The Thread Where We Discuss Guns and Gun Control

[Farm Boy]

You really have to cut your view narrow to make "deterrence" in general have no effect. Of course it can fail, and of course some applications of it are dumb. I also don't particularly have a problem with giving some people a long drop and a short rope despite that I probably should, I just think we mess it up significantly more than it actually helps. If we were unable to reliably enforce life in a cage without parole or escape that might change the equation.

Deterrence has an effect. It works best for things where you know people have gotten pee pee smacked some. Visible squad cars slow traffic. Having to shuttle your stupid friend to work for 6 months on a suspended license makes some people drink more carefully. A drunk and dead friend in an accident is also effective on some people. And then there are the people and crimes for which no deterrent will be effective. They don't know, don't care, and don't contemplate. For these people, there is incapacitation in its various flavors.

Super Tangential: The last part is why UBI will never actually replace bespoke food aid/assistance/stamps/SNAP whatever it's called. There will always be a subset of people who have messed up their available funds, or had them messed up for them. Especially on the low end of the scale. So then there is "provide more discretionary aid that will still be messed up for whatever reason and not go to food(perhaps exploitation, this isn't a blame game)" or provide actual food.

 

[Sommerswerd]

You really have to cut your view narrow to make "deterrence" in general have no effect. Of course it can fail, and of course some applications of it are dumb. I also don't particularly have a problem with giving some people a long drop and a short rope despite that I probably should, I just think we mess it up significantly more than it actually helps. If we were unable to reliably enforce life in a cage without parole or escape that might change the equation.

Deterrence has an effect. It works best for things where you know people have gotten pee pee smacked some. Visible squad cars slow traffic. Having to shuttle your stupid friend to work for 6 months on a suspended license makes some people drink more carefully. A drunk and dead friend in an accident is also effective on some people. And then there are the people and crimes for which no deterrent will be effective. They don't know, don't care, and don't contemplate. For these people, there is incapacitation in its various flavors.

Super Tangential: The last part is why UBI will never actually replace bespoke food aid/assistance/stamps/SNAP whatever it's called. There will always be a subset of people who have messed up their available funds, or had them messed up for them. Especially on the low end of the scale. So then there is "provide more discretionary aid that will still be messed up for whatever reason and not go to food(perhaps exploitation, this isn't a blame game)" or provide actual food.

If I gave the impression that I was arguing that there's no such thing as deterrence, that's my mistake. That wasn't my intention, rather, I wanted to point out the flaws in the deterrence theory of criminal punishment, because that was @El_Machinae specifically asked me to do.

The bottom line on deterrence is that the most effective form of deterrence is community norms/standards. People will tend to refrain, try to refrain, or at least pretend to refrain from doing, what is unnacceptable in their community, whether its neighborhood, family, marriage, circle of friends, school, job, ethnic-group, gender etc... If doing X is common place or at a minimum, isn't a big deal in their group, it isn't going to matter much what the penalty for X is. If doing X is seen as excusable, justified or even admired in their group, people are going to do it, regardless of the penalty.

 

[Berzerker]

"What? There's no way American Libertarians could be fascists!"

I think libertarians mostly oppose the death penalty, but whats fascist about a cop arresting a guy coming at them with a knife or executing murderers? I thought you wanted to kill off millions of people (or was it billions?) for being 'racists', but executing murderers is fascism and crosses your line? Are you okay with executing racists who murder?

Killing someone for something they might do is not a fundament of Justice. Assuming that not 100% (pretend it's 20%) jailed murderers end up murdering again, your logic means that you're killing people who needn't have died. You're killing 10 to stop 2.

Because killing a death row inmate is casually seen as murder, it's just a bad trade.

It is pretty easy to create moral reasoning that allows a death penalty, but that's not it. I would rather that you cringe whenever you hear that a hungry person has murdered, or that an unemployed person assaulted, or whatever. We can influence the conditions that causes someone to become a murderer.

If 20% of your jailed murderers are murdering again, you're doing jail wrong

My comment was about convicted murderers who keep killing people in prison, by then I figure the court got the conviction right. The only reason I have for opposing the death penalty is avoiding the mistake of executing the innocent. But there are reasons for the death penalty, closure for the victims and preventing 'recidivism' are two. A 3rd is any duty we have to the person who was murdered, the notion we're gonna provide food and shelter to their murderer for as long as they live is not exactly comforting.

My cells "exist". Cancer cells and viruses "exist. A rock "exists". The sun "exists". Are they all "individuals" with a "valid moral claim - to live their life"? A chicken "exists". Has its "existence" made it an "individual", with a "valid moral claim - to live its life"?

Rights belong to people, not rocks or chickens.

Existence itself establishes no moral claims whatsoever. This whole claim you're making... that "existence" bestows inherent rights is a poor argument, and I reject it.

Its the argument in the Declaration of Independence. Do you have a moral claim to defend yourself from a stranger attacking you? If a 3rd party intervened to stop the fight, would you 'claim the moral high ground' by accusing the stranger of attacking you or would you ask the 3rd party how they felt about self defense first?

In fact, you said: So you've already acknowledged that "rights" don't come from "existence", they come from other people, thereby contradicting yourself. Your arguments are not even internally consistent, which is part of why they don't stand up.

If you were alone in the world your rights - your moral claims against other people - aren't relevant. But the moment you meet another person, they become relevant and you dont need their permission. If you get attacked you wont be concerned with asking them for the right to defend yourself.

Even more remarkable is the fact that the Second Amendment has within it the explicit justification for the right.

Anyone reading the amendment critically should immediately think to themselves, "but what if a Militia is no longer necessary for the security of a free State?" 2A humpers spin it that individual freedom depends on the individual's right to bear arms, but the amendment itself explicitly says that it is collective armed resistance that is necessary, and not for individual liberty, but for the security of the State.

When did militias become unnecessary? That wasn't a justification for the right, it was an explanation for why the Feds wouldn't interfere with the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

 

[Farm Boy]

Been around potheads long enough to know that they're way more careful with their sales/consumption despite much of the community they value agreeing the punishments are dumb, because there are punishments.

It doesn't stop things no. And the laws around pot are still dumb, and smoking it in front of their teetotaler parents is indeed "most effectively" deterred...

But right, unpopular laws will be broken more. And breaking laws routinely ingrains contempt for the system of law in general. There's that whole bit by Lincoln on prohibition. Good thing states rights are working good progress on that one.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You really have to cut your view narrow to make "deterrence" in general have no effect. Of course it can fail, and of course some applications of it are dumb. I also don't particularly have a problem with giving some people a long drop and a short rope despite that I probably should, I just think we mess it up significantly more than it actually helps. If we were unable to reliably enforce life in a cage without parole or escape that might change the equation.

Deterrence has an effect. It works best for things where you know people have gotten pee pee smacked some. Visible squad cars slow traffic. Having to shuttle your stupid friend to work for 6 months on a suspended license makes some people drink more carefully. A drunk and dead friend in an accident is also effective on some people. And then there are the people and crimes for which no deterrent will be effective. They don't know, don't care, and don't contemplate. For these people, there is incapacitation in its various flavors.

Super Tangential: The last part is why UBI will never actually replace bespoke food aid/assistance/stamps/SNAP whatever it's called. There will always be a subset of people who have messed up their available funds, or had them messed up for them. Especially on the low end of the scale. So then there is "provide more discretionary aid that will still be messed up for whatever reason and not go to food(perhaps exploitation, this isn't a blame game)" or provide actual food.

My point was that for deterrence purposes there is no benefit to variations in sentencing. People know that shoplifting is illegal, and that serves as a deterrent. Illegal, by its nature, means there is some penalty, and that's a key component in the deterrent. But if we double the penalty it doesn't change the deterrent. Admittedly, if you make sure you have widespread public awareness of every aspect of sentencing that would improve the correlation between harshness of sentence and deterrent value, but we don't seem to be doing that. Again, the vast, vast, majority of criminals have no clue what sort of sentence they are going to get if they are caught.

 

[Farm Boy]

Which, I suppose, barring that public awareness campaign of the sentencing guidelines, would be an argument in favor of light sentences for minor offenses and damn near permanent incapacitation for serious offenses.

Which feels sort of like what we're screwing up. We've got the permanent in the scarlet F of perpetual housing/employment woes, but we're too lazy/squeamish/upstanding/civilized to just own up to it and lock them up forever, so it's a cruddy hybrid.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

My point was that for deterrence purposes there is no benefit to variations in sentencing. People know that shoplifting is illegal, and that serves as a deterrent. Illegal, by its nature, means there is some penalty, and that's a key component in the deterrent. But if we double the penalty it doesn't change the deterrent. Admittedly, if you make sure you have widespread public awareness of every aspect of sentencing that would improve the correlation between harshness of sentence and deterrent value, but we don't seem to be doing that. Again, the vast, vast, majority of criminals have no clue what sort of sentence they are going to get if they are caught.

I know you're right on this, but it still strikes me as odd. It's not like cost/benefit analysis becomes irrelevant just because you're doing something illegal.

On the extreme ends of the scale, I expect near-0 takers on people willing to risk their life for $1 as a conscious decision, and I expect that otherwise upstanding citizens might risk 1 month in jail with no other consequences for $100,000,000 if the jail time were literally the only consequence of getting caught (no long-term reputation hit etc), though again that would in principle be contingent on if they have a 99.99% chance of getting caught vs say 20%.

But it seems like in between these extremes many people don't even consider it, and that's odd to me. I wonder if there's a significant difference in known penalty between blue collar and white collar style crimes. Probably, since the latter typically involves some shenanigans where you're considering the returns carefully/more precisely in the first place, but who knows.

 

[Farm Boy]

Let's start hanging embezzlers/inside traders/tax evaders and find out.

I think China was doing that until ~2009, when people in the government finally realized it was mostly killing them and they dropped it. Anyone have numerical takeaways? Not that they'd be available.

 

[cardgame]

Wage theft costs Americans more than all burglary combined, but I have never heard of employers going to jail for it. Obviously we need more deterrence in the form of guillotines.

The real difference between blue collar crime and white collar crime is that the justice system is multi-tiered and does not cater to blue.

 

[El_Machinae]

We're going in circles. Again, as @Timsup2nothin points out, the death penalty as a deterrent fails for some of the same reasons that mandatory minimums fail as a deterrent..

Sure. We agree.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I know you're right on this, but it still strikes me as odd. It's not like cost/benefit analysis becomes irrelevant just because you're doing something illegal.

On the extreme ends of the scale, I expect near-0 takers on people willing to risk their life for $1 as a conscious decision, and I expect that otherwise upstanding citizens might risk 1 month in jail with no other consequences for $100,000,000 if the jail time were literally the only consequence of getting caught (no long-term reputation hit etc), though again that would in principle be contingent on if they have a 99.99% chance of getting caught vs say 20%.

But it seems like in between these extremes many people don't even consider it, and that's odd to me. I wonder if there's a significant difference in known penalty between blue collar and white collar style crimes. Probably, since the latter typically involves some shenanigans where you're considering the returns carefully/more precisely in the first place, but who knows.

It all hinges on realistic estimations of the risk of getting caught, and that risk being substantial. Without that the potential sentence isn't going to be a large factor. And the reality of criminals is that they are realistic about their chances of getting caught, but those chances are not substantial. People who are not criminals are strongly deterred, because they aren't realistic about the risks so they look very carefully at the penalties. Most criminals have been committing crimes, pretty much in a steady stream, their entire lives, so they generally assume they aren't going to get caught. That makes the possible penalty pretty much irrelevant.

 

[Farm Boy]

Ok, so public permanent incapacitation to keep up the percentage of those not being realistic about their chances of being caught combined with swipes at the causes/conditions in the first place. So SNAP and hangings downtown Friday nights. All this harmony can't be free!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It all hinges on realistic estimations of the risk of getting caught, and that risk being substantial. Without that the potential sentence isn't going to be a large factor. And the reality of criminals is that they are realistic about their chances of getting caught, but those chances are not substantial. People who are not criminals are strongly deterred, because they aren't realistic about the risks so they look very carefully at the penalties. Most criminals have been committing crimes, pretty much in a steady stream, their entire lives, so they generally assume they aren't going to get caught. That makes the possible penalty pretty much irrelevant.

That is insightful. Kind of like how when players see 95% odds in Civ they get surprised/angry when the lose the battle. I admit I did get a bit angry when I lost at 100%, because that's not what 100% means.

So if the goal is truly deterrence you would want to significantly increase the perceived (and likely real) odds of catching the criminal act you seek to deter for this group, so that getting caught is a real possibility in their minds.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Another thought on deterrence in criminal justice: You might expect that it would be most effective on people who'd served a sentence - people who know, first-hand, what prison is like - but if I'm not mistaken, criminal justice systems that rely solely on incarceration have some of the worst recidivism rates. I think programs that assist ex-cons after they've served their sentence are most likely to reduce recidivism. Of course, for-profit prison systems wouldn't want to reduce recidivism, would they? So if prison doesn't deter crime, that's all to the good for a prison that gets paid on head-counts and/or on turnover.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Another thought on deterrence in criminal justice: You might expect that it would be most effective on people who'd served a sentence - people who know, first-hand, what prison is like - but if I'm not mistaken, criminal justice systems that rely solely on incarceration have some of the worst recidivism rates. I think programs that assist ex-cons after they've served their sentence are most likely to reduce recidivism. Of course, for-profit prison systems wouldn't want to reduce recidivism, would they? So if prison doesn't deter crime, that's all to the good for a prison that gets paid on head-counts and/or on turnover.

Yeah, sorry. A person we both know well has said on so many occasions that I can't keep track of them that if people really knew on a widespread basis what prison is like it would have no deterrent value at all.

That is insightful. Kind of like how when players see 95% odds in Civ they get surprised/angry when the lose the battle. I admit I did get a bit angry when I lost at 100%, because that's not what 100% means.

So if the goal is truly deterrence you would want to significantly increase the perceived (and likely real) odds of catching the criminal act you seek to deter for this group, so that getting caught is a real possibility in their minds.

The big problem is that the criminals are actually the realists. If I set out to list the crimes I've committed this week it would probably take me the rest of the week. If I left out violations of the motor vehicle code I might be able to wrap it up by the end of the day, maybe. If I actually had to research through the building code and make sure of all the 'well, maybe' potential violations it would take me a year. Tax code I could sort out fairly quickly because my involvement in the economy is so thoroughly minimized that there aren't going to be too many there. The only reason that there are numerous crimes getting noted and prosecuted is because there are millions of them happening every hour of every day.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Yeah, sorry. A person we both know well has said on so many occasions that I can't keep track of them that if people really knew on a widespread basis what prison is like it would have no deterrent value at all.

You mean it isn't like Oz?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The big problem is that the criminals are actually the realists. If I set out to list the crimes I've committed this week it would probably take me the rest of the week. If I left out violations of the motor vehicle code I might be able to wrap it up by the end of the day, maybe. If I actually had to research through the building code and make sure of all the 'well, maybe' potential violations it would take me a year. Tax code I could sort out fairly quickly because my involvement in the economy is so thoroughly minimized that there aren't going to be too many there. The only reason that there are numerous crimes getting noted and prosecuted is because there are millions of them happening every hour of every day.

That's kind of my point though. When you can do something trivially and realistically expect no consequences, that's a strong piece of evidence. If you have half of those millions getting caught every day, it's another matter.

These numbers also suggest some reflection on what constitutes a crime vs not (IE setting crimes as a function of how bad they are and practical enforcement), but most of us are well aware that's a separate-yet-related glaring issue in its own right.

It's also another point against having victimless crimes.

 

[Farm Boy]

You don't have to catch as many per day if they stay dead at the end of the day.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You mean it isn't like Oz?

Well, yeah. Something to consider though is that the 'prison as deterrent' is probably effective against some people rather than others. I'm sure that if you dragged Donald Trump off his golden toilet and tossed him into gen-pop he'd find it more than suitably miserable. But take a guy who has been grinding the constant struggle to make ends meet, job hunting to find a job he hates, sweating the bills, sucking feces from customers who the company says are 'always right,' etc etc etc...<shrug>...

You don't have to catch as many per day if they stay dead at the end of the day.

Yeah, but by the end of the week you run out of people.

@TheMeInTeam that is a direct reference to the "If you have half..." in your post. If you actually had a way to respond to even a trivial fraction of the crimes committed every day in very short order there'd be nothing but convicts.

 

[EgonSpengler]

You don't have to catch as many per day if they stay dead at the end of the day.

"You put 'em down, they get back up. I put 'em down, they stay down." - Frank Castle