In all fairness homicide is increasing at a pretty good clip. Now is not the time to decrease incarceration.
We should get serious in preventing crime, but the current administration is going in the opposite direction hence the trend in homicide.
We should get serious in preventing crime, but the current administration is going in the opposite direction hence the trend in homicide.
There was a definitive villainization and backing off of police nationwide that corresponds with the rise in crime. A lack of police action, coupled with COVID stressors, is a recipe for rising crime.
My belief is that the murder spike has nothing to do with the police, and everything to do with covid and the economy. Violent crime was already spiking before the george floyd murder, for one thing. Cops do very little that prevents murder, they mostly just arrest people after them, for another. But that's just as arbitrary as your interpretation. Without data, we're just making up stories.
The post above claims that homicide rates started to go up "during the previous administration" (i.e., before January 2021) / "in the summer of 2020." The article you're linking is from May 2021, and talking about decarceration, not homicide rates. That seems like it cannot possibly be evidence for the claim that decarceration causes increased homicide rates.
I know correlation is not causation but homicides tend to be committed by criminals — ie those with one or more prior in offenses.
I agree nbc is pretty terrible at reporting and apologize for posting them rather than a reputable source but google gave me that so I posted it.
Seems like an error in reasoning here: If you are a murderer, then you have priors. You have a prior, therefore you are/will become a murderer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent aka the converse error.
- Oscar Wilde
By all means, let's keep putting convicted murderers in prison. Arsonists, kidnappers, and a bunch of others. But we can probably forego a lot of drug offenses entirely.
But drug trafficking that crosses state lines is, which is why drug traffickers (the vast majority of federal drug inmates are traffickers, not users) account for ~47% of Federal inmates. However just because they were convicted of drug trafficking doesn't mean they are non-violent offenders or did not commit any other crime.
Moreover be aware that when you say "non-violent" crime, this includes things like breaking and entering, fraud, grand theft auto, bribery, witness tampering, etc. Very few people truly support not incarcerating a person because they only stole someone's life savings but didn't assault them.
So what is the real data? It's tough to say because again each state has their own penal code and own statistics, but let's look at Texas: https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/documents/Statistical_Report_FY20...
About 25% of those entering the correctional system Texas ("intakes") were convicted of a drug offense (see page 2 of the report), but because these offenders serve shorter sentences or are diverted out of prison, on average only 15% of the prison population at any point in time is there because of a drug offense (see page 10).
Now I have no idea whether Texas is representative, perhaps other states are harsher on drug offenses, but I think it's safe to say that 15% is a reasonable upper bound.
But, first, as you point out, homicides are already increasing despite our current strategy. That's enough reason to ask whether it's working.
Second, when you leave prison, you don't have many good options. You haven't been working, and you will have trouble finding a job. You might have joined a gang while inside to keep yourself safe. If you didn't, you at least know people who did, who can offer you ways to meet your basic needs (food and shelter) and you might get involved with them. Or you might simply turn to crimes like armed robbery where your specific goal isn't killing someone - and then you do.
Especially in reply to your comment downthread that it's worth locking people up for lesser crimes because some of them go on to commit homicide - that seems like a good demonstration that locking them up now doesn't prevent them from committing homicide later, and I would wager that a good fraction of them wouldn't commit homicide if they hadn't been locked up.
Think about people who make $438K/year or even a bit less. Some of them are cool; many of them are terrible people - greedy, lazy (they might support themselves from investments or inheritances), rude and manipulative, entitled. Very few of them have any particular desire, motivation, or so much as occasion to commit homicide.
https://dataunodc.un.org/content/data/homicide/homicide-rate
During that time incarceration rate was mostly flat or slightly rising, so no.