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Comment by PKop | Hacker News Reader

Don't excuse the fact that Chicago has around an 18 per 100k murder rate, while Zurich has a 3. I'm referencing murder rate as a proxy for overall crime as well.

Now, many like to cope with this disgusting fact of conditions in US cities by projecting a "tough guy" bravado.. "Oh are you scared of the big city, not me I'm cool with my city being a shithole"

I'd prefer government puts criminals in jail so we can all live in nice places like the Swiss.

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

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

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The author of this article lives in La Grange which is a relatively wealthy Chicago Suburb (this is public information on her Twitter profile). Using those same 2019 FBI crime stats referenced in that Wikipedia article, you can find that La Grange experienced zero murders and had an overall violent crime rate of 10 per 100k (vs. Chicago's 943 per 100k).

Given the low crime rate in La Grange, citing crime statistics in this case does not fully account for differences between parenting in Switzerland and US suburbs, even if that suburb happens to be a Chicago suburb.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

I was one of the only white kids at a high school in Jamaica Queens and spent a ton of time in some of the roughest neighborhoods of NYC. Nothing dangerous ever happened to me because poor people are not animals, and if you interact with them enough you'll realize that nobody is our there attacking random pedestrians and that most dangerous crime is either gang on gang violence or domestic disputes.

I think the "Jail everyone" reaction is some cases useful (my opinion changed recently, but i can't explain it shortly. And english isn't my best language), but this isn't the US issue. The US incarceration rate is 531 per 100.000, which is honestly a rate i thought was USSR level, and its youth incarceration rate is the worst in the world. Worst than Salvador or countries with real Cartel problems, worst than communist countries.

incarceration rate should probably be 2 - 3x more. Arrested 2x for an unprovoked assault of someone on the street or the knock out game, 20 years. Do it again, life. Push someone on the train tracks, life. Drive by even though no one was killed, life. Robbery, car jacking, etc with a weapon, life.

All of these life sentences should consist of hard but humane labor. Short on workers to pick strawberries? Hire from the prison. The money should go towards ensuring humane conditions in the prison, no more giving the contract to the lowest bidder. Government run prisons, the idea of paying a private company to run a prison is insane.

I'm fine with some lee way with property crimes, drugs, anything in that crime level but we really should not have to deal with violent criminals in society released to hurt people again and again.

Because we have more criminals.

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