Police, Prisons, and Crime

Crime policy is not one of my areas of expertise, so I'm unable to comment on the degree to which this New York Times story should be taken seriously. Nonetheless, it certainly passes the sniff test. Numbers:

• The United States has the highest reported incarceration rate in the world.
• The incarceration rate in the United States has doubled in the past two decades.
• There are 2.3 million prisoners in the US, incarcerated at a price of 75bn/year.
• That's more than the nation spends on policing. 20 years ago, police were 40% of spending in the criminal justice system, while incarceration was 25%. Today, policing is 30% and incarceration is 35%
• During this time period, New York City's incarceration rate has declined. It is now well below the national average.
• New York City's crime rate has dropped by 75%. That's far more than the national crime rate (which has dropped as well).
• New York City spend a lot more on policing than on prisons.

The conclusion various social scientists are drawing from this is one of those no-duh things that nonetheless defies most political CW. In terms of preventing crime, active prevention mechanisms (e.g., cops) are much more effective than post-crime punishment. In NYC's case, the savings on reduced incarceration were more than adequate to pay for the additional police. Obviously it's not the only factor (that whole lead thing we discussed in another thread plays a potential role), but it certainly seems like a promising avenue for our political system to explore. Which means we won't!

The article isn't only about more cops; it discusses potential tactics that might be making a difference. E.g., so called hot-spot policing; some smart types noticed that crimes tend to occur disproportionately in small geographic clusters, by assigning a disproportionate amount of police resources to those areas you drive crime rates down. It also dwells on some of the politics behind understanding this stuff; police departments are reluctant to participate in data-driven experiments because it might jeopardize funding for other ventures.

Here's an experiment in changing policing style: Oakland just hired Bill Bratton as their new police chief despite community outrage that he promotes "stop and frisk," which is generally characterized by activists as a form of racial profiling.

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_22432235/oakland-hires-former-la-police-chief-consultant

As was discussed in a different thread, apparently parts of Oakland are insanely dangerous. If we see results in a short term without much else changing, maybe we can draw some conclusions. Of course, you can't eliminate confounding factors.

From my reading said social scientists are cheating. The crime rate drop happened nationwide, independent of who locked up the most people, and independent of any specific tactical policing strategies like Giuliani's.

The one thing that could have worked is "if we lock up the entire potentially criminal population, will crime go down?", which is more or less what happened. The problem is that unless you lock them up for life, as soon as they get back out they're practically required to commit crimes to support themselves; it's not like anyone's going to hire them. So there's a fun incarceration rate vs. release rate vs. re-offend rate calculate I haven't seen anyone make there.

What about the fact that NYC's crime rate dropped more than the national average? (as claimed above.) Is that just not correct, or explained by something else, or small enough difference to be statistically misleading?

You didn't read my post/the linked article, did you? NYC's crime rate decrease was dramatically larger than the national average. The article's also mentioned that cities that employ the hot-spot tactic also saw a larger drop in crime than those that didn't.

That's not to say that such policies are entirely responsible for decreased crime; but the idea that the crime rate decrease in NYC was 100% exogenous is just as ridiculous a claim as to say it's entirely because of Guiliani.

I didn't read the article because I've heard the discussion before, and the NYT's registration policies piss me off.

NYC's crime rate started off higher than the national average, so you'd expect it to drop more just from mean regression. Also, note that given recent revelations about compstat reporting massaging, I'd take any trend shifts in those numbers with a grain of salt.

The incarceration rate is unconscionable and the way individuals arrested for minor offenses are treated very often mimics the more well known works of 19th century French literature. I am a defense attorney in the state with the second highest racial disparity in sentencing. Madison, Wisconsin has 47% of its young black men in jail or on probation. I have an open and naked contempt for our nation's catastrophic failure at the dispensing of justice.

The adversarial system as it is practiced and the English common law are relics of a time when everyone knew each other and winter was set aside for pointless argument. It should be placed with the Code of Hammurabi as historic and informative, but otherwise abandoned. Election of new judges, actually the appointment of new judges near the mid point of the term of retiring judges, is based almost entirely on political graft. District Attorneys and Judges are the only parties capable of practicing mercy and they almost uniformly do not. They feel they are accountable only to the nebulous virtue of public safety and the belief that they are tough on crime, and so penalties drift ever upward as the winners of popularity contests fail to to end crime for all time.

Also, not to make anyone feel bad about themselves, but if you have ever been picked to sit on a jury, it's a 10/12 shot that we picked you because we thought you had an empty goddamn head. I know that people shouldn't have preconceived notions of guilt or innocence, but I can't be the only one who thinks it might not be good for America that we allow all our most important disputes between citizens and their government to be decided by the stupidest 12 people chosen from a room of 46 people all too lazy to fake an excuse. To be fair, being stupid is only the easiest way to get on a jury. You could also just not have any police officers in your family and no family members who have been the victim or perpetrator of a crime. But again, what are the odds of that, these days?

We live in a country where Principals call the police on eight year olds.

Eight year olds, dude.

I feel better now, sonce I wasn't picked last time I had jury duty.

Say Flowers, what are the main offences commited by the young black men?
Just curious if it's due to our stupid drug laws.

That was, uhh, totally irrelevant to what we're discussing.

I ended up on a jury despite emphasizing that I was going to lose a week's pay and inconvinience several clients because I was self employed. The judge apologized to me at the end for not excusing me, and I enjoyed the experience, but man. In hindsight, I should have said that I believed in jury nullification at some point so I would have gotten kickbanned but I was too stupid to think of that at the time.

I should also note that our jury was pretty awesome. Several of us were taking notes, and there was some good deliberation on what could've been a really quick decision. We didn't drag it out, but I think deliberations began around 9am that day and we turned in the verdict around 11:30am or so. Seemed like a healthy amount for the 4 days of trial and we wrapped it up just in time for lunch!