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Wag
 
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Andy Rimmer (4/22/2008)
Up to a point "doing time" is actually an incentive for some, I'm constantly amazed by young people who are trying to get a custodial sentence as a way to further their "career", not only do they learn techniques and skills inside, they make contacts and develop future opportunities.
Doing time is seen as "being serious" about crime and a tag or ASBO guarantees the respect of most teenagers who are into "street life".
Have you read Stephen Levitt's Freakonomics? He's a bit of an over-rated economist whose big idea is that not all people are honest. It's actually kinda weak.
But. There is a brilliant chapter in it, in which he basically talks about someone else's work which should be required reading for politicians, policemen and anyone interested in crime prevention. The work is by this man, Sudhir Venkatesh, a research project asking why most crack dealers live with their mum. (The answer is because they don't make enough money dealing crack to be able to afford a place of their own). Anyway the point is that he lays out the evidence that shows why it's perfectly rationale and sensible for people to become crack dealers and get themselves a criminal record, even though the net result is that they don't earn much more than flipping burgers at McDonalds (some of the crack dealers Venkatesh met had second jobs at McDs to make ends meet).
Prevention is the key, but how to prevent it is the problem. A better understanding of why people commit crime is the best place to start. Of all the political debates the one over crime and punishment seems to be the most emotionally charged and probably the least informed by actual facts or evidence.
History is an important source for LRP. Along with other works of fiction.
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Wag
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| Have you seen how much trainers cost these days Mat, 'course they have to live with their mum's. Seriously though, could it be that they are also lazy sods and have problems taking responsibility. Crap as McD's wages are- I'd rather work there than be on the dole or steal, and quite a few young people I know (who are students from low income backgrounds) think the same, so economics is only part of the problem. I think that certain environments and situations combine, creating a culture of apathy which spreads from household to household, blurring the reality which we accept as normal and making unnaceptable norms acceptable. We end up with entire estates where people who work and aren't involved in crime are seen as abnormal, outsiders or snobs.
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Heroic Knight
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| I believe some offenders can not be re habilitated but there is no death penalty and I dont feel I would support this, so what to do? Im not a fan of the hang em high as in reality, people are released and itis statistically proven that regular support and intervention significantly reduces re offending behaviors, with emphasis on regular. Long term support is not sustainable and so offenders revert and increase behaviors, in some cases. There are methods of prevention and intervention, but these need to begin with the earliest signs and intervention needs to be backed up by family re enforcement but we do not have the facilities for this or the cash or the means, in some cases. Prison should always be the last resort, if you are planning to re integrate back into society, as there is a risk of sub culture affiliation, institutionalisation and the plain picking up of bad habits thats unaviodable when a lot of naughty people are placed together. There should be a consequence of a reaction, but Im saying that some people are pre disposed to a life of crime and prevention should be more of a priority.
Give me what I want and maybe no one gets hurt
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Wag
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Andy Rimmer (4/22/2008)
Seriously though, could it be that they are also lazy sods and have problems taking responsibility.
If you read Suderkesh he talks about the low wages that crack dealing provides and the extremely high risks involved (not many jobs involve getting shot at outside the police force and the army). He also talks about crack dealers taking a second job to make ends meet. Lazy sods who have problems taking responsibility is not what his work is about at all. His key point is that crack dealing is aspirational for these youths, not because it pays well, it pays terribly, a bit like working at McDonalds, but if you can get to the top in crack dealing then (and only then) you make really good money. But critically the people who make it in crack dealing tend to remain in the neighbourhoods they were born in (makes sense their business is there) and so they are aspirational figures for those around them.
Suderkesh's work makes the parallels between working a Mcjob and dealing crack very very clear, the crack gangs he dealt with kept accounts, they had regional management structures, it was just like working for any national company. Except you had the chance to get on and "make it". Not something that was on offer in any other line of work, including MickeyDs. Dealing crack and getting a reputation for being violent, aggressive and prepared to commit violence and crime isn't some kind of drop out delinquency for these kids, it's hard work and it's aspirational and it's entirely logical and sensible for them to do it.
Crap as McD's wages are- I'd rather work there than be on the dole or steal, and quite a few young people I know (who are students from low income backgrounds)think the same, so economics is only part of the problem.
That idea that because some people don't commit crime when they are poor, this proves that poverty isn't the key motivation to commit a whole class of crime makes no sense to me. Unless you expect to encounter a single over-riding force that causes crime in all cases and all situations, some equivalent of gravity or the strong force. There are clearly other factors and I'm sure they're important, but I think if we stop thinking about what's wrong with these "kids" and start thinking about the possibility that what they are doing is an entirely sensible and logical consequence of the environment we have put them in, we might get somewhere.
E.g. We put five kids in a sealed room. Each day we put enough food in for one kid to have just enough to survive and definitely not enough for more than two to survive if they share it. It seems entirely sensible to me that after a few days one or more of the children will engage in violence against the others to take the food by force. Now clearly not all children will engage in violence. But this doesn't prove that the lack of food wasn't the real problem, nor does it get away from the fact that killing the other children was the sensible, natural, normal, predictable, logical, intelligent thing for all the kids to attempt.
Denying or moralizing these problems won't help, if we're serious about preventing crime then we need to look at the things that motivate crime (as well as the things that make it economically effective like weak judicial and police systems) and work out ways to affect those things.
I think that certain environments and situations combine, creating a culture of apathy which spreads from household to household, blurring the reality which we accept as normal and making unnaceptable norms acceptable. We end up with entire estates where people who work and aren't involved in crime are seen as abnormal, outsiders or snobs.
Sneering at people who have what you can never have is as old as Aesop.
History is an important source for LRP. Along with other works of fiction.
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Wag
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maslow (4/22/2008)
There should be a consequence of a reaction, but Im saying that some people are pre disposed to a life of crime and prevention should be more of a priority.
If you read any evolutionary psychology texts (which admittedly are denounced as reactionary intellectual treason by the sociologists) they make it very clear that all human beings are predisposed to a life of crime, in common with every other member of the mammal class and pretty much everything with an identifiable brain. We're designed by nature to cheat, lie, murder, rape and steal. We are red in tooth and claw, like all the other animals, we've just been pretending otherwise for so long that we've gone delusional. Recognising that fact and looking at the situations that cause the behaviours to be selected over behaviours we prefer (not cheating, lying, murdering, raping and stealing) is going to get us a lot further than blaming it on the television. Or the solicitors and the social workers.
History is an important source for LRP. Along with other works of fiction.
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Cold Water and Brass Tacks
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| Can I just question whether actual reliable figures for profit and expense on Crack dealing are actually available? Because I strongly suspect not.
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Wag
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| Scarily I think Matt may have hit the nail on the head- though I think that in his sealed room experiment- Boss kid would end up giving some but not 1/2 of their food to another kid , who'd act as "muscle". Maybe we're not meant to be civilised and have become delusional about our nature to survive this artificial environment. Or maybe the system (of civilisation) is flawed and people are exploiting it (Rich and Poor)
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Wag
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Flannel (4/23/2008)
Can I just question whether actual reliable figures for profit and expense on Crack dealing are actually available?
Because I strongly suspect not.
Here's the paper, figures (for the entirety of gang finances for four years) on a table on page 12:
http://www.sociology.columbia.edu/pdf-files/sv0707a.pdf
Obviously that's a compilation of more detailed source data with some interpolation where records were lacking - if you want the original data, you'd have to e-mail him and ask to see it.
Marios
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