The black incarceration rate is overwhelmingly a function of black crime. Insisting otherwise only worsens black alienation and further defers a real solution to the black crime problem.
I find her discussion compelling, but would still argue that the criminal justice system is disproportionate. There's too many people of all types in prison, black, white, Hispanic, men and women. It seems reasonable to take the next step that the over-carceral nature of the criminal justice system is felt more harshly by poorer and more minority populations.
I agree with Mac Donald that this is not racism, but it is a problem. Her facts are accurate that blacks commit an overwhelming majority of the violent crime in America, but what she fails to comment on is that prisons are politically promoted and assumed to be a salve for this ailment. Where are the great deterrent effects of increased incarceration, harsher penalties and cracked down drug policies? Obviously such efforts are falling short from their expectations amongst the activist community. Lacking any real viable outlet to express their unease with the current system, lacking any real mechanism to effect the system to meet their unique needs, activists are left to entertain the theories that Mac Donald argues to be unsupported by the facts.
]]>addendum: Pete has a very kind write up at the Austrian Economists.
]]>Here are some interesting links to help pass the time without real post:
Are prison populations a crises?
Do cheap consumer goods deter burglary?
If the writer of the wire decided on prison policy.
Apparently marriage gives more housework to women. Seems reasonable but I wonder if they held constant for the size of the house. Also wonder what Caplan would have to say?
ENJOY!
]]>2) Don't know why I keep torturing myself on the whole colorblind thing but I think I'd be some kind of outlier in this survey.
I think the same phenomenon would emerge if you played people songs and asked what genre they'd call it.
]]>As for the title of the post, I am very excited to report that I have accepted a tenure track appointment as assistant professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans. What a fine feeling this homecoming will be. Thanks to everyone who has already wished me a kind congratulations and thanks to everyone who has helped and supported me throughout this grueling process.
]]>In the meantime I noticed Jeremy (via facebook) and Brian seem interested in the topic so I thought I'd comment on one point that Brian makes:
This understates the cost of prison because it does not factor into what the prisoners could add to the economy if they were gainfully employed. The actual costs to society are significantly higher than what is spent on prison.
While I think Brian's intuition is right - the costs of prison are understated - I'm skeptical that this argument holds ground in the current debate. The traditional response to this claim is what's called "the incapacitation effect." In other words, if the costs of prisons are understated because those individuals would otherwise be productive in the economy, then the opposite may also be true. Inmates would be committing more crimes were they not incarcerated, thus the benefits of prisons may also be understated. At this point its an empirical question of one unknown counter factual scenario against another. The little available evidence that we do have often points to the fact that current inmates are better characterized as career criminals than they are one time offenders. Researchers are more likely to believe that the benefits of incapacitation are more understated (because of incapactiation) than the costs of a smaller labor pool are understated.
On net I still agree with the broader claim that the costs of prisons are understated but not because of the reasons above. Instead I think the greatest cost to prison is the debilitating effects that social provision of criminal justice has upon innovation and entrepreneurship in criminal justice.
]]>1. Bumming out cigarettes is more likely when you have to go outside to smoke because smokers are put in a more socialized setting -- smoker solidarity. Smokers have to stock up mid-way through the night, thus driving is increased.
2. Most cities don't let you take your drink outside when you go outside for a smoke. This resulted in a date rape drug problem in New York when women left their drinks unattended. Tobacco companies also pushed smokeless tobacco campaigns because it was so inconvenient to go outside of large night clubs. In addition to the above my guess is that smokers are more likely to order shots and hard spirits rather than beer with smoking bans because they can drink their drink go out and smoke, come back and repeat. My guess is that their on average more drunk than they otherwise would be.
3. The costs to leaving a bar in search of another (better) bar are lower with smoking bans. You've stepped outside, you don't have a drink in your hand. The costs of hopping in your car and checking out another bar to inform your social group about once you're there are lower than if you'd stayed inside. In other words, it's not just traveling to one bar across the border that's more likely with smoking bans but also multiple different locations in a single night - again on net more driving.
]]>I'm in the midst of reading Property and Freedom by Richard Pipes as part of an upcoming Liberty Fund conference. I think his first 60 pages is relevant to these questions. Pipes begins the text by surveying how several different thinkers have understood and explained the phenomenon of private property through history.
In different historical contexts people think of property positively and negatively in turn. When held in a negative light, thinkers are less concerned with the nature of property rights so much as they are concerned with the allocation and distribution of property throughout society.
With this in mind I'd like to put forward a theory: the costs of identifying a hypothetical counter factual is higher than attributing an observed scenario as a relevant counter factual. Let me explain. We like to say that a rising tide lifts all ships. In other words the poor may be worse off compared to the rich today, but over time the benefits of free-trade have made today's lower classes enjoy levels of wealth unreachable by even the most wealthy citizens of the past. What if the overly romantic notions of socialism and the pessimistic attitudes towards capitalism can be explained by the fact that poor people face a marginally different cost when they are looking for a basis to compare themselves with. It seems cheaper in terms of thinking energy to look at the wealthy classes and say "why couldn't that be me?" rather than learn about past populations and realize "that would have likely been me."
]]>John Nye has one of the most compelling explanations for the paradox of happiness. At one point in time the wealthier people report higher levels of happiness than the poorer, but over time despite being wealthier, people in general report less happiness. We seem to yearn for the good ol' days. This is different from being barraged by pessimistic news stories. Nye claims that the relative prices of the most luxurious or "positionary" goods have gotten more expensive. Yes general items are more accessible to everyone, but there's only so much land space in Maui or Beverly Hills to go around. Some portion of the economy is subject to scarcity inherently more than the rest. These are positionary goods, goods whose value is held high specifically because they are scarce. When we are young we can think about how cheap buying a car will be by the time we are fifty, but we fail to realize how much more we may have to pay for the beach house of our dreams because so many other people can afford it too.
]]>It definitely has the scariest abstract I've read in quite some time:
This article focuses on the juvenile justice system in California and outlines approaches currently taken in response to teenagers who are part of the “punk” and “heavy metal” subculture. Data were collected from hospitals that have adolescent care programs. When these hospitals were given a hypothetical situation in which the parents' main problem with their child was the music he or she listened to, the clothes he or she wore, and the posters on his or her bedroom wall, 83% of the facilities believed the youth needed hospitalization. These findings were placed within a labeling framework in order to understand the effect of these policies.
Apparently some California courts went so far as to tack on these stipulations to juvenile parole sentences:
1.Not to dress in any style that represents Punk Rock or Heavy Metal. 2.Not to wear hair (dye or cut) in any style that represents Punk Rock or Heavy Metal. 3.Not to associate with known Punk Rockers or Heavy Metalers. 4.Not to wear any Punk Rock or Heavy Metal accessories – earrings, or jewlery, spikes or studs. 5.Not to frequent any place where Punk Rock or Heavy Metal is main interest. 6.Not to listen to Punk rock or Heavy Metal music. 7.Not to write or draw Punk Rock or Heavy Metal. 8.No to tattoo, cut, harm or injure self in any way. 9.To keep parents of whereabouts at all times.
Maybe this explains why west coast punk rock sucks.