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Comment by SamoyedFurFluff | Hacker News Reader

This is a strange letter. It claims specific policies have a direct causal relationship with crime and gun prevalence, and therefore the entire state of Illinois is unsafe. Do we actually have evidence that proves this out? (Edited to add: I’m admitting ignorance here, not trying to say the above is false! I am very good faith behavior here.)

I am immediately questioning this depiction that public defenders and prosecutors are on even footing. It’s been well known public defenders are forced to take up an unreasonable number of cases where the prosecution decides to hand over the evidence to be debated about— the prosecution is supposed to hand over everything, but there’s been multiple cases of prosecutors happenstancely not handing over evidence that would prove innocence and then not losing their jobs for doing so!

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> I am immediately questioning this depiction that public defenders and prosecutors are on even footing.

I've always assumed, rightly or wrongly, that "the state" has an overwhelming advantage in terms of resources and manpower.

From the letter:

> we live in a society with adversarial court and criminal justice processes I've also assumed that our system of government and burden of proof in criminal cases is also designed to make it harder for the prosecution than for the defendant.

Perhaps this is another case where I'm wrong, but I alway assumed that this was by design. The prosecution has a much higher burden of than the defense.

Yes, that's explicitly the purpose. It's intended to be much more likely a guilty person is released than an innocent is imprisoned.

This principle is known as Blackstone's ratio: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio

Crime is a complex problem. Blaming prosecutorial policy is an odd, and likely deliberate choice. Talking about cities, Chicago has a crime rate in between Jacksonville FL and Oklahoma City OK, which are both very conservative cities. Among the highest crime states, conservative ones are very well represented.

To me, this sounds like the precursor for a planned political career wherever he's moving to. Chicago is the icon for terrible awful no-good very bad liberal crime policies in popular conservative politics and an Illinois prosecutor who's moving because they just can't take it anymore would be optimally positioned to capitalize on that. Ah, politics.

When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Of course a career prosecutor would see a ‘crime problem’ as a result of insufficient prosecution.

Crime is complex, but largely related to poverty and economic opportunity. The interventions that are likely to matter most are so far outside this person’s perspective, that they are unable to see how modest judicial reform is merely the nearest corner of the iceberg.

Or, someone looking to get into hammer manufacturing might try to convince everybody else that everything is a nail.

This is an important point. Conservatives seem to love ranting about how rampant crime is in blue cities but when you do per capita comparisons of violent crime, especially involving guns, you see that conservative areas are far more crime ridden

At the city level? No.

You can look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b..., sort by the homicide rate and almost all of the top 50 voted Democrat in the 2020 election. Not Tulsa or Oklahoma City, not Mobile. Eyeballing it, I don't see any other cities that voted Republican.

High homicide rates are a blue city thing, almost exclusively.

Remember that cities have limited autonomy in the American system. A blue city in a red state has red laws.

We're talking about "prosecutorial policy": here. That's typically a local thing.

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/04/27/texas-house-rogue-pr...

It's relevant at every level of the court system at which there are prosecutors.

It's flat-out ridiculous to pin it on something as broad partisan membership at one spot in a governmental body without considering any of the vastly more consequential facets of crime. Reverse the list and count the number of red and blue cities there.

I'm happy to look at pre and post policy implementation compared with similar entities, taking national and regional trends into account. Anything else is posturing.

When I sorted by homicide rate descending, all of the cities existed in red states. I'm not sure why they think that blue cities in red states somehow have different laws. Generally red States have worse social safety nets which is one thing that impacts crime overall

Ah, statistics. Violent crime is 8.7 in Chicago, vs 6.3 and 6.9 for the other two cities. Property crime is higher though.

[https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ok/oklahoma-city/crime]

Does that negate my point? I didn't say anything about violent crime, specifically.

Taking a look at the data up till 2019 it appears to be a bell curve with a increase into the 1980s followed by a decrease into 2019. I do wonder if this is more of a being involved in it for 20 years has just mentally drained this person.

I think most of the rise is in the last few years. I don't know about the whole of Illinois but Chicago (in which county this prosecutor seemed to be based), crime rate seems to have risen back to 1980s level.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/crains-forum-safer-chicago/c...

The Wikipedia numbers are reported by the CPD and are therefore skewed by their political objectives.

I agree on the causation. During the same time hasn't the US had a major drug crisis across the country? He might be right but he is not showing much evidence (ironically) of it.

PS Very cute username!

Here's a data point...Harris county TX let a capital murder suspect out on some ludicrously low bond (9K, which meant he only spent 900 dollars to get out). Here's a description of the suspects:

"They killed two people, and they also put a gun to a young mother with a 2-month-old, they put a gun to her head as well," said Andy Kahan with Crime Stoppers.

Here's a guy in Harris county that's committed multiple capital murders and bonded out each time:

https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/capital-murder-suspe...

That is psychopathy in the justice system.

This has nothing to do with bail though? The point of bail is to ensure the suspect shows up to court appearances. The use of bail as a way to force remanding is essentially a multi-pronged tax on poorer defendants (as they either need a loan to post bail, or have to suffer the loss of income and psychological damage from detention).

If the prosecution believes the accused is a danger to society, they should argue for remanding on those grounds, not ask for bails which have no actual relation to the accused’s likelihood of showing up.

Your language assumes guilt first , He is a murder suspect and alleged to have committed murders[1] until is proven guilty that distinction is important .

The prosecution should have asked for higher bail if he was further threat to society or a flight risk not because the crimes were heinous, if they failed to prove it, that is on them.

Far too easily we judge people as a society quickly and usually with strong racial bias.

1% of America is incarcerated far higher than any other developed economy. I don’t think we are predisposed to crime more than others perhaps we need to think how we ended up here ?

[1] he probably did I am not arguing the facts of the case, keep in mind unlike civil cases where balance of probabilities is the deciding factor in criminal cases beyond reasonable doubt

> The prosecution should have asked for higher bail if he was further threat to society

If he is a risk to society that won't change however much money he pays. A millionaire murderer isn't less dangerous than a minimum wage one.

Judges are allowed to deny bail based on dangerousness. That's the appropriate tool here, not setting a high dollar number.

> The prosecution should have asked for higher bail if he was further threat to society or

No. Bail shouldn't ever be excessive... if it's purpose is to ensure that they show for trial, then it can only be so high that the defendant should work towards avoiding forfeit. By definition, it must be affordable to them, if only barely so.

It shouldn't be used to keep someone detained. In such cases, prosecutors should have the balls to demand they not be offered bail, and judges the same to withhold it.

Every time a judge sets some ridiculous bail (I think I've personally heard amounts approaching eight digits and this for non-billionaires), it further conditions everyone including the public that high amounts are justifiable, it normalizes it.

Given our reliance on the parasitic bail bonding industry, it turns these amounts into either a pre-conviction fine, buying their way out of detainment, or judicial/prosecutorial incompetence masquerading as prudence.

Avoiding forfeiture works by assuming a rational frame of mind . Someone bent on revenge or societal harm or will not be stopped because the money will be forfeit .

Perhaps bail should be denied then as courts have the power to do , but setting it high is not that different from denying .

> Here's a guy in Harris county that's committed multiple capital murders and bonded out each time:

Your implied timeline is wrong here. The two (alleged) murders happened in May and June 2021. He was arrested for the first in October 2021 and posted bond in November 2021. Then he was arrested for the second - which happened before the first bond, remember - in December 2021 and posted the bond for that in March 2022. At no time (that we know of) did he commit murder whilst out on bond.

He's going to run for office or try to parlay his experience into a political role, that's obvious.

Except it’s not. Maybe he just wants a safe place to raise his child.

He doesn't "just" want that because he's telling the whole world this. At a minimum, he wants some kind of attention.

I believe he is referencing the passage of a major, controversial Illinois state bill that passed just five months ago, eliminating cash bail among a host of other enforcement restrictions against known criminals. So we wouldn't see any solid empirical data from this policy for the next 1-2 years at minimum.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/illinois-un-safe-t-act

This may be relevant - stats for offenses while on electronic monitoring: https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/250436168...

>stats for offenses while on electronic monitoring

That wording implies that these were crimes committed while electronic monitoring was in place. However, you shared a graphic that shows that more people who already committed crimes were being given electronic monitoring. Nothing you posted supports the idea that people on monitoring are committing crimes.

Apologies, that is indeed the distribution of offenses for people on electronic monitoring.

i think the obvious policy he the former attorney lists as causing more crime:

"Bond reform so no one stays in jail"

if every american suspected of shooting someone is held in jail rather than released, we have just removed the most likely population of people who cause future shootings. from the safety of the publics perspective, now the surviving victims/witnesses are more likely to be victims of more crimes because the suspected violent attackers are back on the street.

i dont really think there is room for debate on the "truthyness" of his statement, as if we kept more people in jail, less people would be out in public able to commit crime. how much is a good question tho.

The bond reform statement really doesn't line up with the facts. They're no longer requesting pre-trial detention of those charged with low-level nonviolent offense. [1] That just doesn't line up with the claims being presented.

[1] https://theappeal.org/bail-reform-embraced-by-cook-county-st...

So it's a little more complicated than that with the electronic monitoring program where people charged with violent crimes can be electronically monitored at home. For example early last year, ~100 people charged with murder in Cook Country (where the prosecutor in the letter worked) were at home monitored. https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/cook-county-sheriff-tom...

my understanding is most cities lack resources to actually monitor the electronic things,

so usually its after a new crime is commited, the police stories read like:

"X suspected of serious crime violated his electoronic home monitoring Y amount of times, we rearrested him during the act of a seperate crime"

Is the cost of monitoring an inmate more, or less than the cost to monitor the electronic things?

i would assume tracking the electronic devices are cheaper

if both options arent funded/run appropriatly public safety is harmed either way

You have to consider the effects of allowing the state to hold whomever they want without a trial. States will lock kids up for years without trial on suspicion of stealing a backpack. That should never happen.

The vast majority of people in jail before trial are not suspected of shooting anyone. Many are low-level offenders waiting in jail for months despite still having the presumption of innocence. Often the time they spend in jail before trial exceeds the length of the sentence they would get if convicted. This can pressure people to falsely plead guilty since it's actually the fastest way to get out of jail.

The policies implemented in Chicago weren't exactly targeting jaywalkers - some 10 people get shot in Chicago every weekend for about a decade now with a huge asymmetry of how the justice system deals with people that shot and missed.

>i dont really think there is room for debate on the "truthyness" of his statement, as if we kept more people in jail, less people would be out in public able to commit crime.

Your assumption is contingent on the accuracy of the accusations to begin with, and doesn't account for deadweight loss, so this isn't straightforward. This deadweight loss also isn't going to be shouldered by just anybody, but especially the justice system itself. Especially considering the alternative being proposed here is not "total unconditional freedom" but "freedom unless imprisoned for violating bail conditions, and $$$ for the justice system if such a violation occurs". You can make bail conditions quite onerous if you want to but still cheaper than jail cells.

If on account of not making bail we have to put somebody in prison, police may be directed to make less arrests, DAs may be motivated to bring forward less charges, Judges may be inclined to give people lighter sentences, and parole boards may be motivated to release people earlier, as this will free up the limited resource of jail cells.

So I'm not the OP, but I found this letter interesting because I think it's a nice illustration of ways in which so-called 'liberal' policies drive some people to become more conservative.

Politics is about perception, and whether or not a well-identified paper finds a causal link from bond policies to crime is kind of neither here nor there. His anecdotal evidence (gunfire within earshot, drug-dealing behind his house) suffices for him. It's really hard to argue with that kind of reasoning by pointing to abstractions, i.e. a statistical model.

Basically when I see even faint signs of folks' favoring more authoritarian policies (e.g. being "tough on crime,") I want us to notice those signs, and think hard about how to keep that instinct from getting a full head of steam.

aka squeaky wheel gets the grease

We're stuck with a bad choice between authoritarian right and authoritarian left these days.

One side is 'tough on crime', the other is 'tough on speech'. As a disillusioned lefty, and thankfully not in the US, one of these scares me more than the other.

If there’s a workable progressive solution to degraded qualify of life due to crime, including nonviolent crime—where is it working? SF? Portland? Chicago? DC? NYC?

It’s not like there are republicans in any of these places, so what’s the issue?

The proof of the pudding is in the tasting.

> If there’s a workable progressive solution to degraded qualify of life due to crime, including nonviolent crime

Here's a workable solution: stop spending over 3x what China does on "defense" and maintaining military bases all over the world and spend that money on homelessness, education, infrastructure, and jobs programs to get our middle class back.

I always found this chart interesting:

https://www.longtermtrends.net/us-debt-to-gdp/

especially when you look at it from the perspective of the drastically lower taxes rates of the 80s.

So you’re saying is that progressives mayors have no ability to effect positive change and if we want livable cities we shouldn’t bother voting for them?

this pudding?

https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-two-decade-red-state-mur...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35915958

not saying things don't need fixing, but the idea there's a blue solution or a red solution flies in the face of history and data.

One problem is the richer you are the easier it is to flee the problems and let someone else clean up the mess. But it cant be government or cost any taxes...

I genuinely don’t know if progressive politicians care about my quality of life concerns. If they don’t even consider them real problems, it’s highly unlikely they’ll fix them.

The issue is that the people in power are not progressives, or have not gotten full support and the time needed to enact change. Establishment Democrats are just as pro-punishment as Republicans; take the President’s history as a legislator. NYC is literally run by a cop. Trolls started blaming the progressive mayor of Chicago for crime before he even took office. LAPD contains a literal gang. The system progressives want to change is too deeply rooted to change in just an election.

I don’t know if progressive policies are the answer to everything, but we’ve steadily been throwing money in the other direction so consider whether that strategy is a failure.

Was Lori Lightfoot not a progressive? How long are we going to have to just vote harder before we start seeing some results, somewhere?

No true progressives, because if they were true progressives there would be progress!

Wonderful logic.

Reply to sibling: lol, Lightfoot is not a progressive. Toni Preckwinkle was the progressive candidate. Anyone can claim the label, but if the teacher’s union hates you and you’re a former prosecutor, you might not be a progressive.

I specifically did not say to vote more, but that an election is not enough. It takes constant public pressure, and of course good strategy to effect change. Even if Lightfoot really did want to reform the CPD, it’s too powerful to face without a collective effort focused on small, achievable policy to start. I respect the outsiders, but she was not very political. Maybe Johnson, as a former organizer, will do better.

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