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> The US could start by no longer jailing drug consumers or first-time low-level street dealers. It just really really doesn't work anyway. That would reduce the prison population by what? 2/3? Suddenly you have 3x the budget and space, which should allow for quite a few improvements.

Nothing like that: https://www.google.com/amp/s/fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/rel.... Releasing every prisoner with a drug crime as their most serious offense would reduce the prison population by 14%. (Almost all that is low level dealers--few people are in prison for mere possession.)

It would be a good step, but people overestimate how big an impact it would have.

14% is huge, especially considering how many people commit crime because their life was destroyed by a drug conviction (their own or their parent's) leading to further crime.

John Pfaff studies this at Fordham and also rebuts this variant of the argument: if you look, there's no strong correlation between people ever convicted of any drug crime and later sentencing.

(His book, _Locked In_, is pretty great).

Reminder: nobody, including Pfaff, is saying it's good we lock up drug offenders like this. It's bad, and we should stop. It's just not a solution to mass incarceration. To address that, we need an across-the-board fix for aggressive prosecution, which is what appears to be the most important factor ratcheting up prison populations.

How many people?

I would guess that 14% underestimates the impact of not locking people up for drug crimes in the first place.

Rationale: there likely are quite a few prisoners who were initially were convicted on a minor drug crime, couldn't find work afterwards, then turned to theft or robbery, and now are emprisoned for a crime that's more serious than a drugs crime.

I also think one should look at people locked up for having intercourse with minors in those cases where the criminal is just over age and the minor is just under age. Even assuming that needs punishment, the repercussions for one's life are to harsh.

Thanks! I'm really off by quite a bit...

It's complex, and you're right to a first approximation. People (like GP poster) greatly overestimate the proportion of prisoners who could be easily and immediately released if the War on Drugs was ended.

On the 'could be greater than 14% side" you'd also want to know how many people are losing day release/probation/parole for dirty urine; even non-drug parolees and probationers might be tested.

Probably the other palatable change that would reduce incarceration rates would be to stop using jails as de facto asylums.

> and other punishments

That's the problem. A lot of people in the US like the idea of punishing and giving out moral retributions more than improving society in the long term.

As an American, it's a tough situation. I recognize that our strategies don't work and that mass incarceration with no socialization programs is an obvious failure, but at the same time I demand people be punished if they hurt me, not just inconvenienced. I don't care about a populations' propensity to reoffend at a societal level, I care that a specific individual hurt me and they need to make it right somehow or suffer consequences. If there is no perception of justice then I think we can expect extra-judicial retaliations.

> I don't care about a populations' propensity to reoffend at a societal level, I care that a specific individual hurt me and they need to make it right somehow or suffer consequences.

This seems pretty shortsighted to what incarceration can do to say, families. While you say you _demand_ people be punished if they hurt you, you're also demanding their family and kids be punished as well. Did the kid ask for this?

This is the kind of cycle that easily repeats. Children from broken / distressed homes have more trouble in life and are more likely to offend.

And the cycle begins again. Making everyone worse.

By that logic, you wouldn't fire an underperforming employee, because it could negatively affect their family and kids?

I'm not saying getting fired and going to prison have equivalent effects, but expecting that no person should be punished because it can detrimentally affect people close to them doesn't seem like a reasonable argument.

That's an interesting point. The big difference between prison and business are that the business is out to make a profit from you being there. If that's not happening, then sure, you should be let go. You could say the same thing about downsizing employees, since they are not even underperforming, but you don't need them anymore. It's not a business place to take up the slack for society. That's government's job.

Do I think there's a place for government to provide unemployment and welfare benefits for families? Yes, and they do.

The point I was trying to make is that there's a difference between being punished because it's good for society, and punished to provide a sense of vengeance or justice for the victim.

We should isolate people that are a danger to society, like murderers. But as soon as it's about the "feeling of justice" for the victim, emotions get complicated and are hard to measure and be fair about.

What we really need is all this in balance and to look at the macro level, as well as the micro, and try to find something that works.

If the employee didn't have any other good options, and the company could survive it, then certainly.

Of course this is easy for me to say.. In Norway unemployment benefits are good an unemployment rate low, so it's quite likely that the person would be fine. But even so, it is less likely that someone would be fired for 'underperforming' compared to say the US.

Inconvenienced?

For almost anyone with a career, a life plan, a family, friends or any community or social status etc, being convicted of a crime is already a massive consequence. It will often affect their life forever, even if they clean up their act afterward. Serving time in a real prison is an even bigger deal.

Are you only talking about people that have "nothing to lose"?

Is it enough punishment to you that someone spend time deprived of liberty? How much vengeance do you require? "An eye for an eye" and nothing less?

"An eye for an eye" doesn't work in practice because the punishment is not harsh enough to deter the crime in the first place, at least in terms of petty crimes. If the punishment for stealing $50 from someone is that I have to pay $50, I'm gonna be stealing all day long if I believe I have a better than 50% chance of not getting caught.

For more serious crimes, like DUI, the punishments are not severe enough. You don't lose your license until you have multiple DUIs. Even then, you will likely continue driving illegally while intoxicated until you t-bone another car and kill the family inside. Then the court/jury will "struggle" to determine if you deserve the death penalty.

In fact, the harshness of punishment in general is not an effective deterrent, as illustrated by the death penalty. If you're serious about actually lowering crime rates, look elsewhere.

Actually I believe prison should be the option of last resort as nobody benefits from locking someone up where they can't work or benefit society. I would prefer compensation in the form of money or labor if possible. If not, then that individual should be sent to prison.

As an American, I don't want people punished if they hurt or wrong me. I want them rehabilitated so they don't go and hurt me or someone else in the future.

The action is done, hurting the perpetrator in return won't restore me, I just don't want it to happen again.

Easy to say - but have you or a loved one ever been the victim of a serious crime? Logic tends to go out the window and emotion takes over.

But that has to be part of why we have a state. To make the most rational decision possible when individuals can only make emotional ones. It can't be the state's place to carry out people's personal vendettas no matter how justified they might seem. That's no way to run a civilization. If there's one good thing bureaucracy does it's ironing out some of the violent irrationalities and impulsivities inherent to human judgment.

Yes, I have been. It is, in part, my experiences and suffering that shapes my opinion.

I do not want others to suffer, even if I have, even if I have directly because someone wanted to inflict suffering on me.

(And, consequently, I do not want suffering enshrined into the legal system or power structures.)

Probably not 2/3. The BJS collects information about the US prison population:

https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/p15.txt

Out of 1.5 million in federal and state prisons, about 700,000 were convicted of violent crimes. And of course the remainder are not exclusively low level drug crimes.

(the population in jails is usually less than 100,000 so it won't tip the balance)

Better drug policy could well impact the levels of violent crime and so impact the future prison population, but forgiving sentences for drug related violent crime is a step further than forgiving sentences for petty drug crimes.

I used to go to a boxing gym near Baltimore where a lot of people came from "bad" neighborhoods. A lot of the young guys had experienced a life where a lot of friends and neighbors had been in jail for drugs. Once you have been in jail its really hard to find a decent job so a lot of them go into drug dealing which often leads to violence. Jailing people for drugs destroys the whole social fabric of a community.

I don't think you can separate low-level drug offenses from violent crime. One leads to the other.

> Once you have been in jail its really hard to find a decent job

And that's another aspect that needs addressing, and can be done regardless of legal/political changes.

Someone's been in jail/prison? Then they apply for a job with your company when they get out? Categorically denying them employment without regard to their previous offense is silly, although it's definitely policy at some (many?) companies. Helping people get back to a 'normal' life is something we all can take part in in various ways - not closing the door on applicants is another thing we can do.

I agree, and here's the thing. Almost all companies I've worked for in the past decade have done drug testing and background checks on me, so if I had had issues in my youth I wouldn't have been hired. And this is IT, I wasn't applying to be a police officer, lawyer, or crane operator.

Pass laws to RESTRICT companies from doing these types of unjustified checks (or have them justify them) instead of unlocking the prisons and letting criminals out. That communities are destroyed is a powerful argument, but I'm sorry, I don't need gangsters running around in my neighborhood. I'd much prefer they serve their time, and be able to work wherever they want (within reason) once they're out.

But in the U.S. we feel that businesses should have much 'freedom' as we call it, to hire and fire unimpeded.

So there's the impasse.

It's all unjustified to you until you actually have someone who steals to support their drug addiction, threatens coworkers, commits violence, or worse. So many people here seem to love the idea that drug users are these innocent people wrong by society, but it's usually because they are already insulated from them in their workplaces.

All it takes is someone high behind the wheels of a forklift to understand why these policies are in place, or someone in charge of industrial machinery showing up drunk or stoned or worse. Or a nurse who essentially robs the hospital blind to feed an addiction.

The point I was calling for was to start using some degree of common sense vs blanket "zero tolerance" policies wrt hiring.

Someone who was let out of prison 3 days ago with a record of violent/armed robbery is very likely not the same sort of potential problem as someone who did 6 months in prison 23 years ago for possession of marijuana.

I thought my last paragraph there addressed this fairly well.

If you are talking about reducing the prison population that exists right now, they sort of have to be separate. A murder that is the end result of a chain of events containing a lot of difficult choices is still a murder.

My point is that the murder may not have happened if the perpetrator had grown up in a better neighborhood.

Yeah I understand, do you think the last paragraph in my first comment misses that point?

My point is that we have people already in prison for past violent crimes, many of them, so even a policy change that has a big future impact still isn't going to quickly reduce the prison population by 2/3.

I didn't read your comment closely enough. Sorry. I agree that there won't be a quick reduction but at least the influx of new prisoners would be reduced and neighborhoods wouldn't get destroyed anymore.

I agree it's not 2/3rds, but it's a significant amount.

"249,900 state prisoners (19%) were sentenced to at least 1 year for property offenses. Sixteen percent of state prisoners were serving sentences for drug-related offenses"

Note that a fair amount of "property offenses" are really drug offenses. You steal things to feed your habit.

And..."Nearly half of federal prisoners incarcerated on September 30, 2015 had been sentenced for drug offenses, the most recent date for which federal offense data were available"

Country level population density is a nonsensical stat since most countries have varying levels of density. Sf/nyc/boston/chicao contain a big chunk of the us pop. Just because there is land in idaho does not mean you can count it.

I agree with you for the most part, except in certain situations. The problem is how to distinguish these situations as I dont believe in a black and white its always x time for y crime, that sort of thing.

For example, a rampant child abuser (sexual) who would say get life in prison. I think they should suffer the entire time, somehow, bring on that moral retribution. I would have to think long and hard to try to come up with something feasible though and not trample too much on morality, ethics, human rights, etc. For instance I chose a lifetime sentence for that example as there would be no need to rehabilitate.

well, that's a minefield, but maybe those make good examples. The instinct to throw these people into a dark hole and lose the key is strong. However, if you despise them so much because you think their crimes are so horrendous, that's even more reason to find something that works. Otherwise, you're placing your wish for revenge above the protection of their victims–exactly the sort of failure to control an instinct you're judging so harshly.

Because this narrative of child abuse as the-worst-of-the-worst crimes does nothing to stop people (harsher punishment really doesn't work very well beyond a certain level). But it does scare people away from seeking help.

I wouldn't have a problem with talking to a psychiatrist, or even friend or family member, about some anger problem that I feared might make me harm someone. They'd understand. But being attracted to children? That sounds like a really quick method to lose everything you have, just by asking for help.

And asking for help would be exactly what we want people with the potential to do: because it's pretty much accepted that sexual orientations are innate, and that sex drive is among the most powerful, hard-to-repress emotions. Of course people who harm others because of a lack of self-control have failed, morally. But, wow, did they not win the birth lottery.

Yeah, which is why I agree for the most part for most crimes. On the one hand, footing the bill to rehabilitate very gross crimes like that doesnt seem like just punishment, and I suppose thats the problem is I think they should be punished. Not sure you can have it both ways, but perhaps.

I do think harsher punishments would be additional incentive for people to keep themselves in check, but that obviously wont work with some, and may incur other undesirable consequences. Anyways, difficult problem for sure.

The problem with drugs in the USA is how big a problem that it is. The prescription drugs have a lot to do with it and there needs to be some proper acknowledgement as to what has happened. Before then it was Oliver North and co that were behind the 'crack epidemic'. I think treatment should be more what the Norwegians would do in their drug clinics, so we do the best we can to get those with the 'addiction disease' able to stay on the rails. We just can't have these people doing crimes that are of such a cost to society, causing narcissistic harm to children they have for these kids to find themselves in drugs leading to the same cycle of crime. Therefore there does have to be time for drug crime - big stick punishment - but in the current situation there needs to be some treatment of people who have been wrongly led up the path of addiction. This needs to be done Norwegian style too, with compassion.

We also need to think about when it is okay and when it is not okay to experiment with drugs. There is a difference between trying everything going at raves/parties/whatever as a student when it really does not matter if you drop out, the university still gets your money and they grumble but that is it, you are a statistic. Nobody is ever going to read that thesis anyway, what is the harm in advancing socially even if that involves being far from sober?

But if you are not a student then someone is being responsible for you or you are responsible for someone else and it is not fair to be a single parent paying for drugs by selling drugs, just to friends in a scene. That constitutes child abuse, there is harm in having a single parent battling horrible drug inflicted injuries and deep dysphoria being the 'role model'. Do you put that person in prison with their child in care? Who decides that? Are they just a low level street dealer, to be let off? So their customers can cheat/lie/steal whatever it takes to pay their bills?

Or the sales director who comes a cropper due to addiction getting the better of him or her. Perhaps major sales opportunities were lost and perhaps the wife didn't see much of him, maybe a lot went on but not the stealing or violence that goes with the life of a street junkie. People change jobs all the time, it is no biggie, nobody is indispensable. So why the lengthy prison sentence if there has been no harm outside of company (and bedtime) under-performance?

Maybe the drug could be anything from sugar to crack with that not mattering, it being the aspect of societal harm that matters when it comes to time in the cells.

Now if we could make those cells nice places to be so people could start their lives over, out of the environment that has all the triggers that enforce their addiction. This isn't working in the 'rehab' we have today as there is no power to get people to stay the course.