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W4ffle3 t1_j855ami wrote

Reply to comment by AwesomeBrainPowers in Family of Oakland baker seeks 'restorative justice' for her death following robbery by IAmNotARobot124

>If we accept the notion that crimes like robbery and burglary are consequences of poverty (and/or a lack of opportunity in the area)

As a proof by contradiction, if robbery and burglary are not consequences of poverty, then I'd assume just as many rich teens would be robbing stores and breaking into cars as poor teens.

Last time I checked, rich teens are not being arrested at the same rate as poor teens for burglary and robbery.

Therefore, these environmental factors outside of a teen's control definitely influence whether or not a crime occurs.

I'm all for personal responsibility, but I'm not blind to how environments influence people and communities. I want to see the right balance struck.

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pheisenberg t1_j858an3 wrote

Similarly, most poor teenagers don’t commit crimes, therefore poverty is not a sufficient cause of crime.

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dern_the_hermit t1_j85bfrg wrote

That doesn't track. It's not like a light switch where there's just the two "crime" or "not crime" states. It's a matter of likelihood that someone will commit a crime, not a guarantee.

If the crime rate increases as economic standing decreases, that establishes a link between poverty and crime, there's no need for most of the group to be exhibiting the behavior.

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pheisenberg t1_j88y149 wrote

The point is that there must be many other factors that tend to increase or decrease the likelihood someone will commit a crime, because their wealth is not a very good predictor of crime at all at the individual level.

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dern_the_hermit t1_j8aceti wrote

> The point is that there must be many other factors

Exactly, which is why it's weird to see someone insist that most members of a group must exhibit the relevant behaviors to establish a connection. Crime is a complicated issue and remains opportunistic even when there is greater incentive to commit it, for instance.

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SatanicNotMessianic t1_j85vvnm wrote

That’s not how statistical analysis of correlation works. If chewing tobacco causes oral cancer rates to soar by a factor of ten, it doesn’t matter if only 35% of chewing tobacco users get oral cancer.

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pheisenberg t1_j88xt7w wrote

If your output variable is “#cancer in large population”, yes, an increase in tobacco use rate causes it to go up. I don’t think that’s true of crime, though. Not every recession causes a jump in crimes rates.

But I was talking about the output variable “Does person X commit a crime?” For that, most of the time poverty will not cause crime. There must be many other factors involved such as community relationships, opportunity, values, likelihood of going to prison, etc.

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eamus_catuli t1_j85d5qg wrote

>Last time I checked, rich teens poor people are not being arrested at the same rate as poor teens rich people for burglary and robbery white collar crime.

>Therefore, these environmental factors outside of a teen's rich person's control definitely influence whether or not a crime occurs.

OR

>Last time I checked, rich teens women are not being arrested at the same rate as poor teens men for burglary and robbery sexual assault.

>Therefore, these environmental factors outside of a teen's man's control definitely influence whether or not a crime occurs.

Does your proof hold when the criminal is somebody who is a member of a group that you may not sympathize with?

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W4ffle3 t1_j85e02e wrote

As a man, I sympathize with men 🥺

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eamus_catuli t1_j85j9iy wrote

OK, but do others who would ascribe to restorative justice? And what are the implications of that?

In other words, economic condition is only one of many factors that lead people to commit crime. Do we eschew jailing people generally for crimes related to these factors? Or only ones that we happen to sympathize with?

Should we eschew jailing somebody who scams little old grandmas out of their life savings because their parents never taught them empathy or impulse control? Should we, as a society be doing a better job teaching young people about empathy for others, selflessness, and controlling impulses, and therefore, nobody should be jailed for scamming grandmas until we figure out as a society how to do so?

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[deleted] t1_j85bq2s wrote

[removed]

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pohart t1_j85o15x wrote

True, but why bring it up here? It feels like you're trying to imply that these hypothetical kids are poor because they break into cars.

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hostile65 t1_j87hzuk wrote

I mean. Let's say Kid A is poor, but spends their day inside playing video games, has a basic understanding of technology, still smokes some weed from time to time, like's to read and get's books and games to play from the library.

Now there is Kid B who is poor, but likes to spend his nights with a group of young men who like to break into places, steel cars, do drugs, get's arrested multiple times, etc.

Now say they both get a job at a fast food place. Kid A and their interests don't interfere too much with showing up on time and job duties.

Kid B misses days because they are dodging the cops, got injured from the hijinks, maybe spent the night in jail and was a no call no show for work.

Who do you think is going to do better in life and their career after 18 years old? Who do you want as your neighbor? Who is going to pay rent? Afford a kid and to help raise it properly?

If your hobby is "hood rat shit"/"meth head shit" with "hood rat friends"/"meth head friends" you will be poor.

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MountainDuck t1_j8595jh wrote

Your counter assumes that counterfactually they would be arrested at the same rates if they were doing the same actions. If they are not in fact arrested at the same rates even if they are doing the same actions, the counter doesn't go through.Using arrest rates only works if we ignore differential application of the law itself (and as my philosophy of law, and logic, classes get to learn, empirical evidence fully shows that the law is not applied equally across demographics 🤷🏼‍♂️)

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