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Dwarfing Wal-Mart
Ever wonder how many people it takes to incarcerate 2.25 million inmates? Ask Glenn Loury:
We have a corrections sector that employs more Americans than the combined work forces of General Motors, Ford, and Wal-Mart, the three largest corporate employers in the country, and we are spending some $200 billion annually on law enforcement and corrections at all levels of government, a fourfold increase (in constant dollars) over the past quarter century...
As of 2000, 33 states had abolished limited parole (up from 17 in 1980); 24 states had introduced three-strikes laws (up from zero); and 40 states had introduced truth-in-sentencing laws (up from three). The vast majority of these changes occurred in the 1990s, as crime rates fell.
This new system of punitive ideas is aided by a new relationship between the media, the politicians, and the public. A handful of cases—in which a predator does an awful thing to an innocent—get excessive media attention and engender public outrage. This attention typically bears no relation to the frequency of the particular type of crime, and yet laws—such as three-strikes laws that give mandatory life sentences to nonviolent drug offenders—and political careers are made on the basis of the public’s reaction to the media coverage of such crimes.
The last bit neatly encapsulates the expansion of the category "sex offender" (just ask Genarlow Wilson), but is Loury really trying to claim that this represents a "new relationship" between media and politics? Racially charged moral panic is a hallowed tradition (see the Mann Act of 1910), the vulnerability of chaste young white women not being a concept wholly invented by Fox News. Loury focuses on drugs because it's the category of offenses most relevant to racial disparity at the moment, but the dynamic is the same as it was a century ago.
Loury's whole piece is worth a read. For a concise illustration of nearly every point Loury touches on, check out Radley Balko's telling of the Cory Maye story.
Via A&L Daily.
|8.6.07 @ 3:43PM|#
"see the Mann Act of 1910...[and]...the vulnerability of
chaste young white women not being a concept wholly invented by Fox
News.
C'mon. There was no 24-7 'news' channels in 1910. We have become an
information culture, people spend their lives watching other people
live their lives. Of course there is a "new relationship." We don't
live in a world where news is on a couple of times a day, and if
you missed it, you missed it. BS events take on huge dimensions for
no other reason than they are repeated over and over again. You
could at least recognize that the media feeds this stuff, and even
if it isn't new, the scale and scope is certainly
unprecedented.
Anonymo the Anonymous|8.6.07 @ 4:20PM|#
Yeah the post was fine and all, but seriously, don't feed the trolls.
|8.6.07 @ 4:42PM|#
True fact: if there were no trolls, blogging and the internet would have closed for business on April 6, 2005.
|8.6.07 @ 5:00PM|#
In the fiscal year 1986 to 87
local state and federal governments
spent up to a combined total 15.6 million dollars on law
enforcement.
Federal law enforcement expenditures ranked last in absolute
dollars,
and accounted for only 6% of all federal spending.
By way of comparison,
the federal government spent 24 million more on space
exploration,
43 times more on national defense and international relations
than on law enforcement.
LibertyPlease|8.6.07 @ 6:15PM|#
If America to going to keep growing into a big healthy prison state, it's going to have to eat more and more of us!
|8.6.07 @ 6:22PM|#
"The vast majority of these changes occurred in the 1990s, as
crime rates fell."
Perhaps locking more people up had something to do with the crime
rate falling? In reason land, the only people in prison are single
moms and straight A college students who were caught with a joint
and given life sentences by redneck judges in a scene out of Cool
Hand Luke. In the real world, there are some scary people out there
who need to be in prison. The better question to ask is not why are
we locking people up but why do we have a society that seems to
produce so many criminals.
|8.6.07 @ 6:25PM|#
The better question to ask is not why are we locking people
up but why do we have a society that seems to produce so many
criminals.
I think a big reason is the failings of our public education
system, particularly in poor areas.
Edward|8.6.07 @ 7:02PM|#
Wow! Thanks for posting this. It's a libertarian issue I can relate to. Doesn't it raise a serious questions about the state of the economy? If all those people weren't in prison, our unemployment rate would probably one of the highest in the world. We surely spend more on incarceration and war than the most nannyish of nanny states spends on welfare and healthcare.
|8.6.07 @ 7:21PM|#
Edward--
Your statement about uemployment rates and people in prison has
been put forward before, and even if every single one of our
prisoners were on the streets and unemployed it would not have a
significant impact on the unemployment rate.
|8.6.07 @ 7:57PM|#
Inmates are disproportionately drawn from the most
disadvantaged parts of society. On average, state inmates have
fewer than 11 years of schooling. They are also vastly
disproportionately black and brown.
Let's translate: Inmates are disproportionately actual criminals.
Criminals, especially violent criminals, tend to be stupid and
uneducated. Blacks and, er, Hispanics (I assume he wasn't referring
to S Asian Hindus, for example, since they generally have very low
crime rates regardless of their economic conditions) have high
crime rates (and poverty) in every country they inhabit in
non-trivial numbers. And, of course, it's all Whitey's fault,
whether present or not.
|8.6.07 @ 8:13PM|#
Translation: I have a huge chip on my shoulder about race, and look for it everything.
Edward|8.6.07 @ 8:22PM|#
I can understand the libertarian distaste for the power of the state, although it appears to reflect a natural human tendency to organize hierarchies of power. But--in our case, at least--concern over the manifestation of state power in tax money spent on welfare seems misdirected. What we don't spend on welfare we end up spending on prisons. Prisons are a particularly nasty form of state power. In this regard we're less like the Swedes and more like the Chinese. What am I missing?
|8.6.07 @ 8:25PM|#
Prisons are a particularly nasty form of state power. In
this regard we're less like the Swedes and more like the Chinese.
What am I missing?
The Swedes don't have prisoners because they don't have blacks. All
we have to do is sterilize the muds and end non-white immigration,
then in a few years America will be utopia.
Edward|8.6.07 @ 8:25PM|#
Cesar,
Are you sure? An extra 2.25 million people looking for work seems
like a lot.
|8.6.07 @ 8:26PM|#
Are you sure? An extra 2.25 million people looking for work
seems like a lot.
In a country of 300 million, thats .075% of the population.
Edward|8.6.07 @ 8:30PM|#
Mr. F. Le Mur
So how would a libertarian society with a minimal state deal with
large criminally inclined minorities?
Edward|8.6.07 @ 8:32PM|#
Cesar,
But it wouldn't be just the 2.25 million ex-cons looking for work,
but all those employed in running the prisons--more than those
employed by GM, Ford, and Wal-Mart combined, according to the
posted piece.
|8.6.07 @ 8:34PM|#
But it wouldn't be just the 2.25 million ex-cons looking for work,
but all those employed in running the prisons--more than those
employed by GM, Ford, and Wal-Mart combined, according to the
posted piece.
Its been shown that whenever a government job is eliminated, many
more are created in the private sector. We could have lower taxes
because we wouldn't be funding all those prisons and prison jobs,
which would grow the economy.
|8.6.07 @ 8:45PM|#
Edward-
I cannot find the study now, but I do know that we spend billions
in taxes on prisons. If we didn't have to do that, our taxes would
be lower and lower taxes mean more private sector jobs.
|8.6.07 @ 8:47PM|#
Are you sure? An extra 2.25 million people looking for work
seems like a lot.
According to the US Dept. of Labor statistics, the unemployment
rate was 4.5% in April which represented 6.8 million people. If you
were to make the (dubious) assumption that all 2.25 million
prisoners would be unemployed if they weren't in prison, that
would, according to the April numbers, increase the unemployment
rate to 5.9%.
Not an insignificant increase perhaps, but still relatively low and
still well below countries like France (8.7%), Germany (7.1%) and
the EU overall (8.5%), and still slightly below Canada (6.4%).
The Wine Commonsewer Reg US Pa|8.6.07 @ 8:51PM|#
Kwix, Edward got his wish.... that was really amazingly well done. I am impressed.
Edward|8.6.07 @ 8:54PM|#
Here's an argument that public investment drive private
investment:
http://www.waxingamerica.com/2005/11/private_sector_.html
...public investment drives private investment and you need the two
to make an economy sing.
In the 19th century gifts of public lands to the railroads led to
transportation hubs and great commercial centers
In the 1950's public investment in the interstate highway system
led to enormous investment in the suburbs and the south
California's aerospace industry and that half of Houston not built
on oil, came from the evolution of NASA and public expenditures
into space research and technology
Here in Madison, Monona Terrace led to hundreds of millions of
dollars of private investment and a corresponding growth in the
property tax base.
Private capital follows public investment in education. In fact, go
ask some of those captains of commerce and manufacturing if they
really believe taxes should be lowered and public schools
abandoned. You do not hear them crying for tax cuts in the suburban
public schools their children attend; usually they are the first to
support the bond referendum.
I'm waiting for President Bush to go before the United States
Chamber of Commerce and tell them that spending billions of local
and state tax dollars on Major League Ball Stadium from Texas to
Milwaukee and from California to Florida was a bad idea.
Same for Football
And then there is the every day business of showing up to work
healthy and safely. Or should we take a cue from Jonathan Swift and
just let the surplus population die in the next flu pandemic.
Hurricane Katrina. An example of where lack of public investment
led to the destruction of private property.
The Wine Commonsewer-Reg US Pa|8.6.07 @ 8:59PM|#
In this regard we're less like the Swedes and more like the
Chinese. What am I missing?
The Swedes live in a completely homogeneous culture that's about
the size of Greater Los Angeles on a crowded weekend.
|8.6.07 @ 9:06PM|#
The better question to ask is not why for what
offenses (hint: drugs) are we locking people up
|8.6.07 @ 9:08PM|#
Are you sure? An extra 2.25 million people looking for work
seems like a lot.
In a country of 300 million, thats .075% of the
population.
Try 0.75% of the population.
Edward|8.6.07 @ 9:08PM|#
The Wine Commonsewer-Reg US Pat Off
Okay, point taken. But in terms of incarceration, we're more like
the Chinese than we are like any other western democracy. Our large
prison population together with all those employed in prisons is
bound to have an effect on our economy; that is, it keeps
unemployement relatively low. This doesn't seem like a healthy
situation. What are the libertarian solutions? I know that
leaglizing drugs is one, and I agree with it.
SIV|8.6.07 @ 9:24PM|#
the category of offenses most relevant to racial disparity
at the moment
dog fighting
The Wine Commonsewer-Reg US Pa|8.6.07 @ 9:26PM|#
Edward, I don't disagree with you on the prison population, it's
just that a lot of people all over the spectrum like to point to
Sweden and say those guys are right and America is icky.
There is simply no way that we can emulate the Swedes even if we
wanted to.
I personally am in favor of abolishing all victimless crimes (well,
duh, there's a surprise) and implementing a consistent and sensible
system of justice that dispenses with plea bargains, parole, and
probation entirely.
You rob a liquor store, you get a trial, the point of which is to
determine if you actually robbed the liquor store. If you get
convicted, you go to jail for the exact same amount of time that
everyone else who robbed a liquor store went to jail for. When
you're done, you're done and you walk out a free man.
That right there eliminates a huge chunk of bureaucracy. No piss
tests, no parole officers, no probation officers, nobody in jail
for paying for sex, smoking a doob, snorting a line, playing with
the soap in the showers at the local bath house, etc and you get my
drift.....
The Wine Commonsewer-Reg US Pa|8.6.07 @ 9:28PM|#
Oh, and guess which union is the most powerful union right here in the Golden State of Californicate?
|8.6.07 @ 9:52PM|#
Here's an argument that public investment drive private
investment:
Even if we accept that as true, it does not imply that
...you need the two to make an economy sing.
In other words, simply showing that A &rarr B does not show
that A' &rarr B'.
Hurricane Katrina. An example of where lack of public
investment led to the destruction of private property.
No, Hurricane Katrina was an example of where a hurricane led to
the destruction of private property.
|8.6.07 @ 9:53PM|#
Hurricane Katrina was an example of a corrupt, backwards state
being unable to deal with a local concern.
Compare, if you will, how North Carolina and Florida handled their
hurricanes to how Louisiana handled theirs.
Edward|8.6.07 @ 10:06PM|#
The Wine Commonsewer-Reg US Pat Off
Yeah, Sweden is Sweden. It's also home to some very successful
private enterprises such as Ikea and manages to combine a market
economy with humane social policies. My fear is that great social
inequality here--an inequality partly reflected in the high
incarceration rate--will give rise to a populist backlash against
free trade.
thoreau|8.6.07 @ 10:58PM|#
I love that Edward is talking to the F. Le Mur impersonator (although it is hard to be sure which one is the impersonator and which is the real one). Trolls trolling trolls who troll trolls.
|8.6.07 @ 11:19PM|#
I love that Edward is talking to the F. Le Mur impersonator
(although it is hard to be sure which one is the impersonator and
which is the real one). Trolls trolling trolls who troll
trolls.
What do you mean I'm an impersonator? Blacks and hispanics are
inferior, the white race is superior. We don't have any criminals
or poor people. Long live the aryan people! 14/88!
(BUT DONT CALL ME A RACIST!!!)
Edward|8.6.07 @ 11:20PM|#
I love that thoreau loves that one troll talks to another troll. Non-trolls commenting on trolls trolling trolls who troll trolls. If a non-troll trolls trolls who troll trolls is the non-troll a troll trolling trolls who troll trolls or just a bozo with too much time on his hands?
Edward|8.6.07 @ 11:25PM|#
(BUT DONT CALL ME A RACIST!!!)
I already have. He'll be here to pick you up in ten minutes.
|8.7.07 @ 9:00AM|#
Edward -
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck
wood for the internet age!
Bravo, sir
Edward|8.7.07 @ 10:55AM|#
I sure hope some Reasonoid bloogs on this from Arts &
Letters Daily:
The downside of diversity
A Harvard political scientist finds that diversity hurts civic
life. What happens when a liberal scholar unearths an inconvenient
truth?
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/?page=full
|8.7.07 @ 5:03PM|#
We have a corrections sector that employs more Americans
than the combined work forces of General Motors, Ford, and
Wal-Mart, the three largest corporate employers in the
country,
In keeping with the rest of that fluffy little article, it's not
true:
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes333012.htm
Correctional Officers and Jailers: 417,810 employees (total
US).
http://www.vault.com/
General Motors: 280,000 employees
Ford: 283,000 employees
Wal-Mart: 1,900,000 employees.
|8.7.07 @ 5:08PM|#
FWIW: some doofus who's upset that the world doesn't match his PC fantasies has been faking my name on a couple of posts.
Edward|8.7.07 @ 5:44PM|#
Mr. F. Le Mur (If that's your real name)
You're leaving out employees in private correctional
facilities.
Also, some of those Wal-Mart people aren't being paid enough to
qualify as employees.
|8.7.07 @ 7:10PM|#
Oh of course Lemur, we all know the world does live up to your 19th-century racialists fantasies and IQ fetishism.
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