In his book Intellectuals and Society, Thomas Sowell responds to the progressive argument that prisons are not an effective response to crime, because so many prisoners are rearrested after they are released:
By this kind of reasoning, food is ineffective as a response to hunger because it is only a matter of time after eating before you get hungry again.
Is Sowell Channeling Theodore Dalrymple?
BTW the link seems to be not working.
I’d take Sowell’s germane comment even one step further.
Since progressives judge the success of a response to crime on the basis of low recidivism rates, then logically they would have to embrace execution of all criminals as standard punishment: after all, no executed criminal is ever re-arrested for committing a new crime.
Hmmmm, now it’s working.
Thomas Sowell always reminds me of the kid who noticed and remarked that the king was butt-naked.
In our society this requires a special genius….
Sowell’s remarks about incarceration can be directed towards this assinine long gun registry.
The favourite argument of the gun-grabbers is that we register cars…why not guns….
Thieves steal registered cars more often than unregistered cars….registration has not prevented any suicides by CO, suppressed impaired or dangerous speeding……..
The reality is the gun-grabbers want to registry to enable their goal…gun grabbing….
The only problem we have with prisons is that we let prisoners go free far too soon.
The real reason crime rates dropped in the 1990s? The large increase in the prison population. Every dollar spent on prisons saves the economy from the carnage these criminals create.
Would it help to have “prison conditions” that make these creeps afraid to recommit crime.One trip is all they would want..
POWinCA:
It costs over $100,000 per year to keep a prisoner in a federal penitentiary. It’s about half that to keep them in provincial jails. And that’s just operating costs – it doesn’t include the cost of building the prison, or the cost of the trials, let alone the police.
I think there’s lots of good reasons to lock criminals up for a while, but economics isn’t usually one of them. Unless it’s a monster like Olson or Pickton, or a massive thief like Madoff, the harm done is less than the costs of incarceration. I mean, a guy steals your car, and gets five years – boom, that’s a half million spent for a $50,000 car. But I agree that we need to keep people like that off the streets. I think the best argument is the general sense of security is worth the costs of the system.
KevinB;
I think the discussion of the economics becomes relevant when you take into account the justice system infrastructure and costs to take care of these “lesser” crimes and repeat offenders. Eliminate these “club feds” , parole boards , faint hope clauses etc. and have even car thieves do FULL sentences, the taxpayer and societal cost savings can reasonably enter the debate.
And, while we’re at it, seeing as we’re legalizing prostitution, er, the sex trade, why not legalize murder — you know? — the kind of murder that isn’t really “murder, murder” (Whoopi-thinking), the kind of murder committed by progressives because they have their reasons, poor babies.
This world truly is being run by crazy people, and they’re getting more demented and depraved with each passing day.
Dear KevinB, re your response to POWinCA, you forgot one factor in your equation. What value are the cars that the thief will be unable to steal while incarcerated? Assuming the average thief steals one $25,000 car a week, in one year he steals 1.3 million dollars. That money comes from the pockets of everyone who has a car insured or whose pension plan holds shares of the insurance company. Also our car thief will not be involved in a high-speed pursuit that could become fatal.
The gun controller’s mantra is ‘if it saves one life it’s worth it’. I think the same should be applied to the sentencing of career criminals.
I recommend putting a better class of people in jail, like conservative bloggers — that will perhaps increase the chances of better results after release.
Imaginary charges can easily be brought against us, in fact, they already have been. Off with our heads.
ROC C
has it right if you stuffed six people per cell and no smoking no ps3 no t.v. no work out gym equipment no fantsy dinner just bread water and some veggies so on and so forth i bet you the crime rates would drop also a zero totlorence for in jail activities like dealing drug’s making moonshine ,fighting or any of that would allow the wardens to shoot to kill period you would have almost no crime left in a decade people would be shit scared to go to jail and there for would take there freedom much more seriously.
start making little petty thieves and car thieves and so on earn there right to be in society by working to keep our cities clean at gun point pick up garbage sweep the street’s and they get the same thing bread water and veggies , start forcing them to help cops bust crimes and other criminals
folks these people are criminals …and while i understand they are human they are the lowest for of human there is thieves and liars ,rapist’s murderes ,child molesters ,so on and so forth .
so no i have very little compassion for them not to mention i would also have a work for freedom program where by a counceller could be assigned to a convict who is showing signs of regret or guilt or what ever to rehabilitate them and teach them that they have to earn there way into society and that it may be hard and it may sometimes just down right suck but then you re read what i wrote above and that is there option and when there option is worse than working and fitting into society you will have a much better rehabilitation rate .
There will be alway’s many who just don’t care and don’t want to “fit in ” so they will help us keep our cities clean and pretty planing flowers ,and sweeping the road’s picking up cigarette butt’s and scraping gum of the sidewalks ..and they will do this at gun point with full authority to shoot to kill if they even remotley step out of line that will thin the herd and sort out many crime issues we have . but i will stress that there wil alway’s be thug’s and there will alway’s be repeat offenders and that is why we will alway’s have clean street’s and pretty cities !!!
The thing is, by the time they’re in prison it’s too late. There’s ample unbiased psychological research that demonstrates that the most effective deterrent is not severity of punishment, but the likelihood of getting caught in the first place – a high apprehension rate coupled with slap on the wrist punishments will lower crime rates more than half-assed arrests and life sentences for everybody.
No criminal ever thinks they’re going to get caught in the first place, so increasing sentences isn’t a psychological deterrent. The best way to lower crime rates is to legalize things that aren’t serious crimes against people or property, and use the freed policing resources to make sure that committing a real crime gets you caught, period.
Anyone who doesn’t think jail is a deterrent has never heard the sound of cell door clanging closed.
Paul in calgary makes some pretty good points.
That is the logic of Homer Simpson. Where he says “Why bother going on a vacation, we are just going to wind up back here anyway.”
I use that same logic to avoid vacations in my home, but I am aware that I am being a Homer when I do it.
I like chain gangs myself. So it competes with union jobs but hey cons are also wards of the state so it’s the same thing to me. One way I live in a cleaner place and the cost is the same.
Not to mention that mean ol’ neocon idea it seems fair and there is that embarassment thingie that may actually work.
batb,
It’s not already?
Prison will never been seen as a deterrent to those who find it improves their quality of life.
My understanding is Rudy Giuliani started to change New York City from the most crime infested, murder capital of U.S.A. by recording and detering crimes as minor as jaywalking in Times Square; enforcing the repair of all broken windows in buildings to increase awareness of the law.
We now have several cities in Canada with greater incidence of crime, including murder, than New York City; Cheers
Sowell:
“By this kind of reasoning, food is ineffective as a response to hunger because it is only a matter of time after eating before you get hungry again.”
Yes, Sowell knows that socialism is the religion of the stomach*.
How do the disciples of socialism lead on?
By promising: “more”.
Works so well; until, the money to pay for the “more” runs out. But, socialism’s Food Banks can fill the hunger gap, no?
Oliver Twist understood eventually that socialism’s Golden Road ends in the PET Cemetery; a mirage where there is no “more”.
“A council was held; lots were cast who should walk up to the master after supper that evening, and ask for more; and it fell to Oliver Twist.”
(H/T Charles Dickens)
…-
“more”:
[PDF]
The Psychology of Socialism
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat
Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Socialism, 8 ephemeral existence. …… Socialism is in effect nothing but the religion of the stomach.”
http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/lebon/socialism.pdf
I think Rudy Giuliani has definitively done this experiment. Its called the Broken Windows policy. You arrest punks for loitering, spitting, noise complaints, j-walking, littering, peeing on the sidewalk, graffiti, breaking windows, etc. You chuck them in the slammer for a few months.
Then when they come out, you bust them again. And again. AND AGAIN. Until they finally get the message and either smarten up or leave town.
Rates for serious crimes plummeted in double digits while Rudy was Mayor. Those rates are climbing steadily while Bloomberg is mayor. Bloomberg doesn’t believe in Broken Windows. Bloomberg is a typical NY liberal.
Another experiment worth note is Sherrif Joe Arpaio’s tent jail. Put up a fence, put up some tents, instant jail. Feed the punks baloney sandwiches. Period. Punks in Arizona are not eager to go back.
Its cheap, and it works.
Combine the two ideas and add ARMED SELF DEFENSE to the stew, you have a polite, low-crime environment where kids can ride their bikes to school safely.
Its what we used to have in Ontario when I was a kid. It was pretty cool. We should get it back.
The Phantom: yeah, we had it in Alberta too. Then a thing called the 70s and 80s happened, and scum began to run amuck at an alarming rate and are doing so today. Morning news showed us that a guy with a record of sexual predation on young girls, and who is described by the “authorities” as *still a severe threat* is now at his halfway house having “paid his debt to society” – ready to walk away and start all over again. Thanks for the “warning”, for all the good it’ll do. We get a story like that at least once a week here.
BTW, not sure if I’ve ever mentioned it: if anyone harms a member of my family and I can find out who it is, I won’t bother contacting the police. I think that should be easy enough to interpret.
My response to the absurd claim that capital punishment is not a deterent to murder is that it is damn effective at eliminating repeat offenses.
Not even necessarily capital punishment; my understanding is that the death penalty was abolished in Canada (last execution 1962) and the U.K. (1964) and probably a bunch of American States too on the understanding that life meant life; but Charles Manson and Clifford Olson both get parole hearings, and that twit Lord Longford was trying to spring Myra Hindley for years until she died. Okay, Charles Manson is probably wasting his energy; but equally horrific, less notorious killers do get paroled. Judges are often fools, and they have no direct accountability.
not an effective response to crime, because so many prisoners are rearrested after they are released
grok:
There is actually a lot of truth in what you said. Criminals are often people who are wandering hopelessly without structure, discipline or purpose in life. In a prison setting, they get up in the morning, shave, shower and do whatever. They soon find structure. That’s why they often reoffend and go back.
Phantom on 30th – I think that Arpaio’s “experiment” is based upon what has already worked in Australia – that illegal immigrants are neither legal nor immigrants when caught, and are held in tent cities whilst their cases are under review. Similarly, my take on Guliani’s New York is that those who are likely to break the big laws are much more likely to break the smaller laws. Therefore, when you arrest those who break the smaller laws you are also arresting those who are most likely to break a bigger law. Thus, arresting jaywalkers is also likely (through a circuitous route) to remove many potential murderers from the community, because their disregard for the “lesser” laws shows their regard for the serious ones.
Or, as I used to good effect a couple of times in the 90’s, Al Capone is only guilty of tax evasion like Bill Clinton only cheated on his wife with one intern. It might not be the most serious thing that they’ve done, but it’s provable so I’ll take it!
Regarding Sowell – he has over 50 published books and is re-vamping his “Basic Economics: a citizens guide to the economy”. He is the nearest thing to a sage that I have ever encountered. I find his more philosophical writings (which includes “Intellectuals and Society”) to be difficult to read because they are so grounded in common sense that they absorb into the background of my mind and send me off onto different trails of extrapolations. It’s difficult to stay focused, but I would urge anyone who wants to expand their horizons to grab a book or two by him.
Either “Basic Economics” or “Cultures and Conquests” are very good places to start. If you want more Sowellian thought, look on http://www.townhall.com for any of this “random thoughts on a passing scene” columns. Another excelled example can be found at http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2010/07/27/how_smart_are_we
One of the aspects of Joe Arpaio’s policy is the extent he will go to, to rehabilitate any con who shows interest in going straight…..a rehabilitation which shows much merit and success.
Back in Dickin’s time public executions may not have seemed to have not had a deterent effect….but the primitive criminology did not result in a very high percentage of solved crimes….elimentary. Everything is legal if ya don’t get caught.
Those who declare that deterents don’t work…put money in a parking meter…..