true that suburban districts are getting better results than Baltimore. How you actually measure teaching effectiveness is to look at where students were at when they entered your classroom and look at where they are at when they left it. And that is also determined by a lot of factors outside the teacher and school's control such as how often they actually show up for class, whether they come to school hungry, whether they are being abused or neglected, whether they can speak English, and so forth.

But if you want more crime, refusing to educate students is a sure way to get it. Something like 75% of prison inmates are illiterate. Connect the dots.

[ohio jones]

$50 MILLION would build a LOT of new churches in the suburbs, or schools as the case may be. Many urban school districts find themselves in a similar situation with 100+ year old buildings that have similar maintenance and renovation costs and that get caught up in intense neighborhood and political battles about school closings, renovations, rebuilding, etc.

$50 million might build one new school, if it isn't too large.

How many churches would it build? If it's replacing one attended by "several dozen" then yes, multiple churches adequate for that size congregation could be built for that price. Probably not a LOT unless the cost of the lot is reasonable.

[Sliceitup]

Baltimore has some of the highest per-pupil spending on schools, and Maryland has strict gun laws. Apparently, neither of those things make much of a difference when it comes to violent crime.

So your opinion is that the disparities exist because more black kids get arrested? How do you explain the disparities?

Sliceitup, the most logical explanation is that if a certain demographic (such as young males vs. elderly females) gets convicted far more often, perhaps they commit far more crimes.

What I was trying to get at was sentencing disparities. Why would Black people be sentenced more harshly for the same crimes? Once the people are arrested there are still disparities that exist after that. What accounts for those?