[NoImmatureAdHom]

I don't know why the downvotes, this is the correct perspective. You need to take the base rate of criminality into account, and comparing Japanese in Japan to Japanese in America isn't unreasonable.

You could also look at the rate of crimes per capita in each country. For instance, murders per capita: 4.96 in the U.S. vs 0.26 in Japan [0]. If we take this to represent base-rate criminality in that population, then we have a 19:1 US:Japan murder ratio, with only a 16:1 US: Japan incarceration ratio. Japan incarcerates more per unit murder.

Of course this is a toy model, it's all a big feedback loop, etc., but I hope it serves to illustrate the point.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

[mattficke]

> You need to take the base rate of criminality into account

So is this the kind of thing you measure with calipers, or…

[NoImmatureAdHom]

...there are large academic fields where people spend entire careers doing exactly this? The statistics are not hard to come by.

[plumthreads]

You're claiming Japanese in America are representative of Japanese in Japan which is not the case. It's straight up racist too.

[NoImmatureAdHom]

I'm making the point that the base rate of criminality needs to be taken into account if you want to compare incarceration rates. For many different reasons people in one society might commit more crime than people in another society.

Though I do not use the example myself, preferring the murder rate example, the parent's suggestion is a reasonable way to control for this inter-society difference. I would bet that Japanese in the U.S. evince rates of criminality more similar to those of Japanese in Japan than to the rest of American society. It's an empirical question; whether merely asking the question is racist or not given your particular sentiments about what's racist is beside the point.

[alksjdalkj]

> I would bet that Japanese in the U.S. evince rates of criminality more similar to those of Japanese in Japan than to the rest of American society

What makes you believe that? If true, what might cause that to be the case?

[NoImmatureAdHom]

I've realized we're probably confused about whether we're talking about Japanese in America vs. Japanese-Americans. I was talking about Japanese in America (the article is about a foreigner in Japan), but I'd make roughly the same claims in either case. Empirically, I would bet that both Japanese in America and Japanese-Americans both show rates of criminality more similar to Japan's than to the remainder of the U.S. population's. In the case of Japanese-Americans, I'd bet it's higher than Japan's. I haven't looked any numbers up or attempted to figure it out in detail.

As for why, there are a few reasons. One interesting one is selection effects (immigrants to a new country are not a random sample of the old country's population). There is culture, of course, probably the biggest factor, as well as other inheritances (material goods / wealth, genes, disease burden...).

[forty]

I think listing genes is probably crossing the line. It's not like there is a gene for crime that some category of people would have more or less...

[NoImmatureAdHom]

I'm genuinely curious to know how you think about that line. What is the transgression here in your mind? Merely mentioning that genes affect behavior is not allowed (even though it's true, or maybe it doesn't matter if it's true), or you actually believe the claim "genes affect behavior within the human species" is false?

I agree with you that we can't tell from a single gene whether someone is likely to be a criminal or not. I'd like you to consider this example, where hopefully I only use premises you already believe:

Some people are predisposed to becoming addicted to drugs. We can make better-than-chance bets about who these people are based on their genomes. We also know that people who are addicted to drugs are more likely to be on the wrong side of the law (and, sadly, are often by definition on the wrong side of the law). So, we conclude that, given someone's genome, we can make better-than-chance bets about that person's likelihood of being on the wrong side of the law.

It's a simplistic example, but hopefully that helps get the idea across. Doing this sort of thing isn't super practical right now, but it will be soon! [oh boy.]

[staticman2]

Given this logic if America had a policy of throwing everyone with blond hair in jail for "hair crimes" you would conclude it is a fairer system than Japan's if Japanese-Americans had a lower incarceration rate than Japanese people in Japan.

That's some heroic effort in defense of America's high incarceration rate.

[NoImmatureAdHom]

...I didn't make any claims at all about fairness. What?

[Google234]

I think most people know that Asians in the US commit less crime than other races. As for why, there are probably cultural reasons.

[wwtrv]

Or rather economic reasons, the difference between the median income for Asian Americans is about the same as the difference between white people and African Americans.

[NoImmatureAdHom]

Or both! Or a bunch of other stuff too!

[bpodgursky]

Actually the OP asked the question. By assuming a particular answer, you are providing the racism.

[user-the-name]

No, it is the question that is racist. The assumption that because of your ethnicity, you would have some kind of specific level of criminality. That is extremely racist.

[NoImmatureAdHom]

You're assuming a causal relationship when the claim is correlational. The claim is not that because of a person's ethnicity that person will commit crimes at a certain rate, the claim is that you can make a good guess about criminality based on ethnicity. That is to say, there is a correlation. Which is unambiguously true--just look up the numbers. Only takes a moment.

In either case, whether it's racist or not is irrelevant to the issue at hand.

[user-the-name]

> the claim is that you can make a good guess about criminality based on ethnicity

Yes. That is the claim that is racist.

[NoImmatureAdHom]

It is empirically true. It is, of course, possible for things to be both true and racist, for some definition of racist.