> Crime is at an all-time low yet spending on police is near an all-time high.
Two words: public unions.
Two words: public unions.
Perhaps the word you're looking for is "lobbyists" and "demagogues".
We shouldn't contort ourselves to avoid the simplest answer: the state is getting what it paid for. The US incarcerates its population more than any known state on earth. That isn't unions' fault — other countries with more powerful unions don't jail themselves like this.
If any enemy nation did this, we wouldn't have any illusions. But we refuse to apply the same logic to ourselves, nor conclude as Chomsky did, "Remember, any state has a primary enemy: its own population."
Otherwise, it might be obvious why police are fighting a war, and who their enemy is.
It is, in fact, the unions' fault. The prison unions and police unions are huge proponents of the drug war, longer sentences, etc. It isn't just there fault, of course, America's general Puritan streak helps, but the public unions have really capitalized on that.
> other countries with more powerful unions don't jail themselves like this.
What happens in other countries isn't a good model for the U.S. Sub-segments of the population don't viscerally hate each other in Frankfurt or London the way they do in L.A. or Detroit. It will be interesting to see what happens to the internal social cohesion European countries have enjoyed post-WWII as middle eastern immigration continues to rise. A few more muslim youths rioting in Paris and I think you'd be surprised by what kind of police escalation Parisians will be willing to put up with...
Nixon declared the "War on Drugs". He also pioneered the "Southern Strategy", and many elements of his campaign are now well accepted to have been used as code words.
It wasn't a personal appeal to the puritan morality of drug users to stop, it was an appeal to the fears of scared whites.
The "War on Drugs" almost exclusively effects poor, minority communities and individuals.
In three decades, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association has become one of the most powerful political forces in California. The union has contributed millions of dollars to support "three strikes" and other laws that lengthen sentences and increase parole sanctions. It donated $1 million to Wilson after he backed the three strikes law.
It's not precisely what 'rayiner was saying, but the prison guard union is definitely pushing for more people in prison.
Give me a break. Unions have a lot of problems but if they were so damned influential, maybe every public sector union except for federal security wouldn't have been losing jobs and hours for the last 10 years.
Of course certain unions see an interest in the security state. Other, bigger unions are generally opposed but don't have skin in the game. Whatever. The security state is much bigger than the police and prison guard unions.
Fundamentally, the issue here is political game theory where there's no upside to fixing things and a lot of upside to painting your opponent as 'soft on terror' or 'soft on crime'. So policy only moves in one direction, and that direction is often stupid. Unions' wishes are just drops in the bucket compared to that.
It's already here. Every time there is some discussion of Muslim extremism or immigration we have a few HN members saying things that, in even conservative parts of the US, would leave your jaw hanging.
In the US it's common for the more liberal folks to perceive Europe has some kind of bastion of social enlightenment. This view seems to fall apart once you actually inject some different skin colors into the population.
Belfast still has road barriers that are raised at night blocking roads between the Shankill Road and Falls Road areas - not to mention huge walls:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines
Edit: To be fair, I agree with your point, but there are some very noticeable dividing lines in European cities.
[NB. This is not intended as a criticism of Belfast, please go and visit - we went recently and had a great few days and I want to go back.]
[I agree that these cases are exceptional].
As opposed to regular prisons which are just slave camps? What exactly is the moral difference between the state of living between public and private prisons? (I take it that you were implying a difference exists, but I could be mistaken.)
But whatever perverse incentives and moral hazards already exist for state prisons, they are double when there is a profit motive for maximizing headcount. Moreover, the taxpayer still ends up footing most of the bill for private prisons; in state-run institutions, they at least have a budgetary incentive to moderate sentences, rehabilitate, and reduce recidivism. In a private prison, an inmate who finds Jesus/Buddha/etc and becomes an honest citizen is a blow to the bottom line.
I now understand that you were criticizing the incentive structure of prisons, but it didn't seem that way.
> Moreover, the taxpayer still ends up footing most of the bill for private prisons
I would therefore not call them private prisons. Perhaps, crony prisons or quasi-public prisons?
> In a private prison, an inmate who finds Jesus/Buddha/etc and becomes an honest citizen is a blow to the bottom line.
How can this be true while tax payers are simultaneously footing the bill? Moreover, isn't a large part of the comments in this thread about how there is an incentive structure in public prisons to keep more prisoners? (The correctional officer unions.)
> in state-run institutions, they at least have a budgetary incentive to moderate sentences, rehabilitate, and reduce recidivism.
That kind of makes sense. But when there are unions, and the jobs of union members depends on the number of prisoners, it becomes much less clear.
Very true, and equally applicable to many other "private" companies (Lockheed-Martin comes to mind).
> How can this be true while tax payers are simultaneously footing the bill?
Private prisons (that include inmate labor) charge from both ends: per-head to the taxpayer (ostensibly at a lower rate than if the state handled it in-house), and per-hour to businesses seeking cheap labor. State prisons have only the first incentive, with the countervailing force of finite tax revenue.
Also, the prison guard unions have the same incentive to lobby (and/or support the lobbying of their parent corporation) regardless of who signs their checks. I would claim that union influence and lobbying is a constant in either case.
> But when there are unions, and the jobs of union members depends on the number of prisoners, it becomes much less clear.
Agreed. It is bad policy and a waste of taxes in either case.
Well, actually, prison guard unions did lobby for things like three-strikes laws to increase incarceration rates. [1] And yes, unions in general are weaker in the US, but public employees' unions haven't waned in power anything like their private sector counterparts.
[1] http://caprogressivemessage.com/2011/03/04/the-california-pr...
(I know, I know, "it's a left-wing California site!" But it's well-sourced and one of many articles saying the same thing when you google for who is lobbying for three-strikes laws and whatnot.)
Citation needed.
Too bad we're doing that nation building away from home.