[dionidium]

Speaking only for myself, I think Europeans, in general (and most people in this thread) have no real sense for how violent the US really is, how much more crime we have than Europe, how many of our violent offenders serve no serious time, or how many times the modal US prisoner has been previously arrested or convicted of a crime.

The typical US prisoner 1) did their crime; 2) did many other crimes besides the one they're in prison for; 3) is very likely to commit additional crimes upon their release.

Small, homogenous European countries have absolutely no idea how to solve our crime problem and their criticisms reflect an irritating combination of ignorance and arrogance.

[kubb]

Your solution to crime isn’t working very well, but that’s OK, nobody’s telling you what to do.

We can just observe the society you have and wonder how you can simultaneously not take responsibility for your outcomes, and bash others who make different choices and have better outcomes.

From your post it sounds like you feel that you do know better, and the only issue you’re having isn’t your policy, but your “lack of homogeneity”, which makes it impossible to improve anything.

[dionidium]

> Your solution to crime isn’t working very well

That's correct. We should have a lot more people in prison than we do. We are far too soft on repeat offenders and we've allowed courts to deem unconstitutional practices that literally nobody at the founding would have thought were questionable.

When you talk to people about "mass incarceration" in the abstract, they think it's bad. But when you show them what the modal prisoner and the modal prison sentence is actually like, they think it's too soft. Opposition to "tough on crime" policies is based on the myth (the lie?) that most US prisoners are innocent or, if not innocent, guilty only of harmless crimes like drug possession -- that the system is racist and unfair.

But that's not what the data show.

What the data show -- again -- is that the modal prisoner did the crime, and many others besides, and that they are very likely to commit more crimes once released.

Criminal justice is not a mysterious science. You identify repeat offenders and then you execute or otherwise permanently incapacitate them. This works because a large share of all crime is committed by repeat offenders.

But of course that's probably not what you mean when you say that our solution to crime isn't working well.

[tkjef]

very reasonable observation. :)

i can tell you being physically strong comes with it violence and is at the fabric of being an American. so i’d say the issue is complicated and nuanced as is most.

breaking the law (through violence) is also American. we stand up for what we believe in. even if it means breaking the law and going against our government. this is America.

the fact that you have better outcomes for crime is great. how’s your investment system? how’s your sports teams? how’s your military? how’s your stock market? how’s your currency?

[kubb]

I can respect that breaking the law is American, and by all means, go for it.

In general life in Europe is pretty good and could be better, thanks for asking. We can invest, we watch different sports than you do and we don't have a comparable military. The stock market is fine, the currency is fine.

I guess the social media campaign is addressed at those of you, who would like less crime, and who would like rule of law, and less aggression, and a safer lifesytle. To lie to them and tell them that having these things leads to downfall or something.

[tkjef]

i did say violently breaking the law is American.

and i did also say it was complicated and nuanced so please do not ignore that detail of my comment.

i’m glad to hear life is good, and to hear you’re humble enough to acknowledge it could be better. it could be better over here, too. are we doing it right or are you? i have no idea. :)

we’re probably both doing things right and wrong. should it even be solved? are we just living a Memento (great movie) like existence where we’re keeping ourselves busy and at war because if we all got along we would over-populate the planet and destroy earth?

what if our ignorant violent human behavior is actually an environmental mitigation technique?

[kubb]

I don’t think this needs to be solved. We should both strive for what each of us want to have.

Obviously in Europe there will be more variety because there’s more cultures and independent countries.

We have the advantage that we can take good ideas from each other, because people can travel easily and observe that certain things work well.

The US doesn’t have this benefit, since it’s so inward oriented. That’s fine, but don’t go saying Europeans don’t have freedom if you can only look at Europe through the domestic lens.

[dionidium]

> We have the advantage that we can take good ideas from each other, because people can travel easily and observe that certain things work well.

True, but, interestingly, we can travel thousands of miles within the United States and in so doing observe that different US states have wildly different outcomes while living under the same federal government and very similar state governments.

Louisiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, and Minnesota live under the same Constitution, the same federal government, and with very similar state governments -- and yet we see that they have very different outcomes on a variety of measures.

Norway and Louisiana have very different crime rates, but so do New Hampshire and Louisiana. This tells us, at a minimum, that the form of government isn't likely to be the primary factor.