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[Loud Whispers]

Primarily, you replace it with a strong society. I don't think it's very controversial to say that crime is not a societal constant - there are places with extreme amounts of crime, and there are places with very little crime. This doesn't track towards the harshness of response to crime either. Some places with extremely violent response to crime also have extreme crime. The trend seems to be quite clearly correlated with the health of societal norms, though.

You're speaking my kind of language but I also want to know if you have some kind of gameplan for turning Peckham into Japan kinda deal

Putting people in boxes is bad, so we'll whittle down the justifications for putting people in boxes. Get rid of the bullshit crimes (drug war, immigration, homelessness, etc), get rid of the sources of crime (mental illness, desperation, supremacism, legal system failings), and address what of the remainder you can through restorative justice (criminal provides restitution to the victim rather than the state, and receives reintegration to society in exchange).

Will there still be people who are just unmitigated violent assholes after all that work? Maybe. But even some of the extreme cases like serial killers and mass shooters are historically founded in the conditions of their upbringing, ideology, and society. It might just work. But even if it doesn't and we have to keep some prisons, I am very confident we can do a hell of a lot better than this. What we're doing right now isn't even trying to fix crimes against human beings, it's just exalting the power of the state but with a good PR department.

If it even partially succeeds it would be an atrocity not to try, given what else the prison system results in.

Preaching to the choir; I was interested if there was some novel way we could forgo the whole prison system entirely, even factoring in assholes, compulsive killers or ambitious terrorists long after the career criminals have moved on to civil careers. Mental health taking over with involuntary incarceration feels like rebranded prison, and it doesn't seem right to be trying to "treat" those criminals who are perfectly healthy and have a 0% of leaving hospital detention because a healthy person can't prove to a psychiatrist that they're healthy, least of all after they've done some heinous crime

[Lord Shonus]

criminal provides restitution to the victim rather than the state

Could you explain this more? To me this calls up indentured servitude, though I doubt that's what you're referring to.

The most common context I see this sort of statement in is basically a joining of the criminal and civil legal systems. As it is, somebody who, for example, burgles a house provides restitution to the state by going to jail and/or paying fines. If the stolen property is easily retrieved it gets handed back to the owner, but otherwise the only way to "make the victim whole" is to pursue a civil lawsuit. Which is of limited utility because the guy's being thrown in jail and can't possibly afford it.

So there's an argument that the proper thing to do is simply send the burglar back to work and make him repay the cost of whatever he stole. This gets a lot fuzzier when you're talking about crimes against organizations, and crimes with less concrete and measurable sorts of harm, but it is not an unreasonable starting point.

[Vector]

The crime rate dropped precipitously 18 years after abortion was legalized. Just putting that out there.

criminal provides restitution to the victim rather than the state

Could you explain this more? To me this calls up indentured servitude, though I doubt that's what you're referring to.

Restorative justice:

Person X robs person Y's convenience store and gets caught. Instead of person X doing a trial and then going to prison, or just returning the stolen item, person X and Y, along with people to support them and other members of the community, and a facilitator, all sit together and talk about what happened and why. Person Y explains how they feel about being stolen from. Person X explains why they stole. The rest of the community talks about what it means to them that this crime happened in their community. Eventually, through the dialogue, people figure out how the community needs to change in order to get person X to stop (he was secretly Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of bread for his sister's starving child, so feed him) and what should be done to help support person Y, what person X needs to learn in order to not make the same mistake again (a career other than tree-trimming, I guess).

Why to do this: it apparently greatly improves victim satisfaction in the process of justice, makes people less likely to catch PTSD, makes criminals more likely to comply with what they're asked to do and understand how what they did is wrong, and decreases recidivism. It also stops treating crime like an individual moral failing and starts treating it like a problem that can and should be resolved by the community.

Yes, this is apparently more effective than prison in the case of nasty things like rape. People really like to think that there's a one-to-one correspondence between people who have sexually violated someone and people serving time for having sexually violated someone, but this is overwhelmingly untrue.

[Dostoevsky]

The most common context I see this sort of statement in is basically a joining of the criminal and civil legal systems. As it is, somebody who, for example, burgles a house provides restitution to the state by going to jail and/or paying fines. If the stolen property is easily retrieved it gets handed back to the owner, but otherwise the only way to "make the victim whole" is to pursue a civil lawsuit. Which is of limited utility because the guy's being thrown in jail and can't possibly afford it.

So there's an argument that the proper thing to do is simply send the burglar back to work and make him repay the cost of whatever he stole. This gets a lot fuzzier when you're talking about crimes against organizations, and crimes with less concrete and measurable sorts of harm, but it is not an unreasonable starting point.

I would imagine that a significant percentage of the time the criminal doesn't have the assets to pay a fine-equivalent, though, and wage garnishing won't be effective if the person in question has trouble getting employment.

(Though yes, ideally these changes would also alleviate that particular employment stigma.)

Restorative justice:

Person X robs person Y's convenience store and gets caught. Instead of person X doing a trial and then going to prison, or just returning the stolen item, person X and Y, along with people to support them and other members of the community, and a facilitator, all sit together and talk about what happened and why. Person Y explains how they feel about being stolen from. Person X explains why they stole. The rest of the community talks about what it means to them that this crime happened in their community. Eventually, through the dialogue, people figure out how the community needs to change in order to get person X to stop (he was secretly Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of bread for his sister's starving child, so feed him) and what should be done to help support person Y, what person X needs to learn in order to not make the same mistake again (a career other than tree-trimming, I guess).

Why to do this: it apparently greatly improves victim satisfaction in the process of justice, makes people less likely to catch PTSD, makes criminals more likely to comply with what they're asked to do and understand how what they did is wrong, and decreases recidivism. It also stops treating crime like an individual moral failing and starts treating it like a problem that can and should be resolved by the community.

Yes, this is apparently more effective than prison in the case of nasty things like rape. People really like to think that there's a one-to-one correspondence between people who have sexually violated someone and people serving time for having sexually violated someone, but this is overwhelmingly untrue.

This version sounds a little idealistic to me, given the number of self-interested jerks that exist in any given society. (Not limited that to criminals, of course - there are plenty of self-interested folks who aren't the typical prison population.)

[McTraveller]

The crime rate dropped precipitously 18 years after abortion was legalized. Just putting that out there.

I think that had more to do with coincidental timing with removal of lead from gasoline.

[Vector]

Wikipedia. Apparently this is the legal system that has historically been used by many indigenous groups.

I also want to add:

1. The United States is #2 in the world on measures of individualistic self-interest. That's, you know, something we could collectively work on.

2. Big things start small. This could easily replace, say, tort law, no?

The crime rate dropped precipitously 18 years after abortion was legalized. Just putting that out there.

I think that had more to do with coincidental timing with removal of lead from gasoline, didn't it?

Hmm, is that true? I never heard that before.

[Dostoevsky]

Oh yeah, I'm not arguing against these sorts of changes/reforms. Just curious about the edge cases.

[McTraveller]

Hmm, is that true? I never heard that before.

Here's the first hit I got.   It's been pretty "common knowledge" that tetraethyl lead has a strong correlation with violent crime for a while.  It is nasty stuff.

[Rolan7]

It's obviously hard to prove causation in a system with so many trends.  Was it the lead ban or the abortion rights?  Both, or neither?

I find them both plausible but sociology is not only a science, it's a particularly difficult one.

[Maximum Spin]

It definitely wasn't abortion - that claim famously came from Freakonomics, but it turned out that the authors' entire analysis was fundamentally flawed. It also probably wasn't lead, but that theory does still have some credibility among some people.

Both these theories appeal to people who want there to be easy systemic answers to complicated problems, which is most people; but there never are.

[Vector]

It definitely wasn't abortion - that claim famously came from Freakonomics, but it turned out that the authors' entire analysis was fundamentally flawed.

Thanks, I appreciate your bringing this up. My high school econ teacher taught us what I had said without sourcing his argument at all, so I ... just assumed it was true >_>

[Lord Shonus]

The big crime drop in 1993 corresponds to a big crime spike in the early 1980s. Which just happens to align to a major economic crisis, the beginning of the War On Drugs, some large scale social upheavals, the final heating-up period of Cold War 1, and probably a ton of shit I'm forgetting.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Could you explain this more? To me this calls up indentured servitude, though I doubt that's what you're referring to.

As per Vector's explanation, though I think it should be hybridized with the jury trial system, which is actually a fairly good part of the justice system when people bother to really use it and have the resources to do so. Currently this all exists in some jurisdictions as an alternative to trial, i.e. the judge will defer your prosecution in exchange for completing the restorative program. Basically I'd want the restorative agreement to replace the sentencing phase of a trial.

You're speaking my kind of language but I also want to know if you have some kind of gameplan for turning Peckham into Japan kinda deal

Japan is an interesting case - a legal system that is extremely harsh and unfair but also extremely inactive, alongside a society with clean streets and organized crime. I think Japan is the way it is largely because of the practice of collective responsibility in modern Japanese society, literally to the point of cleaning the streets. And so even many criminals organize themselves in similar ways as well, and end up containing some of their own impact in the process.

Looking at some of the details about Peckham, it seems to me to be a racial ghetto. Not a big surprise in a political system ruled by the Tories that violence would result in that situation. Not to get all "just overthrow capitalism" on you, but the ideology of the Tories going in the garbage is a necessary step to do any of the other things you might need to make Peckham be Japan. As per my last post, the lowest hanging fruit is to abolish the bullshit crimes, leading to less violent confrontations regarding those crimes.

The full execution of a Sandernista/Corbynite political program is the next major step here - decomodification of food, housing, education, and healthcare the most primary of all. From there you need to use those systems as a lever to mitigate child abuse, which by nature they somewhat are but now you can begin targeting a more malignant class of abuser than those who are using their children as a stress doll. Also, offering therapy to traumatized adults and all people with criminal records served or otherwise should go here. The goal in this is to increase the proportion of healthy people to unhealthy people as fast as possible, which makes everything else easier.

Then do a big gommunism and make the BBC cry by devolving labor ownership to workers outright, and be invaded by the United States then you can start directly increasing the wealth held by people actually in Peckham. Ownership of Peckham will alter the psychological relationship held by the people living there away from "not my fucking problem" towards "yes my fucking problem", and provide the resources for general cleanliness, not solving disputes through violence, etc.

I don't know much about the UK's legal system save that they recently passed a law making it legal for cops to do terrorist attacks and there aren't jury trials, but you should probably do jury trials. Restorative justice methods for petty crime will serve to make both the perpetrator and the victim less sociopathic, and possibly better the sense of social solidarity that all the previous is meant to cultivate.

Preaching to the choir; I was interested if there was some novel way we could forgo the whole prison system entirely, even factoring in assholes, compulsive killers or ambitious terrorists long after the career criminals have moved on to civil careers. Mental health taking over with involuntary incarceration feels like rebranded prison, and it doesn't seem right to be trying to "treat" those criminals who are perfectly healthy and have a 0% of leaving hospital detention because a healthy person can't prove to a psychiatrist that they're healthy, least of all after they've done some heinous crime

Compulsive killers tend to be made by child abuse synthesizing with adolescent sexuality, in all the research and history I've ever read. It's actually a startlingly clear trend. I think this is solvable with the methods described.

Assholes/narcissists/personality disorders might be solvable - surprise, surprise, most people like this I've ever gotten close to were abused as children as well. Even otherwise, people like this can provably reform their behavior. Even antisocial personality disorder and the like can be reasoned with, and some people like this are highly society-abiding even if they don't "feel" it because it's rational to cooperate. Identify in school, early therapy. Now that I mention it, it might be good to have a psychology class as standard in education, and just teach all children therapeutic methods and common pitfalls.

Terrorists are a political problem and should be solved through political means. This is a global thing and might actually be the most late-stage of all to be solved, depending on what you think about the resolution of the modern political conflict. Nonetheless, people adopt political ideologies that do terrorism to meet unmet needs. Trying to meet needs will filter out most, uh, "casual terrorists". Oh, and don't let the police do terrorism.

I also disagree with involuntary commitment in most circumstances. I'd relegate this to a possible ending of a conviction at trial for cases where mental illness was demonstrably a source for the criminal behavior, and in the event someone has a psychotic episode, though healthcare provision can minimize this.

[voliol]

This restorative justice thing is interesting, though the "indigenous groups" thing is a piece of trivia rather than a merit in itself. The Wikipedia article (assuming that's where you got it from) just has a few lines on it and the actual sources are in books we can't readily proofread, and the term "many indigenous groups" is way too general. It basically just means some people have practiced it within the last half millennium, but that can probably be said about any/all logistically simple legal practice. Including torture, trial-by-combat etc. etc.

That aside, it reminds me of how you're supposed to deal with children who's done something bad/fought each other. You talk it out, and let them express their feelings. Sounds pretty great. Could be difficult to keep the discussions civil though, I imagine, when the accusation is of something really heavy like murder or rape.

[scriver]

This restorative justice thing is interesting, though the "indigenous groups" thing is a piece of trivia rather than a merit in itself. The Wikipedia article (assuming that's where you got it from) just has a few lines on it and the actual sources are in books we can't readily proofread, and the term "many indigenous groups" is way too general. It basically just means some people have practiced it within the last half millennium, but that can probably be said about any/all logistically simple legal practice. Including torture, trial-by-combat etc. etc.

That aside, it reminds me of how you're supposed to deal with children who's done something bad/fought each other. You talk it out, and let them express their feelings. Sounds pretty great. Could be difficult to keep the discussions civil though, I imagine, when the accusation is of something really heavy like murder or rape.

It's basically what any pre-modern trial comes down to. I immediately thought of the old things of my own people.

Anyway, to me it sounds like a system that would fall apart as soon as it involves people from to different communities. It also seems to assume there's no such thing as somebody who wants to do crime.

But hey I'm looking forward to sticking it to the Germans by again defining them as the people with the smallest fine for being murdered