Prison and the Poverty Trap

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/science/long-prison-terms-eyed-as-contributing-to-poverty.html?hp

by wallflower • 13 years ago

49 69 13 years ago

rdl4• 13 years ago

I wonder what part of this problem is closely related to drugs; if you decriminalized or legalized drugs, would people going to jail for street gang drug dealing move on to other crime (extortion? gambling? prostitution? robbery?), or would they move on to legal activities? Drugs are uniquely profitable (extortion, robbery, etc. have direct victims who will fight back, and I don't think the desire to gamble illegally is anywhere near as widespread or powerful as the desire to do drugs), so I can't really see criminal activities replacing all of the drug trade.

kansface• 13 years ago

Drugs are the big money maker similar to alcohol during prohibition. Legalization would dramatically reduce the power of gangs and cartels.

tunesmith3• 13 years ago

There would still be the social cost, though, of the much more highly-addictive drugs (compared to alcohol).

nonamegiven2• 13 years ago

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. If drugs were legalized they'd start arresting us for something else. It has nothing to do with the crime rate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration#Incarceration_ra...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_rate

rdl4• 13 years ago

Was this true before the drug war?

tsotha5• 13 years ago

Why do you assume people would still be incarcerated at the same rates if drugs were legal? The "prison industrial complex" depends on the consent of the voters.

tunesmith3• 13 years ago

I found the tipping point part interesting. Where up to a particular point, incarceration is good for a community, but past that point, it hurts the community. It made me wonder if it were possible to identify where that tipping point is, perhaps as a function of incarcerated criminals per capita for a geographic region or something. And then relaxing sentences according to that function.

screature2• 13 years ago

Hmm... I think that a per capita view of the tipping point misses too many key conditions underlying a true tipping point.

My instinct is that the tipping point would differ wildly based on the community characteristics i.e. availability of jobs, quality of schools, racial tensions, prevalence of drug or alcohol availability and/or abuse

I think the tipping point is more a factor of figuring out at what point the incentives for behavior that puts you at risk for incarceration enough to counter the risk of the incarceration given your current state/status/level of resources.

Additionally, I think in many circumstances the threat of imprisonment is dulled both because as serving prison time gets more prevalent in a community it becomes more normal/acceptable as a risk (prison inflation if you will) and because as serving prison time reduces alternative options for earning a decent livelihood for the re-entry community it may ends up paradoxically more worth it to risk future prison time.

Fargren• 13 years ago

We could do a binary search.

lifeisstillgood• 13 years ago

One week inside for a first timer is, I am told, the optimum time. That first week is so disorientating and upsetting that "I won't go back" is the strongest motivator. After a month people settle to the routine and six months are adapted.

YMMV but deterrence and prison have long been as effective e alone in crime reduction. The US is ahead of the field in long term incarceration but you are just leading a pack all travelling in the same direction

CleanedStar• 13 years ago

Companies which purvey deadly substances like tobacco or hard liquor are listed on stock exchanges and contribute to federal political campaigns. He, with a junky educational system and disappearing blue collar jobs sells marijuana or cocaine and becomes an evil "drug dealer". It's also rather interesting how cocaine and heroin got into the hands of domestic drug distributors like Ricky Ross - something covered by the press from time to time, but not dwelled on.

Was there a poverty trap in feudal Europe, or these American lands before the Americans? There's a poverty trap because the economic system needs a poverty trap to function. It is not due to neglect, but due to a massive amount of attention that poverty exists in the U.S. - it takes a lot of work and effort to keep people poor, in a country where GDP and productivity have been rising for a long time.

What would the reason for U.S. poverty? Well it could be the legacy of the New Deal and progressivism, although that would not explain massive poverty in slums and rural areas at the end of the 19th century in the U.S. It could be due to a liberal idea of a lack of caring - although the New Deal, the Great Society and so forth brought a lot of focus on these things.

Or poverty can exist because it is a necessity, a cornerstone of the economic system. The reserve army of labor ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_army_of_labour ) and all of that.

ctdonath6• 13 years ago

What would [be] the reason for U.S. poverty?

Lets start with discussing the US legal definition of "poverty", which puts the line at some 20x world median income.

gamechangr• 13 years ago

Excellent comment...thought the same thing!

cma• 13 years ago

At least mention that purchasing power parity makes this less extreme than it sounds.

kamaal3• 13 years ago

Fact: The poor in US would actually be amazingly rich in a country like mine(India).

Add to this you also get something called social security.

Where exactly are the poor in the US?

OGinparadise• 13 years ago

Reason #X:

Once in prison, good luck getting a job, even if you manage to overcome what happened inside. Looks like the entire society is designed to look for the tiniest infraction and punish you for it--for life.

prewett• 13 years ago

It makes things more difficult, but not "good luck getting a job." I have a friend who did quite a few years time for drug dealing. After he got out, he got an engineering degree, got married, and has a well-paying job. I think it's more about your attitude: if you seem like a quasi-criminal, people will be reluctant to hire you. In my friend's case, he found God while in jail, which resulted in his complete change in attitude.

jimmytucson2• 13 years ago

Hats off to your friend. In my opinion, he's earned it 10 times over. Because I guarantee you it was 10 times harder for him to get that degree than it was for the kid who walked the straight and narrow throughout high school and never deviated from the beaten path.

Many kids have a change in attitude when they go to jail. The problem is, society will never change its attitude towards them. Once a felon, always a felon.

spindritf• 13 years ago

> The shift to tougher penal policies three decades ago was originally credited with helping people in poor neighborhoods by reducing crime. But now that America’s incarceration rate has risen to be the world’s highest

But the crime rate has been steadily decreasing since then. Oh, except for the bump related to the "crack epidemic." Which is exactly what the guy was dealing.

> they don’t see what good was accomplished by keeping him there for two decades

Keeping him away from law-abiding citizens for two decades was accomplished.

Don't get me wrong. It is a sad story. And I sympathize with someone who didn't see a better way for himself than crack dealing but what about all those other people, the society at large, who don't want to be afraid to walk after dark, don't want their property vandalized...?

agwa• 13 years ago

> Keeping him away from law-abiding citizens for two decades was accomplished.

>Don't get me wrong. It is a sad story. And I sympathize with someone who didn't see a better way for himself than crack dealing but what about all those other people, the society at large, who don't want to be afraid to walk after dark, don't want their property vandalized...?

What makes 20 years the magic number after which Harris could be safely returned to live among law-abiding citizens? A key point of the article is that we're keeping people locked up long after they become unlikely to commit more crimes. It's not saying that lawbreakers shouldn't be incarcerated at all. You also have to consider unintended consequences of long incarceration, such as the effect it has on children, and the fact that it perpetuates the cycle of poverty that led Harris to crack dealing in the first place.

Other western countries deter crime and protect the public with far shorter sentences. Why wouldn't that work here too?

tsotha5• 13 years ago

>What makes 20 years the magic number after which Harris could be safely returned to live among law-abiding citizens?

Actually, there is some logic to it. Men are much less likely to commit crimes when they reach middle age. If the goal is to keep society safe from criminals, you could do worse than to keep every serious offender in until he's forty.

jhaglund2• 13 years ago

1. Saying that the rest of us are law abiding is an exaggeration.

2. http://www.drugpolicy.org/drug-facts/cocaine-and-crack-facts

rdtsc2• 13 years ago

> Keeping him away from law-abiding citizens for two decades was accomplished.

Why not execute him and that will keep him permanently away from "law abiding" citizens? We could fast track that China style and just send a speedy execution bus to county jails and voila, problem fixed. Would you agree with that?

habosa2• 13 years ago

I honestly don't see the point in any prison sentences more than 5 years but less than life. There are many people who have done terrible things and deserve to be in prison forever, and for them I understand a life sentence. For everyone else, when is 5 years not enough? 5 years is a very, very long time and if we actually made an effort to rehabilitate you could teach a person a ton in 5 years. I think that for 90% of crimes criminals should be locked up for no more than 5 years and then placed on probation with mandatory psychological evaluation after that. If they are well-behaved and pass basic psychological tests, they have likely learned their lesson. The only reason I can see for longer non-life sentences is for people who serve multiple years and then become repeat offenders, they may lack the ability to be rehabilitated in a reasonable amount of time.

monochromatic3• 13 years ago

It's not just rehabilitation. It's also deterrence.

AnthonyMouse4• 13 years ago

How much deterrence do you think longer sentences than that actually provide? Nobody is typically going to commit a crime if they think it will put them in prison for five years. The people who do are just expecting not to be caught. A longer sentence can hardly deter someone who doesn't expect to serve it.

It's also worth pointing out that the general public has utterly no idea what the prison sentences are for specific crimes. How can you deter anyone with no knowledge of the deterrent?

habosa2• 13 years ago

I think anyone who is not deterred by 5 years time is either in one of two categories: 1) About to commit an incredibly serious crime, in which case they'll probably get life. 2) Mentally unfit to participate in society, in which case they'll probably fail the psychological evaluations I've mentioned.

I'm not saying I have a perfect plan, it's just something I think is the right step towards improvement.

intended3• 13 years ago

A long time ago now, Slashdot had a discussion on the death penalty and the deterrence argument was being tossed around.

A cop spoke up and the essence of his point was: The punishment doesn't matter, as much as the sure knowledge that you will be caught.

kamaal3• 13 years ago

>>5 years is a very, very long time and if we actually made an effort to rehabilitate you could teach a person a ton in 5 years.

Rehabilitation and reformation is a two way traffic and for that two way traffic to work a lot has to click at once.

Frankly speaking a lot of people can be reformed, especially the poor ones or people coming from poor families. Or people who commit crime in a impulse or fit of sudden rage(Who as a matter of fact are not criminals at all). For such people a term called 'justice to the victim' mandates a certain term of 'punishment'. I think the same term must be used to rehabilitate and reform the person.

Now the problem is something like this. The prisoner needs to be convinced that he can make a living out of every day work. Which is difficult- you have to go and out and really find a way a prisoner can achieve that, then the prisoner has to be himself willing to undergo a change to get into the new world. This is a ideal scenario.

Jail reforms were a thing here in India. To take small time thieves and other petty offenders and reform them so that they could re enter the society was taken. But taking into consideration the trauma of being in a jail, then to be treated like animals and forced to live in sub human conditions. To be in false hope of getting released/out on bail. Then to carry the stigma of society always considering you a criminal and prison inmate at a time.

A person will get little time to think about reform and rehabilitation. What a person in that state would go through total devastation, or at most a emotion of relief if he can get to divorce his wife, let them free to live without the burden of being known as attached to a family of a criminal. Hope that his kids can somehow make it through well in the real world.

Or worse after spending so much time in the prison a person might get institutionalized to the prison.

jimmytucson2• 13 years ago

This article points to a real problem in our society but the scope of it is much larger than just African-Americans or just drug-related crimes.

I know because many of the kids I grew up with (including one very close family member of mine) were convicted of felonies and sentenced to anywhere from 1.5 to 12 years in a federal penitentiary. Of the 9-or-10-some-odd kids I know who did time, less than half of them have gone on to lead normal, productive lives. Many of them are back in prison now. Bureau of Justice Statistics back up my experience. If you are a male between the ages of 14 and 17 who is convicted of a violent felony, your chances of getting re-arrested are better than 80% [1].

So, why is this? Well, in my opinion, based on countless conversations I've had with these individuals and others, it's practically unfathomable that any of them actually succeed in going "straight".

It's not rocket science. Imagine you're 17 years old. You've been hanging out with the wrong crowd, doing drugs, getting into trouble, and leading a scumbag lifestyle since you were 15 or 16. You get charged with a violent felony, tried as an adult, convicted, and sentenced to 5 years in a maximum security prison (where you get to meet and hang out with a plethora of other gang bangers, drug dealers, rapists, and murderers).

Now picture this. You make parole after 3 years. You're 20. You've got no high school diploma, no college credits, no work experience, no car, no money, and the only friends you had who aren't currently either 1) in jail or 2) about to be in jail are juniors and seniors in college and probably studying abroad in Asia or something while you're living at home trying to figure out what to do with your life. 3 of the most formative years of your young adult life have essentially been obliterated.

What are you going to do? After striking out at 5 or 6 other local establishments, McDonald's just became the latest to turn down your application (you have to tell them if you've been convicted of a felony and if you don't they'll find out when they do the background check). You might have earned your GED while you were in prison but the prospect of getting that pre-law degree you sorta once dreamed is looking pretty slim. What would be the point, anyway? You're not allowed to pass the bar exam. Maybe you should join the military. Oh, wait... they don't want scumbags like you carrying around an assault rifle.

Remember your codefendants? One of them lives right downstairs. He wants to know if you feel like "chilling" later. He just got an ounce of cocaine from one of his buddies and there's still a ton of beer left over from that party he had last night. Fuck it, you're not getting anything done in the next 24 hours, anyway. You're bored. You might be embarrassed to admit it, but you're lonely. Might as well crack open a cold one and try to forget your problems for a spell...

See, when you get convicted and sentenced, you may only serve 15 months in prison but you will be a felon for the rest of your life. And if you got arrested in high school then you don't have any "former life" to go back to. You are not educated. You have no friends. You are not hire-able. You do not have the right to vote. You cannot serve in our military. They're practically begging you to fuck up again.

And, unfortunately, most of them do.

[1] http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/rpr94.pdf

jtreminio3• 13 years ago

I am being honest here and have no desire to come off as trolling:

What is the difference between a convicted felon and an illegal immigrant?

Why can someone pack up and leave the only country they've ever known, move to a new country that is by all measures hostile to their plot and speaks a language that they do not know at all, and end up bettering themselves?

Why can't a felon do this?

If an illegal immigrant can wash dishes for a restaurant, pick crops from a field, mow lawns in the sun, or paint homes and install carpet, what is preventing a felon that

* Has work authorization

* Speaks the language

* Quite possibly has a stable family structure already in place

from making something positive and productive of themselves?

aspensmonster• 13 years ago

>What is the difference between a convicted felon and an illegal immigrant?

One has a felony show up on their background check, and the other has no record to speak of?

rdtsc2• 13 years ago

Sometimes the distinction is blurred. Some mom and pop businesses would hire convicted felons and give them jobs to help them build a work history. Sometimes illegal immigrants also come to commit crimes (this is what the anti-immigration crowds will tell you).

There is a cultural perception that illegal immigrants will work hard (possibly read as "are desperate enough to accept more abuse") while a convicted felon (being an American) will be too proud to do menial hard work and also will be highly likely to damage property or steal or assault a customer. [I am talking about crude cultural perceptions, not my personal views].

A whole new aspect is the prison industrial complex. Due to the Drug War, PIC has amassed a significant work force (read slaves) and they will do everything they can (lobbying, media, campaign contributions) to make sure prisons stay full. If prisons are full, they get paid. So there was a case in Georgia when they thought they should punish those that hire illegal immigrants. So they has passed some law. Then PIC stepped in and offered "replacements". They unleashed the new workforce and it turned out pretty horrible. Inmates did not want to pick strawberries in 100'F heat for a couple of dollars a day.

Anechoic3• 13 years ago

and end up bettering themselves?

What is the percentage of undocumented workers that end up truly bettering themselves while staying outside the immigration system?

Quite possibly has a stable family structure already in place

That's nowhere near a given for many (perhaps most) felons.

ctdonath6• 13 years ago

This is YC. The answer to "can't get a job?" is "create one - start a business." Nobody (broadly speaking) is going to run background checks on a guy (off the top of my head) washing cars at customers' homes, recycling-for-pay whatever he can, running low-cost courier, clean the grounds of the aluded-to apartment for cash, etc. The library is thataway, providing an education in anything you want for free (don't confuse education with certification).

Yes, being a convicted felon is problematic. If society is locking you out, it's probably because you proved you're someone they really don't want to associate with - and for good reason. Yes, recovering is going to be hard. They're not "practically begging you to fuck up again", they're recognizing you're the kind of person who does. There are people/services who will help, who will give you a chance; don't blow it again.

"Life is tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid." - John Wayne, _Sands_of_Iwo_Jima_

buro9• 13 years ago

There is something else.

If you're in this position, you know full well that the odds of ever escaping from the trap are heavily against you. So the question comes up, why try?

Why sacrifice what little you now have and pit yourself against years of hardship to build yourself to a point where you will still be 10 to 20 years behind those with the privilege of being born into wealthier and more stable families?

Unfortunately the answer I saw time and again in others, was that there is no value in trying.

And my experience with growing up in poverty, sleeping rough, working without education (I thankfully never went to prison even though members of my family did)... is precisely that whilst I succeeded in breaking the cycle of poverty that disadvantage creates, I am indeed 10 to 20 years behind my peers who were born into a better situation.

People born into privilege (white, male, Western, middle-class, stable extended family) are born at the top of the mountain. Those born without privilege have a mountain to climb. Those born into disadvantage have an ocean to swim just to find the mountain and will get lost along the way.

I'm a big believer in giving people a chance. You will never see such determination and resourcefulness in people like you will in someone who has come from a dark place and will pit everything they are to make sure that they never return to that dark place. And even at the base of the mountain, you will never find people who will help lift others like those who have already struggled to get there.

It's a real blight on the Western world that we collectively abandon and condemn so many able and smart people who want to do better.

kamaal3• 13 years ago

Though the white-black situation doesn't apply to me here in India. After coming from a poor background, I can attest to the spirit of your post. Especially:

>>whilst I succeeded in breaking the cycle of poverty that disadvantage creates, I am indeed 10 to 20 years behind my peers who were born into a better situation.

and

>>Those born without privilege have a mountain to climb. Those born into disadvantage have an ocean to swim just to find the mountain and will get lost along the way.

Life for me so far has been only one thing - "A ocean's distance to swim just to find the mountain".

Every time I see some one born into a rich family wasting time doing small work, chasing small time goals and living the everyday life- I pity them, I pity them for not knowing what a gift they have/had and what they have made of it.

>>It's a real blight on the Western world that we collectively abandon and condemn so many able and smart people who want to do better.

This is true anywhere in the world and not just the west.

scotty79• 13 years ago

I think that what happened in US is what happens when society persistently refuses to take responsibility for the people that are worth so little on the job market that they can't provide for themselves and their families.

Number of such people are growing because of automation. You have nothing to do for them valuable enough. You are refusing to give them money when the don't do anything so they turn to last profitable things they can do. Those things are illegal. Now you can lock them up and finally have an excuse to give them money (mostly in form of food and shelter and bit of security) for nothing. As additional benefit you can now have an excuse to use tax money hire bunch of people (who are also pretty close to not being able do anything valuable) to watch and re-catch the ones you've locked up.

Root cause IMHO is the stubborn insistence on the rule that you have to work to provide for basic necessities and that people won't work if they are not scared of loosing food and shelter. Meanwhile only 0.01% of all the work done is still done by people. The rest is done by the machines. We don't have 99.99% unemployment rate only because the amount of work we do increased roughly 10000-fold. But it's not exactly that and there's no reason it should be. We have lot of coping mechanisms, like prisons, government inventing new rules and hiring new officers to enforce those rules, corporate jobs that consists mostly of keeping your head low and making friends so you don't get kicked out, unemployment benefits. Huge number of people takes money for nothing already but no one wants to be honest about it. Even if you are sure you don't then you still do because part of the money you should be paying for your food is paid by the government in form of subsidies for farmers. If you are living in European country you were likely given lots of free education and some free health services.

Prison and the Poverty Trap

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