Granting Pardon for the Offense of Simple Possession of Marijuana

That's the public excuse. The reality is that it's a powerful tool to oppress "others" -- https://www.aclu.org/post-to-social/war-drugs-racist

This is well documented, the above link is one of many.

Also being realistic, anyone who’s ever ever ever smoked weed in their life can tell you honestly it does not impair your ability to drive even 10% close to being drunk. yes it’s an anecdote, but it’s genuinely the truth.

To my knowledge, very few people want marijuana to be completely unregulated. Most seem to be very okay with an aggressive tax and regulation structure, in exchange for legal purchase.

In other words: regulation does not itself justify criminalization.

This means you also support the prohibition of alcohol, does it not?

> I think banning alcohol would probably be a good thing.

Yes, after all this worked so well the first time.

What moral standards? And more interestingly whose moral standards? What moral rule is violated by allowing vice, or what utility function is reduced?

If you don't establish such axiomatic foundations in conversations about morality, you're doomed to just talk past each other. For example, I treat free will and empathy as axiomatic goods. I don't like being told what to do, and I don't like harm coming to others. By extension, others having their free will suppressed is bad, but not axiomatically bad in so much as it can cause greater suppression of the freedom of others.

Under such a framework, it should be pretty obvious why I would oppose prohibition. If someone does something that in of itself does not harm others, then that thing is at worst ethically neutral, and thus there is no good to offset the ethical evil of interceding in them doing it. On the other hand, if someone is attempting to kill someone else, or enslave someone else, or otherwise suppress the other's ability to be free, then preventing that by any means necessary is a moral good.

So what are YOUR axioms that you are operating off of? What base assumptions underlie your "moral standards"?

this is blaming the injust jail time on the one releasing them instead of blaming it on the ones creating the injust laws and convictions.

I suspect you can't just "do things," there are lawyers that determine what you can do, and there are other factors (like "do you need literally everyone's vote to pass a bill through the congress" and "will it crash and fail in the senate anyways") that make these things a drag.

Same happened with the loan forgiveness, which is now being challenged in multiple courts. However, Biden doesn't have the power to push these issues through the proper process.

Do you want a state where "do more" means "more executive orders?"

Em... People tend to forget about good actions.

I'm sorry, but most people have short memories and short sight.

They are continually trying to do things that serve both their own and the Republican party's people, but the Republican parties continually fights tooth and nail against every single thing they do in order to avoid giving them a "win" even on things the Republican base overwhelmingly supports.

It's good that it's being done, but Biden's doing it, and the Republicans are opposing it every step of the way, even policies that benefit their own people, in every way they can, even and especially by lying and cheating.

Funnily enough literally zero people affected by this are in jail. No one gets sent to jail for “just” possession. They always tack on other charges.

It’s also only about 6500 people.

The system is best where moral actions emerge from rational self interest. E.g., being trustworthy is moral but also good for business. We want systems like that.

Not necessarily. A politician doing the right thing for reasons of principal and ignoring elections could result in a loss of power for the entire party. If those who gain power are truly evil then what you've done is lost sight of a far bigger "right thing" by insisting on being principled in every small action. Political naivety is a very poor excuse for doing a "right thing" that eventually causes great harm. Especially for an experienced politician.

I'd argue this is one of the last things people will be thinking about in this election. No one is changing their vote over this...the economy and abortion will drive this cycle.

> I think there are still people in the US Congress who enthusiastically supported Afghanistan and Iraq.

Nothing bad about supporting Afghanistan in itself, the problem was (the same as with Iraq...) that the US lacked a "post-invasion" plan to rebuild the nation.

Wouldn't the responsibility of the government representatives be to represent the opinion of the people at the time? I wouldn't be surprised if in 1973 most Americans were also totally onboard with criminalizing possession of drugs.

And similarly now the opinion of the people has shifted, so the government representatives are adopting policies that match up with today's opinion.

I'm not saying this to defend any particular person you referenced, just that the logic of saying that in the past someone was against something and now they're for it isn't necessarily hypocrisy, or false pretense. If the opinion of the people they represent also changed and at both times were respected, that seems to be a great example of a functioning republic no?

Politicians will always be political.

The question is if your politics and support base means “being political” leads to you pardoning thousands of people for something pretty much everyone agrees is not a crime and making their and their families and kids’ lives immeasurably better, and therefore making the country and the world a better place.

Or, if your political environment leads you to illegally trafficking vulnerable people and leaving the completely stranded and in general making the world a worse place.

There are a lot of people in congress who had opinions on the Korean War WHILE IT WAS HAPPENING.

It's a geriatrics home. No one over the age of 70 should be allowed in elected office.

And if you want to make some nebulous argument about wisdom with age, a younger elected official can have an older, wiser, ex-politician as an adviser. But ultimately the important decisions are the younger politician's call.

This might be survivorship bias. If they hadn't taken popular positions back when those positions were popular, they wouldn't be here today. See how Liz Cheney is faring, for example.

Assuming some value is delivered every month, should the party in office stop delivering value during election season?

Otherwise, there will, certainly, be some value delivered, that can be accused of being political, as it coincides with elections.

Seems better to have a steady delivery, than having to stop the government for election season.

Unironically not a bad idea.

Why not? Sounds like the start of UBI, which is increasingly becoming a popular idea.

Can’t just send out checks like that so no. But also the implication here is that someone shouldn’t undertake any action that might be perceived as popular near a mid-term election, which begs the question then why would anyone be allowed to do anything popular or critical during the same time frame? Should we have a moratorium on all of these “Biden is raising your taxes” ads since we are saying it’s unfair for him to undertake a popular action?

And then why limit it to elections. Why not ever?

Maybe they just now have realized how much money from illegal drugs flows to sanctioned countries and are moving towards full legalisation to stop it.

It's really hard for me to read this and not think of a child, shouting, "BUT I WANTED THE ICE CREAM AN HOUR AGO, NOT NOW! WAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

The irrationality of this sentiment, combined with your assertion that President Biden is "inept," suggests to me that your statement is entirely political, since it seems to run contrary to the facts as I observe them.

Because people have a short attention span and republicans have moved so far right that mundane things like affordable healthcare/college, providing aid to old or disabled people, providing nutritious and affordable food, ensuring that working people of all social strata can lead dignified lives, responding with empathy and evidence backed treatments to drug addiction, etc are responded to with unhinged screeds about socialism communism and fascism and groomers. So Biden needs to respond, rationally, to the propaganda that’s endemic among conservatives which results in cynically timed actions as a part of the effort to lead a nation tearing itself apart. Don’t like it? Stop voting for self interested obstructionists like McConnell, DeSantis, Sinema, manchin, mtg, etc. and don’t fan the fire with conservative dog whistles calling Biden inept when republicans have shown themselves to be shockingly tolerant of their members that routinely and flagrantly act against their stated principles while leaving the consequences of their incompetence for a democrat to clean up.

I don't see how the voters are complicit in any of this.

Human beings also have their own schedules and priorities. People are more stressed out and busy than ever. Inflation is rampant due to a war in Europe that regular people (especially those outside of Europe) had no power to avoid. Every year technology and social media get ever-more complex and sophisticated, demanding more and more awareness and discipline from people to avoid collapsing into a black hole of time-wasting.

Likewise, the problems facing societies at the national level and humanity at the global level have become unbelievably technical and complicated, yet we expect voters to navigate them like experts and deliver a miracle in the voting both? How has this idea not become widely seen for what it is: an absurd fantasy.

Not really. His promise was to build the wall AND make Mexico pay for it.

At one point congress agreed to give him almost $6 Billion to build the wall and he turned it down, never to be in that position again. If he wanted to build the wall he could have accepted that $6 billion or negotiated in good faith.

Also, his desire to build the wall was never a principled argument. "Build the wall and make Mexico pay for it" tested well with his audience so his campaign jumped on it (which was smart).

But to act like it wasn't strategic politicking from the beginning is not correct. Not to say that Biden's pardons are not politicking (they are). Just saying Trump and Biden are the same (and every other politician) when it comes to things like this.

I could argue canceling Keystone XL was a gift to the saudis disguised as care about the environment. It’s not like delaying these permits does anything to curb oil demand or net production.

I’m extremely cynical when it comes to almost any of these people in DC, there’s always an agenda, always an ulterior motive, and the People are rarely served and last priority.

You have Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders types who appear to actually care and believe what they say but they’re ineffective even for those who agree with their positions.

I stand corrected.

> I'm from an area notorious for poor education standards, and civics and history were focused on very heavily there.

When you (plural) are making 6-figures a year, living in some high class inner suburb, working for some employer who has tons of money sloshing around, you don't need to be good at playing the game because you can just pay your way.

Poor communities need to actually be good at playing the game in order to be heard.

It's understandable that studying the constitution could be useful, but arguably so would studying the NEC.

In both cases it shouldn't be a requirement; we don't demand studying the NEC before using electricity.

And even those with a very good understanding of the constitution and civics probably don't have a very good handling on the actualities of how everything works, unless perhaps they're a criminal lawyer.

Schools are optimizing for standardized tests. There's no standardized tests on civics.

Constitution is fairly removed from practice of criminal law. It is theory that has literally hundreds or interpretations slapped on it.

I mean... fine, but IMO it's not the number of pardons issued that made this top of mind, but rather the constant controversy around people given pardons, gossip about people who requested pardons, and speculation about the legality of a potential self-pardon.

Fewer in number, but much higher in corrupt intent, even compared with the usual bunch of ~sketchy pardons for donors and friends.

> Congress does indeed delegate authority to the District of Columbia under the Home Rule Act of 1973; however, Congress's authority does not derive from their plenary power over territories because DC isn't a territory. Congress's authority over DC comes from Article I Section 8 Clause 17 of the Constitution.

Good catch, thanks for the correction.

> The local laws of DC including those forced upon DC by Congress are not however federal law and violations of DC laws are not a violation of federal law. If you violate DC law you are prosecuted in the Superior Court of DC which is part of the DC government. If you violate federal law in DC you are prosecuted in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia which is part of the federal court system.

In terms of terminology used every day, you're right. But really, federal authority underlies both of those two legal and judicial systems. It wouldn't violate any separation of powers concern for Congress to amend the rules such that DC local law violations go straight to the US district court, unlike what would be true if DC were a state.

Yes, I fondly recall his speech he gave calling out the MAGA republicans as a danger to the country and right wing media losing their mind over the “fascist” speech.

Is the guy a doddering old fool or a dangerous demagogue? It can’t be both simultaneously

> Could it be because he used to be involved with war on drugs?

That's true of pretty much every politician who's been in office for more than, say, fifteen years.

Save a few libertarians here and there.

Yeah, but hopefully the symbolic value adds to the momentum for actual decriminalization, sooner or later.

One of the early mini-scandals of the Biden White House was how "dozens of young White House staffers" were in trouble because they had believed "initial indications" that casual pot use would not automatically disqualify them from the job. And that seemed like a sure sign that Biden would be a real hard ass on pot use. Only 5 staffers out of "hundreds" were ultimately disqualified from the policy, and given what Biden has done today, we have some assurance he really is going to be sympathetic and reasonable about pot.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/biden-white-house-sandbags-sta...

Here's an ancient example from 2013:

https://www.denverpost.com/2013/08/29/federal-government-won...

> Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole wrote in a memo sent Thursday to federal prosecutors that it will not be a priority to block landmark marijuana-legalization laws in the two states. The federal government also will not make it a priority to close down recreational marijuana stores, so long as the stores abide by state regulations, according to the memo.

The Attorney General de-prioritizing a crime sounds like a cop-out, but eliminating the incentive for federal agents to chase down a type of crime means those agents effectively won't enforce those laws...because they'll get dinged for wasting time that should be spent on actual priorities.

Here's an example of how the federal restriction can still be a pain to Colorado pot stores:

> Because pot is still illegal federally, banks will likely continue to refuse marijuana business accounts, employers can continue to fire workers who smoke pot off-the-job and marijuana users who receive federal aid or live in federal housing will remain at risk.

IIRC, it wasn't at all uncommon for state residents to think that they could smoke worry free b/c of state legalization, only to realize too late that their employer technically receives federal aid and now had the right to fire them. And even if the the U.S. Attorney General says "nah we probably won't care about that"...a lot of employers are going to err on the side of caution.

Since Biden said that he's directed the government to look into things that are on the path to legalization, that mentality is likely to trickle down to every part of the government. Private employers might still be anal though.

> What are the headaches and how do they solve it?

I live in California, where marijuana is legal.

The headaches here are that federal police sometimes go bonkers if they find totally minor stuff like edibles or paraphernalia during some sort of inspection or traffic stop that they do on federal land.

Oh, easy, just don’t carry anything on federal land.

Not so easy.

- Any BLM land is federal. Some people take their guns to BLM land for shooting. Better not have any marijuana related stuff on you when you do that (even if you’re just accompanying and not shooting).

- Any national park is federal land.

- Some local extracurricular activities happen on federal lands. Little league sports teams, Boy Scouts, etc. Again, not that you have to be using at the time, but if you get into an accident at one of these facilities and the federal police sees the state-legal stuff in your car, you can be charged with a federal crime for that.

- Any federal building and attached properties like parking lots. For example, if you’re going to the VA to pick up a friend who just had some medical treatment and have an accident, the investigating federal officer can charge you if you have state-legal marijuana goods.

- Sometimes you don’t even know when you are on or are traveling through federal land, so you can’t always prepare. For example, the Laguna Seca race track is near (borders on?) federal lands with federal roads and federal police, but the scope of the federal lands is not always clearly marked. So choosing which roads you take to the track determines whether you are breaking the law or not.

- Most major airports are federal. As such, even a flight from SFO to LA is supposed to be free of state-legal marijuana.

I don’t know how often possession is prosecuted in these situations, but there are enough stories bouncing around that it’s slightly concerning given that, imho, the number of stories should be zero.

The solution is to have the message from the top being that they don’t want to see these charges ever in CA and similar stares (waste of time), and any extracurricular behavior like roughing someone up or treating them like a criminal will result in an administrative action against the officer.

I doubt this will happen soon.

I think the best we can hope for is for prosecutors and senior officers to be consistently dismissive about any low key possession charges that junior officers make.

Given the pardon fully restores all rights I would say yes he has done that. Of course again this only applies to federal convictions

Yes, the pardon wipes it off your record.

he's also moving toward removing it from the classification that would leave it as a scheduled drug federally and urging state govs to legalize it locally.

I'm not constitutional lawyer, but those sound like things only the legislature can do, which is beyond his control. The things he has done are things the executive has in it's power.

> and pardoning those convicted of simple possession without preventing somebody tomorrow from being arrested for simple possession.

He is also directing the AG and Secretary of HHS is reexamine the scheduling of marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act which is the process in law which is needed to change the legal regime applicable to it without Congressional action.

He’s not a dictator who can rewrite law at a whim.

The student debt changes are substantial even if it's not free college. The more important part of the package is the changes to the terms of repayment:

From the press release[1]:

Make the student loan system more manageable for current and future borrowers by:

    Cutting monthly payments in half for undergraduate loans. The Department of Education is proposing a new income-driven repayment plan that protects more low-income borrowers from making any payments and caps monthly payments for undergraduate loans at 5% of a borrower’s discretionary income—half of the rate that borrowers must pay now under most existing plans. This means that the average annual student loan payment will be lowered by more than $1,000 for both current and future borrowers. 

    Fixing the broken Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program by proposing a rule that borrowers who have worked at a nonprofit, in the military, or in federal, state, tribal, or local government, receive appropriate credit toward loan forgiveness. These improvements will build on temporary changes the Department of Education has already made to PSLF, under which more than 175,000 public servants have already had more than $10 billion in loan forgiveness approved.

This perhaps by far the bigger set of changes because it ensures the terms of remaining and future loans remain serviceable and proportionate to the actual earning potential of the recipient, which is half the problem with the system (at least if you simply must run it this way).

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...

He doesn't have the power to change the law on his own. He's requested that the justice department reschedule the drug. I'm not sure what more within his power would allow him to "whole ass" this.

Something something Wickard v. Filburn

Voters already agree the laws need to change. It's congress holding us back against the will of the people who elected them. Republicans have already spoken out against this pardon.

Bush II caused much more harm by starting two unjustifiable wars. The victims just weren't American.

Because they stop doing the things you like once the election is over

It's bad because there are people that have been sitting in prison that could have been released over a year and a half ago, but Biden would rather let them rot for a while longer just so he could score political points at a more convenient time.

No federal law is changing. This is a one time get out of jail free card. People arrested for the same crimes after he pardons current people in prison don't get the benefit.

The difference is that if they were winning they wouldn't do this. This is textbook vote buying. They are absolutely terrified of the election season after the market collapse, inflation, housing situation, war in ukraine, etc. Easy to lock in quite a few votes throwing a bone. Republicans did the same thing last election season and capitulated (temporarily) on a lot of their positions in order to pull in the independents.

I wish you were correct. But there's a difference between doing something because you know it's right (implore congress to pass legislation on marijuana immediately) and because you need the votes. Only one of them is virtuous even though both ostensibly benefit the people.

I use cannabis daily and am all for it being legalized and those in jail released. However, I cannot join you in a victory lap here because Biden's pardon affects nobody. As far as I know, there isn't anybody in federal prison on simple possession charges. That being the case, this smacks of politicking, optics, and opportunism rather than anything meaningful. If Biden wanted to do something substantial, he'd sign legislation legalizing cannabis (including growing your own).

Hey there was a lot of money to print and send out of the country. Takes a lot of time and effort keeping the printers going. He did the best he could.

Legitimate ask for citation as I don't recall this and couldn't find a reference to it now that Google is spammed by today's announcement.

Agreed - FoxNews has already started attacking this - https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-pardoning-all-prior-f... Just go further to the right cesspool to see what you're saying. He'll be attacked for this. I'll grant that he'll be qually praised for it and that it may rally his voters, though I doubt it's a net positive for him in the rhetoric chambers.

Pardons don’t happen exclusively during president’s final days in office: https://www.justice.gov/pardon/clemency-statistics

Campaigning on something and not taking action until midterms is completely different. It is clear if he wasn't scared he wouldn't have taken action at all and both him and his VP has a history of being vehemently opposed to marijuana legalization.

"when legalization happens" is perhaps the part you missed about my comment.

These are things that have happened decades after legalization!

Youtube star FPSRussia was just using them for target practice. He ultimately got convicted of possession of hash oil (with intent, seemingly solely because he shared it with his girlfriend). While he plead down to the possesion w/ intent it's my understanding the original charges included prohibited possessor. I don't think he'll get the pardon either since he got a distribution charge for toking with the GF.

Paying a guy to sit in the passenger seat packing heat while you handle the dope and the money or paying another guy to store your product at his house and all the other things you need to do to not catch a "gun stacking" multiplier on your petty dealing charge is a luxury that only successful and established dealers can afford.

That's just in the DC metro area. Nationally it could be higher.

Thanks for taking the time to fill in some blanks. Great links.

Can you point to any cases of US citizens being denied entry?

The closest I'm aware of is having US citizens overseas be put on the no-fly list, which in practice amounts to the same thing if they can't get to Canada/Mexico either. But hey, they won't be denied entry if they swim across!

I have never once made it through US customs in under 3 hours (and always with full search, interrogation, and not being cleared until an HSI detective appears). That's not counting the line, I'm talking the search/interrogation/detention phase. I am a US citizen with good passport, clean criminal record, valid and legal reasons for travel, and full compliance with US border related laws.

Does anyone know the rationale for why the laws are currently written this way?

This is a compeltely different topic now.

You're talking about people who were dragged into the US when they were children by their parents.

We were just talking about whether the US is particularly stringent when it comes to border inspections.

> Or be deported out by ICE right after serving lengthy sentence despite living in the country your whole life

Most countries would consider foreign citizens who serve lengthy prison sentences as unwanted visitors and would like very much to get rid of them as soon as possible.

I don't know of a country that welcomes such a thing. Do you know of one?

This doesn't sound normal. Your other comment mentions something critical:

> I got thrown on something like this almost a decade ago when I fought alongside the YPG, a US backed Kurdish militia that fought against literal ISIS. DHS/CBP put me on some fucked up list and now everytime I re-enter the US I get detained, accused of crimes, tossed in holding cell.

So, you're in some kind of a black/gray list possibly caused by involvement in a military conflict. Granted, it sounds absurd they would do this given you were on the US-backed side of the conflict, but still. Your experience is not representative of anything remotely close to what most people go through.

Naturally I'm sure you are law abiding, but I question how easy it is to live and work in Argentina without violating the law (I've heard it's practically a requirement to survive there -- if nothing else the tax laws). Maybe it's just a scam, but I had heard if you file for citizenship (which apparently anyone can do) it makes it harder to get deported?

I read some bizarre reports on baexpats that the easiest way to get deported is actually to follow the official legal residency pathway!

Yes, I'm from europe, here it's pretty impossible to do anything, atleast longterm (sneaking in and doing some under-the-table work for a few weeks and going back.. sure.. staying for years, having kids, etc... no way).

Fun fact: in some countries it's illegal for citizens to take illegal drugs even if they're abroad in a place where it's legal. E.g. if a Korean smokes weed during a visit to Amsterdam, they can be prosecuted for it upon return to Korea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_South_Korea#Kor...

A small improvement is better than no improvement, which is what we would've gotten if Biden didn't win. Those are the facts.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33115427

I agree with you, for what it’s worth, re: booze and drugs. Bartenders and dispensaries aren’t predators. Pimps and organ harvesters are.

The US was the main driver behind those treaties. Amending, formally pulling out or just straight up ignoring them is mildly embarrassing, but in no way a showstopper.

Well, they just voted on cannabis reforms recommended by the WHO two years ago, and the votes seemed to be split nearly 50-50.

Article 23 of the 1961 Convention will allow the eventual teatotalling minority to maintain their stricter controls while allowing the remainder of the Parties to operate without contradiction to their constitutional obligations, vis-a-vis legalization of non-therapeutic adult use of cannabis.

How did Canada and other countries manage to do it federally?

The can still charge you for it tomorrow.

Yeah but you don’t need to do that if you haven’t been charged and probably won’t be charged at this point.

> When one accepts a presidential pardon, he or she is not admitting guilt or waiving habeas rights.

This seems to be saying the exact opposite.

None of the pardoned individuals are serving prison time for their offenses. The main value of the pardon is that having a felony conviction makes it harder to get jobs and bars you from voting in some states. Around 8% of the US population has had a felony conviction.

I don't agree with this -- the "losing Democrats" bit -- but I don't think it should be downvoted.

Michelle Obama was treated horribly. Trump's First Lady was a Russian prostitute who literally hated Christmas, and she was given the benefit of the doubt until the very last moment.

Trump built his political base on the fact that so many non-tech areas got left behind when tech became big money.

Trump actually stood in front of a bunch of businessmen and told them to their face if they moved their manufacturing out of the US he'd slap them with tariffs.

Won't someone think of the poor politicians?

The entire point of being a hero is unselfish risk.

The first black president making weed legal would definitely be abused in headlines by multiple major news organizations

> It’s interesting that different sources have different counts.

0 is the government’s current count of people who are in federal prison now solely on a federal simple possession charge.

149 is, per the source cited upthread, the number for Fiscal Year 2021 (not clear from the B.I. article if it is at some point in the fiscal year are total in prison at any point over the fiscal year), and the source indicates that’s been rapidly declining; also, Biden issued 75 commutations and 3 pardons in April this year for nonviolent drug offenses, which may be part of the reason that the number of prisoners on simple marijuana possession charges alone in federal prison now is 0.

Weed is scheduled by Congress, the agencies can only add substances to the schedules temporarily for "public health reasons" and there's some weed derived stuff or analogues that have been added that way but marihuana in and of itself is illegal because congress passed a law saying it's illegal: the CSA, 21 U.S. Code § 812 (c)

The CSA allows for schedules to be updated and republished annually but agencies can only recommend, the authority to remove something that's scheduled by Congress is only held by Congress.

Thanks, Captain Obvious. My point was that it was a curious omission.

You never know with city cops to be honest. You’ll probably atleast get tazed.

seems like you mis read. I’m not implying weed smokers at large are violent. Among the ones who are currently in federal prison and eligible for release in this program, the majority were likely violent because their charges were reduced and there’s no way to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I’m just a civilian victim of crimes who knows that releasing criminals causes crime.

If you want to see proof, look at crime rates in CA cities, Chicago, Baltimore, New Orleans . Those cities have been letting prisoners out letting suspects out with no bail.

Almost all crime is committed by a small percentage of people. You don’t have to let many criminals out for big increases in crime.

You’re concerned about the criminals and I’m concerned about the victims.

> this isn't a species-wide thing and definitely overstates the inevitability of these structures.

well between what I described above and straight-up totalitarianism that covers more or less the majority of the population of the planet does it not