[nucleogenesis]

The US has the highest per-capita rate of imprisonment I think we’re plenty “hard on crime”. What we lack is a principled stance that Americans deserve basic dignity and access to things that make people live less violent lives. It’s no secret that poverty is the key contributor to one’s likelihood of being in prison.

People who are “soft on crime”, practically speaking, are the people and politicians so committed to dehumanizing others that they’d rather watch their neighbors wallow in poverty or rot in jail than to actually do something to address the root causes (the foremost of which being the aforementioned societal dehumanization of the poor).

[NoImmatureAdHom]

Populations across the world are not comparable in a variety of ways, including in a "best-case" base criminality rate. So you can't compare per-capital rates of imprisonment and go, "Gee, that's high in Country X compared to Country Y and Country Z".

There's an old saw: A Scandinavian economist once said to Milton Friedman, ‘In Scandinavia, we have no poverty’. Milton Friedman replied, ‘That’s interesting, because in America, among Scandinavians, we have no poverty, either’ [0]

0: https://iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/Sw...

N.B.: there was selection for the worse-off in those coming to the U.S.

[pessimizer]

> So you can't compare per-capital rates of imprisonment and go, "Gee, that's high in Country X compared to Country Y and Country Z".

That's an exceedingly weak defense for a country that imprisons 4x more people per-capita than China.

[NoImmatureAdHom]

It isn't.

China's murder rate is about 0.5 murders per 100,000 people per year, while South Africa's is 44 per 100,000 people per year (assuming both countries report honest statistics). That's an 88x difference between two large countries. [0]

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

[abeyer]

> the people and politicians so committed to dehumanizing others that they’d rather watch their neighbors wallow in poverty or rot in jail than to actually do something to address the root causes

This is exactly the false dichotomy that people engaging in this like to play up. It's not an either/or situation... we can and should _both_ address root causes to avoid crime where we can _and_ punish crime when we must.