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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   22979 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024

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I did go back and reread the paper. "Openly lies" was not very charitable of me, and there is an interpretation of it that supports what she says. I just think its a very bad interpretation, to the point still makes me question her and the authors integrity.

The claim is this, from the top line summary. Basically that while incarceration does reduce crime via incapacitation (Section 8), it also causes more crime inherently (Section 9). And that these effectively cancel each other out:

The crux of the matter is that tougher sentences hardly deter crime, and that while imprisoning people temporarily stops them from committing crime outside prison walls, it also tends to increase their criminality after release. As a result, “tough-on-crime” initiatives can reduce crime in the short run but cause offsetting harm in the long run.

So the question becomes: does a reasonable reading of Section 9 say this? I do not think it does, and I think its very weak to the point of dishonesty to claim it does. There are 13 studies examined, here is the summary.

9.14. Summary: Aftereffects The preponderance of the evidence says that incarceration in the US increases crime post-release, and enough over the long run to offset incapacitation. A quartet of judge randomization studies (Green and Winik in Washington, DC; Loeffler in Chicago; Nagin and Snodgrass in Pennsylvania; Dobbie, Goldin, and Yang in Philadelphia and Miami) put the net of incapacitation and incarceration aftereffects at about zero. In parallel, Chen and Shapiro find that harsher prison conditions—making for incarceration that is harsher in quality rather than quantity—also increases recidivism. Gaes and Camp concur, though less convincingly because in their study harsher incarceration quality went hand in hand with lower incarceration quantity. Mueller-Smith sides with all these studies and goes farther, finding modest incapacitation and powerful, harmful aftereffects in Houston; but modest hints of randomization failure accompany those results.

Some studies dissent from the majority view that incarceration is criminogenic. Roach and Schanzenbach find beneficial aftereffects in Seattle—a result that is also subject to some doubt about the quality of randomization. Bhuller et al. make a more compelling case that incarceration reduces crime after—in Norway. Berecochea and Jaman, one of the few truly randomized studies in this literature, also looks more likely right than wrong, and is also somewhat distant in its setting, early-1970s California. And there are the two Georgia studies (Kuziemko and Ganong), which upon reanalysis no longer point to beneficial aftereffects, but still do not demonstrate harmful ones either.

Aftereffects must vary by place, time, and person. But the first-order generalization that best fits the credible evidence is that at the margin in the US today, aftereffects offset in the long run what incapacitation does in the short run.

Ok so of the 13 studies they looked at, some say more prison makes people commit more crimes when they are released. Some say that more prison makes people commit less crimes when they are released. Some say that more prison doesn't have any effect people committing crime when released.

Positive aftereffects, count of more crime studies: 9.3!, 9.4!!, 9.9

Negative aftereffects, count of less crime studies: 9.1, 9.7, 9.8, 9.11, 9.12!!!!

Zero aftereffects, count of same crime studies: 9.5!!!, 9.6, 9.10, 9.13

Not clear aftereffects, count of little predictive value: 9.2

I did really only skim these, so possible I misassigned some. But I think it is very clear that from the studies reviewed they have no idea the impact of incarceration on recidivism. Very curious how aftereffects can vary by place, time and person so much and still offset the results of incapacitation. Looks very unclear to me, and given the highly concentrated nature of criminality this is not sufficient evidence to conclude that being incarceration is criminogenic such that it cancels out the effects of incapacitation. No idea how the author comes to the top line conclusion they do. Wonder if it has anything to do with this:

The Open Philanthropy Project has joined a latter-day criminal justice reform movement. It too is motivated by the belief that something is wrong with the state’s use of punishment to combat crime. Something is wrong, in other words, with those pictures. Higher incarceration rates and longer sentences, along with the “war on drugs,” have imposed great costs on taxpayers, as well as on inmates, their families, and their communities (Alexander 2012).

! 9.3 does not actually look at how long prisoners are in prison, it only looks at security levels. Why is it in here?

!! 9.4. Similar to 9.3, this only looks security levels, and only among those that return to prison. Nothing about if they commit more crimes, or even if those in higher security commit more or less crimes. It just asks "if they were in a higher security level prison, does someone who is reoffend do so faster or slower than in lower security." Say only 1 of high security prisoner reoffends, but he does it in a day after release. If 100% of lower security releasees reoffend, but they all do it longer than 1 day after release, then this study says its more assignment to a higher security prison causes releasees to go back to prison faster.

!!! 9.5 - this one was actually very weakly more crime, but author says it is so weak he is counting it as 0

!!!! 9.12 - original study said strong negative aftereffects, author reanalyzed and says ambiguous. Maybe this goes in zero.

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