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fleetwoodmacbookair t1_ivfmqxb wrote

Reply to comment by NetQuarterLatte in Left Unmonitored In His Cell, He Etched His Suicide Note Into a Wall On Rikers Island by hau5keeping

What policies do you support? I absolutely believe that violent crime should be prevented, but it’s clear that the current approaches are subpar. This story is devastating, it illustrates a cycle of violence that ends with people who have been labeled as criminals at the mercy of a system that does not seem to care if they live or die.

I am a progressive, I have also been the victim of a violent, random attempted robbery. I certainly understand that crime exists and shouldn’t be ignored. I also don’t think that more police or more prisons are the answer, but they seem to be the only options that most political leaders turn to, both democrats and republicans alike.

I find it disconcerting that progressives are being framed as completely ignoring the actual impact of violent crime. This rhetoric allows right wing “tough on crime” policies to gain traction far more quickly. You see it every time you turn on the tv and see a Zeldin for Governor ad.

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NetQuarterLatte t1_ivfq98g wrote

>What policies do you support?

I support the obvious: economic improvements, better wages, better life-quality, better education, access to health-care, mental health care, etc. All of which already receive plenty of attention (even if they don't receive effective implementation, like De Blasio's failed mental health care plan..)

What I don't support: advocating for above shouldn't devolve into a "crime denial" bliss where we just blame the media and "far-right people", and then pretend that there's no issue.

I also oppose the nihilist view that we can't do anything about crime ("we are just at the mercy of a nationwide trend", "it's a pandemic we have no control of", ...). The nihilist view is not supported by evidence.

What do I think has been missing from the debate?

An honest conversation about the role of policing, and how America is severely under-policed compared to other developed countries, and how that's actually one of the root causes of mass incarceration (longer and more severe sentences as a way to compensate for under-policing)

Understaffed police departments also tend to employ more violence.

We can look at other developed cities, like London where the police doesn't even carry guns (except for very specialized units), but when they intervene to arrest someone they usually swam the individual with lots of bodies.

Right now, this is what I like to see more in the conversations:

  • Deterrence (likelihood of being caught is more important than the severity of the punishment)
  • Messaging about crime enforcement is more important than punishments.
  • Poverty drives property-crimes but not violent crimes
  • Lack of trust in the police as a root-cause for violent crimes. To address that we need to make sure police misconduct is addressed seriously, but also to not exaggerate that or devolve that into openly spreading of "anti-police" campaigns (which can foster distrust in the police locally, even if the PD who committed the wrongdoing is a completely different PD from another state)
  • Violence spreads like a contagious diseases. Stopping the spread requires a two-pronged approach: prevention (better economics/social) that makes communities less vulnerable), and targeted isolation/intervention (don't let a few people keep spreading it!)

Obs.: I refer to some people as "progressive" between quotes, because the totalitarian discourse/logic they employ and the actual policies they impose are anything but progressive.

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VaccumSaturdays t1_ivfwvpq wrote

That article you’d posted is gross. Here’s a realistic, eloquent, smart response to it.

Your political bias is showing. And it’s scary. No matter how many awards your posts are showered with. We also know where those originate, by the way.

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HEIMDVLLR t1_ivg1vr7 wrote

> Your political bias is showing. And it’s scary. No matter how many awards your posts are showered with. We also know where those originate, by the way.

FACTS!

This the same clown that made post about removing Alvin Braggs by any means. Ignoring the fact that Braggs was elected by the communities that watch friends and family members suffer on Rikers Island because they can’t post bail.

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NetQuarterLatte t1_ivg78zm wrote

>This the same clown that made post about removing Alvin Braggs by any means.

Any attorney in NY can be fired for any reason, at any time. Firing the DA should be no different than firing any other attorney in NY, considering that the district is the client here.

District voters should have the right to express their will to fire the DA.

The lack of such right is causing a distortion in our elections. If Manhattan had the right to vote for that, it would be a heck lot easier for people to vote for Hochul.

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HEIMDVLLR t1_ivg9t2z wrote

Remind me why Manhattan residents that don’t like Alvin Braggs, didn’t vote against him?

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shamam t1_ivgwuyc wrote

Isn't this is first term? Were we supposed to predict the future?

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HEIMDVLLR t1_ivh6n4x wrote

You think he didn’t campaign or promote his bail-reform agenda? What he’s doing as Manhattan DA, is exactly what he ran on.

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princessnegrita t1_ivhbcom wrote

Thanks for linking this!

I also looked into the article and I saw an old professor of mine (who literally wrote one of the most cited recent books on criminal justice AND has extensive experience working with people in Rikers) called their ideas nonsense and a waste of resources.

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VaccumSaturdays t1_ivhoe20 wrote

Absolutely my pleasure. It’s wild this article came from the minds of Harvard folks, and was actually published

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princessnegrita t1_ivkjmq5 wrote

I’m gonna get a bit nerdy because social science is my field (which feels really weird to say). There’s been a focus on quantitative statistical methods in social science to “legitimize” the research and it’s been a disservice.

Basically, social science journals prioritize publishing this kind of research, so schools prioritize teaching these particular research methods. It becomes less about actually trying to explain the world around us as a complex interconnected beast than about isolating one particular issue, disregarding the complexities (because that’s too difficult to calculate) and trying to use stats to make an argument.

In the article linked, the professors do exactly that and simply dismiss the complexities of policing in the US because it fucks up their models and their arguments.

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NetQuarterLatte t1_ivg5sz6 wrote

I saw the twitter threat. There's a lot of fear-mongering in his retorts filled with "anti-cop" political agenda.

Filtering out the fear-mongering/political stuff, the main logical gap in the counter-argument from Alec Karakatsanis is that he's trying to count any law-enforcement as "police". We all know that the typical border patrol officer is not investigating murder cases in our communities, for example.

The second gap: he points out the undercounting of "private police" as problem in the study. It's actually the other way around: the emergence of "private police" only bolsters the study argument that many locations in the US are severely under-policed.

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VaccumSaturdays t1_ivg84yb wrote

I think the fear mongering is the entire length of your post and comment history.

Thank you, good night.

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Rottimer t1_ivhc5zy wrote

>The professor then admitted privately over email that the U.S. census count is actually 1,227,788 police. That’s 76% higher than the number they chose to use in their public article. What’s the significance of this? Using this number, they admitted to me, would mean the U.S. truthfully has “1.1 times the median rate in rich countries.”

I mean, that's fairly devastating to your argument if you're using that as a source. And while you poo poo counting border patrol, or the FBI as law enforcement, the authors in the article you linked don't make that distinction for other countries either.

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NetQuarterLatte t1_ivhpdo3 wrote

>The professor then admitted privately over email that the U.S. census count is actually 1,227,788 police.

It took me 5 minutes to figure out that the 1.2M figure includes police and correctional officers.

The BLS currently indicates:

  • 808,200 Police and Detectives [1]
  • 419,000 Correctional Officers and Bailiffs [2]

Which adds to 1,227,200. That's obviously counting the head-count of policing and incarceration personnel, which is exactly what the cited article is aiming to separate.

Alec Karakatsanis is just being sloppy and hasty in trying to push his political agenda, and making himself look intellectually dishonest in the process.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/protective-service/police-and-detectives.htm

[2] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/protective-service/correctional-officers.htm

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fleetwoodmacbookair t1_ivga06w wrote

I appreciate this thoughtful response, i agree with many of the solutions you’ve outlined above. That said, policing in this country is broken right now. Any policy that includes additional funding to police forces requires major overhaul of police departments first. That said, I think that consistently arguing that our streets are too dangerous and progressives aren’t up to the task is a concerning rhetoric. Fear is a powerful tool, and this entire New York State election cycle has demonstrated exactly that.

Fwiw, the violence leads to violence argument is a reasonable one. However, I believe a lot of that violence in underserved neighborhoods begins with policing. Armed cops who see any citizen as a potential threat have an inherently violent effect.

Also, with regards to the deterrence point. I don’t really think criminals are doing illegal things because they’re like “the DA won’t prosecute he’s too weak on crime.” I’ve seen you discussing your issues with Bragg below, how does that tie into your view on this issue?

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NetQuarterLatte t1_ivgemr1 wrote

>Also, with regards to the deterrence point. I don’t really think criminals are doing illegal things because they’re like “the DA won’t prosecute he’s too weak on crime.” I’ve seen you discussing your issues with Bragg below, how does that tie into your view on this issue?

Messaging/signaling is a big deal. And I suspect that's at the root of more crimes than we give it credit for.

For example, leave some property unattended, and it'll signal that no one cares about it, and it will increase the likelihood of it being stolen/defaced etc. The other way around works too: if it's credible that someone cares about it, it can be a deterrent for crimes.

One concrete example was in the use of street lighting at night: https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/northeast/nyc-used-street-lighting-to-cut-crime-without-more-arrests/

>“What I take from that is that it’s not just about lighting. There is some kind of demonstration and signaling effect here that you’re letting people know this is an area that’s being watched. This is an area that’s being cared for,” he said. Additionally, they monitored communities around the public housing developments and did not find that crime was being displaced to other locations.

Another concrete example is how the increased enforcement of misdemeanors (in the 90s) led to the decrease of felonies: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w9061/w9061.pdf

With Bragg specifically, both of the issues I had/have with him entails messaging:

  • In his first day of office he decided to wholesale downgrade armed robberies to misdemeanors. That was quite a slap in the face given the rise in gun violence that was going on around that time.
  • In the Trump's case, he didn't even try to present the case to a grand jury and had the lead prosecutors resigning in protest. That's another slap in the face given that such outcome would've only be expected from a republican DA, and that it helps perpetuate the lack of accountability of the powerful.
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NetQuarterLatte t1_ivgfbho wrote

>However, I believe a lot of that violence in underserved neighborhoods begins with policing. Armed cops who see any citizen as a potential threat have an inherently violent effect.

You're right on point with that. Mistrust in the police is also a stronger factor leading to community violence than poverty.

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PhillyFreezer_ t1_ivfy5ea wrote

I mean this in a very serious way, but have you acted on any of these things? Like have you donated your time or resources to further any of these goals? I get what you're saying in general, but I see your comments on this sub almost daily about crime in NYC and it's almost always going hand in hand with a dig at the "progressives" you bring up each and every time. I feel like your long winded responses are more for the internet points and imprint on this sub than actually doing anything about it.

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NetQuarterLatte t1_ivg37mz wrote

I don't only post about crimes, actually.

For example, I've been posting a lot about the housing supply problems.

Does that change anything? I've been noticing a positive shift in the public debate about housing supply and NIMBY in NYC. Both here in this sub and in the public view on our city politicians. But I don't think I can take any credit for that.

I post primarily to learn more from thoughtful replies by fellow redittors. I don't only post to shout my views, but to also elicit meaningful/intellectual challenges to my views.

I learn a lot from truthful conversations here (when the other person is debating in good faith) and that has genuinely shaped my views many times.

After all, how should I know what to support in reality?

IF the dominant mainstream discourse was sufficient, we wouldn't be observing those issues in reality, or at least we would have an intellectually sound explanation for it.

That's just coming from my desire of educating myself before throwing myself behind any solution in ways that go beyond just understanding the mainstream opinion.

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Traditional_Way1052 t1_ivgw50y wrote

The US is under policed? How do you get that impression. What numbers are you relying on. Who are you comparing against? NYC has an enormous police force. What do you envision?

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