[bee_rider]

It should also be noted that locking people up puts them in contact with a bunch of convicted criminals. Making weed illegal put a bunch of otherwise harmless people in a situation where they wanted to do illegal business.

The liberal position—don’t make relatively harmless stuff illegal—is one way to reduce the amount of crime.

Sure, lock up people who do violent crimes (I mean, get them out of society while we try to figure out if we can get them psychological help), but instead of doing something dystopian like tent prison cities, just let out the people who shouldn’t be there in the first place.

(All that is to say, I agree with you, just think we should focus on the part that will benefit society).

[qingcharles]

Having spent a considerable portion of my adult life imprisoned, I don't think the contact with other criminals increases a person's penchant for criminality. I think the incarceration itself does though by essentially fucking your entire life up and resetting you to a hard zero. And while you are inside you are not making any improvement to your life, e.g. skill building, improving your emotional intelligence; and in fact you are usually letting any skills you might have had stagnate and deteriorate beyond use.

[quad_eye_oh]

I think some of this political conflict is over what constitutes a harmless or victimless or nonviolent crime.

In the past year I've seen different people claim that hemp consumption, property crime, and even intimidation with a firearm were nonviolent and that their perpetrators were merely marginalized individuals who need social assistance rather than prosecution.

I think GP's point is that even property crime is not victimless: It hurts everyone, it makes society worse, and it likely hurts the people at the bottom of society disproportionately.

But I may add, then, that the reformers have the burden of showing evidence for their position: they need to demonstrate that it is possible to have a low-crime, low-prosecution, high social net city somewhere in the US. I'm beginning to suspect that they are missing some critical component which is required to make such a system work for everyone.

[cdogl]

Hemp consumption _is_ non violent. I agree with your overall sentiment but that inclusion made me squint.

[quad_eye_oh]

That's my point, that some people will draw the line at things that are objectively nonviolent, and others will draw it at things that are objectively very close to violent. Actually come to think of it, violence is really just a proxy for harm to others.

[justinclift]

Just to point out:

> ... property crime is not victimless: It hurts everyone ...

"victimless" and "hurts everyone" are both at the two extreme, opposite ends of a spectrum.

It's fairly likely some of the property crimes occurring could be somewhere in the middle.

[_v7gu]

Well, good thing is that rehabilitation is the central goal of correctional systems; so you can send thiefs/etc to prison without feeling guilty. This is not a problem that requires a novel solution; almost every other rich country has this sorted out. The central issue US has to fix is reorient prisons around this goal, instead of trying to exploit the slave labor loophole in your constitution.