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Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

Consider a thought experiment. Suppose 2% of country A has committed a crime, and 1% of country B has. Suppose both countries have identical criminal justice systems - say they catch 80% of criminals, and have a false positive rate of 0.25%.

In that case, country A has 1.845% of their population in jail, while country B has only 1.05%.

I'm not saying this is the only cause of the US's high incarceration rate, I'm just pointing out that some stats are missing from this discussion.

(Interestingly, 30% of the people in jail in B are falsely accused, while only 15% of the people in jail in A are.)

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You have to be very self-critical when proposing thought experiments. Typically, they end up having no connection with reality (attempts to make variables independent which really aren't), I'm not sure it's productive to think like this unless you're really super-guarded about your assumptions.

You're assuming a 1% absolute difference could easily exist given equal laws, enforcement, and penalties. If you say you're just asserting that for purposes of the experiment, you still can't say anything because the assertion may well be nonsense.

You're assuming you can tease it apart (e.g. existing laws and enforcement's influence on criminal culture) such that stats are "missing", it's not clear that you can. In fact, evidence (prohibition) more likely says you can't.

I'm assuming a 1% difference could exist holding everything else constant simply to make the example simple. I explicitly disclaimed the idea that my thought experiment was a good picture of the world.

My key point - looking at incarceration rates while ignoring criminality rates is ignoring half the picture. Do you disagree with this point?

Criminality rates heavily depend on what's considered criminal behavior and how criminal.

This also implies you have a culture that is actively hostile and promotes criminality, be it fiscally or socially. Which I don't think is inaccurate, rugged individualism in the US can promote hostile interactions that lead to violence or depression, and both can get you in jail.

> This also implies you have a culture that is actively hostile and promotes criminality, be it fiscally or socially.

Have you been to the hood lately? This is exactly what urban culture is like. Now, there is still a disproportional focus, motivated in no small part by racism, on cracking down on urban crime in particular by American law enforcement.

Have you been to the hood lately?

Just got back from a bicycle trip through "the hood." I didn't experience any hostility or criminality so I'm not sure what you're referring to.

You can "prove" almost anything with a sample size of one.

Well...

You can "prove" almost anything with made up statistics as well. Which is what Yummyfajita's post is essentially.

Just trying to be fair to both sides.

In my opinion...

you are all on pretty shaky ground with what you are putting forth as "arguments".

You can "prove" almost anything with made up statistics as well. Which is what Yummyfajita's post is essentially.

Just curious, what do you believe I attempted to prove?

The hood?

How about just the cinema? Or stay at home altogether and watch television.

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