[smithoc]

This anecdote may be true, but is certainly not representative of current life in America.

Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...

Millions in prison, massively disproportionate to the rest of the world.

If jurors in Seattle have become skeptical of the claims that police and prosecutors make without evidence, the blame should fall squarely on decades of innocent people being sent to jail and minor infractions sending people to prison for years due to police lying, fabricating evidence, destroying evidence and prosecutors filing charges for far more severe crimes than what really occurred.

You're fortunate that your only experience of the failure of policing in America is in the most recent awakening against the unreliability of police and prosecutors. For many families, their lives have been destroyed after watching their loved ones be brutalized in prisons because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and were victimized by the police and prosecutors.

[daedrdev]

The majority of people in prisons in the US are incarcerated for violent crime. 64% of violent criminals are rearrested compared to 40% of nonviolent criminals. It really looks like the US is being somewhat efficient here and just has a lot of crime.

[ProllyInfamous]

In my hope that violent criminals serve longer sentences than nonviolent criminals, perhaps there is a correlation between time-served and recidivism..?

Living in a workingclass neighborhood, many of my most-favorite neighbors are felons of the nonviolent variety – nobody wants back in to their old prisonplanet – just keep looking forwards.

[daedrdev]

Theres obviously going to be a correlation, but it may be because the state effectively gives more evil criminals longer sentences

[esikich]

Yeah, the longer you're in, the less employable you are, and are more likely to reoffend. Our prison systems do fuckall for rehabilitation because in general, the public sentiment is "lock them up and throw away the key, I hope they get raped, prison isn't supposed to be fun". Our prison systems are basically set up amplify crime. It's good for the for profit owners, and conservatives eat up the dehumanization of it all.

[daedrdev]

Very few US prisons are for profit.

Like I said in my other comment, some are more likely to reoffend because their prison time, but other were already more likely to reoffend, especially multiple felons who commit an extremely high percent of all crimes.

[ProllyInfamous]

>Very few US prisons are for profit.

Just under 10% – which is certainly a minority, but still enough value that Michael Bury (Big Short investorguy) once had an entire fiscal quarter where his only net-increase positions were in for-profit prison operators.

Lots of money and facilities in private prisons, particularly in This South.

[gottorf]

> conservatives eat up the dehumanization of it all

One could argue that's really dehumanizing is the callous disregard the system displays for the victims of such repeat violent offenders.

[ProllyInfamous]

One such violent repeat offender wrote a book about his experience helping build Leavenworth Fed while serving time at Leavenworth State – he would eventually serve additional time at this newly-constructed facility.

Warning, I am not linking to the book (it's on Amazon) because no amount of #TriggerWarning can prepare you for the mind of P - A - N - Z - R - A - M [the name of the non-fiction collection of this prisoner's personal letters].

When Mr. P was asked what made him such a monster, he wrote honestly and practically about the upbringing of a serial-killing rapist. Mr. P's EVIL puts JWGacey in the safehouse.

[neutronicus]

> This anecdote may be true, but is certainly not representative of current life in America.

I live in Baltimore, where people have very negative attitudes towards police because of everything you describe.

Nevertheless, the perception here is that it's impossible to get police to act on nuisance crime, or really anything short of murder, even with video evidence. There's also a perception that it that this is a recent shift and represents the police retaliating after being prosecuted for the murder of Freddie Gray.

[sellmesoap]

It's a large country with subtle differencies across the states but this story came to mind immediately https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48249747

[rootusrootus]

> Millions in prison, massively disproportionate to the rest of the world.

I recall a comparison that was done between incarceration in the US versus the UK, and the defining difference was length of sentences. The rates were otherwise similar, but the US justice system gives out sentences something like twice as long on average.