Time to suspend suspended sentences

[Seth]

One suggestion that was made a few years back, and rejected by idiot politicians, was that the USA should buy the sum total of the opium poppy output of Afghanistan. That would cost about $100 million per year. The benefits would be immense. It would undermine the efforts of the Taliban to make everyone hate America. It would take away the heroin source of much of the world's drug cartels. It would provide the USA with very cheap and potent medical painkillers. It would permit free heroin in the clinics I described. And the cost would be a tiny fraction of the current "war on drugs".

It's actually been tried. The result was that the farmers switched from whatever they were cultivating to poppies. The money they got for it made it a no-brainer. The crop became huge and the country had to import food.

And that's a problem because...???

Hermits point was that they were growing even more poppies, and that there were still lots sold to drug cartels even after the buy up.

What part of "buy it all" is unclear? Whatever they grow, we buy. Then we refine it and sell it as pharmaceutical grade goods for a pittance to anybody who wants it. Soon enough demand tapers off as addicts kill themselves and things get better.

Plus, we get to sell them food, which can be used to control them politically and economically because they cannot grow enough to feed themselves.

Supply and demand is always a problem here - if you disrupt the supply to a certain extent, then prices will rise, giving producers more incentive still. Some form of moderate cost, regulated legal supply by governments would hopefully make it no longer financially worth while to grow or produce drugs, and the whole criminal element could collapse...

[Blind groper]

You are already modifying supply and demand by supplying all the drug that addicts want. In doing so, you reduce demand (from the drug pushers view) essentially to zero.

[cronus]

Do or die. Suspended means suspended. No ifs and no buts. A serious crime requires a serious penalty. Incitement is as bad as bad a offence. Villains will think twice in my jurisdiction. Even honest men would quiver.

[Blind groper]

There is a widespread belief among the ignorant and uneducated of this world, which is that increasing penalties for crime will reduce crime. Duh!

Sadly for those unthinking and opinionated types, they are wrong. Many governments have followed that incorrect idea and established draconian punishments to reduce crime. Professional researchers have watched the results with interest. Generally, the result is zero in terms of increases or reductions in crime rates, apart from the normal fluctuations always seen.

However, since when did mere facts interfere with a good sounding theory?

[Hermit]

There is a widespread belief among the ignorant and uneducated of this world, which is that increasing penalties for crime will reduce crime. Duh!

Sadly for those unthinking and opinionated types, they are wrong. Many governments have followed that incorrect idea and established draconian punishments to reduce crime. Professional researchers have watched the results with interest. Generally, the result is zero in terms of increases or reductions in crime rates, apart from the normal fluctuations always seen.

However, since when did mere facts interfere with a good sounding theory?

Once again playing the devil's advocate:

[Blind groper]

Hermit, That graph is used by people who do not understand maths. Cause and effect requires that cause must precede effect. On that graph, the increase in murders came before the reduction in executions and vice versa. Duh!

What the graph does not show is the real cause for the change in murder rate. The growth in the number of young people. There was this little thing called the baby boom, which began in 1946. Those baby boomers reached the age at which many of them got violent towards the mid to late 1960's. They reached the age at which they got too old to be violent by the early 1990's.

Just to rub it in, the same pattern followed right across the western world where there was no death penalty. But the change in population age distribution was pretty nearly universal.

[JimC]

I could have become violent in the late 60s and early 70s, but I discovered dope instead...

[Seth]

Hermit, That graph is used by people who do not understand maths. Cause and effect requires thatr cause must precede effect. On that graph, the increase in murders came before the reduction in executions and vice versa. Duh!

Huh? the increase in murders does not precede the decrease in executions, it lags the decrease in murders slightly. The upturn in murders began in 1963, after a drop in executions from 1960 to 1963. As executions continued to fall through 1966, murders went up dramatically, remaining high until 1993, where a precipitous drop began that has continued through 2009 as executions rose. The correlation is not just clear, but striking.

What the graph does not show is an alternate cause. The growth in the number of young people. There was this little thing called the baby boom, which began in 1946. Those baby boomers reached the age at which many of them got violent towards the mid to late 1960's. They reached the age at which they got too old to be violent by the early 1990's.

Just to rub it in, the same pattern followed right across the western world where there was no death penalty. But the change in population age distribution was pretty nearly universal.

That may or may not be true. What is observable however is that a spike in murders followed a drastic decrease in executions. Was this because "baby boomers" grew up into the "crime age" you tout, or was it because of a declining execution rate that gave criminals the idea they wouldn't get the chair? Or was it both?

I say it was both. I say it was the growing up of the "baby boomer" generation during a period of widespread civil unrest due to the Vietnam war at the beginning, combined with the SCOTUS ruling the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972, which ruling was overturned in 1976. Executions did not start to pick up until about six years later, which makes sense if you consider the amount of time needed to complete a death-penalty case occurring in the period from 1972 through 1980.

Supposing you are correct that the increase in murders is an artifact of a particular generation's movement into the "crime age" bracket, that still does not show that the death penalty was not causative in reducing the murder rates after 1993. After all, "baby boomers" born in 1950 - 60 would be 30 to 40 years old, which is still young enough to be involved in crime.

You're looking for a single factor that you can use to disparage the deterrent effects of the death penalty when in actuality it's a very complex set of variables, of which the death penalty is a part.

[Hermit]

On that graph, the increase in murders came before the reduction in executions and vice versa.

Put your glasses on, blind groper.

[mistermack]

The murder rate rose a lot because of drug use becoming more widespread, and guns getting cheaper and easier to buy.

I doubt if execution is much of a deterrent to people who kill. Maybe a few, but mostly not.
I don't see the US having a lower murder rate than similar places that don't execute.
It's about five times higher than the UK rate.

Hard to make out the case that it deters murder.

[Rum]

On that graph, the increase in murders came before the reduction in executions and vice versa.

Put your glasses on, blind groper.

He's groping for them..blindly..

[piscator]

The murder rate rose a lot because of drug use becoming more widespread, and guns getting cheaper and easier to buy.

I doubt if execution is much of a deterrent to people who kill. Maybe a few, but mostly not.
I don't see the US having a lower murder rate than similar places that don't execute.
It's about five times higher than the UK rate.

Hard to make out the case that it deters murder.

Saudi Arabia's and Switzerland's intentional homicide rate is lower than the UK's. Maybe you're barking up the wrong tree?

[Seth]

The murder rate rose a lot because of drug use becoming more widespread, and guns getting cheaper and easier to buy.

Wrong in part. Yes, drug use increased in the 70s and 80s, but guns became HARDER to obtain with the enactment of the NICS background check system, not easier, and guns have gotten consistently MORE expensive, not less.

I doubt if execution is much of a deterrent to people who kill. Maybe a few, but mostly not.

It's an absolute deterrent. Execute a killer and he can't kill again. As to deterring others from killing, the graph shows that there is obviously a strong correlation between executions and murders.

I don't see the US having a lower murder rate than similar places that don't execute.
It's about five times higher than the UK rate.

Hard to make out the case that it deters murder.

The absolute numbers are far less important than the changes over time as the death penalty came and went and came again in the US. Places that don't have the death penalty and haven't had it in a hundred years have no basis on which to make an analysis. The UK doesn't have the death penalty, so it can't say that the death penalty doesn't deter crime. Saudi Arabia executes people on a daily basis for minor religious infractions as well as crimes, but I think if you look you'll find that it has a very, very low overall crime rate.

[mistermack]

It's stupid to try to extrapolate anything from Saudi Arabia. It's not anything like a civilised country.

And it's not the death penalty that deters most crime in Saudi. It's the threat of being locked up in a hell hole, getting the shit beaten out of you, and even getting your hands cut off.
That's a real deterrent, and it is likely to make a difference. Add to that the fact that Saudi is very low on alcohol and drugs, and high on religion, and it's no big surprise that general crime is low.

But the death penalty is different. It's generally reserved for murder in the civilised world.
And murder isn't generally done in a calm rational state of mind. It's mostly done in a blind rage, when people completely lose it, and don't think of the consequences. In those moments, people don't stop to think about penalties.

[Blind groper]

In the graph presented, murder rates initially fell for 4 years while execution rates also fell. The increase in murder rate follows much more closely the increase in the number of people in the population in the critical 18 to 24 year old age group.

Sure, murder rates are affected by more than one variable, but if you want to tell me executions reduce murders, you need to explain why, in my country and many others, murder rates continued to fall after executions were made illegal. If you want to deny the age distibution cause, you need to explain why murder rates in the 1960's rose throughout the western world, in nations with no executions, in exact parallel to the USA. Age distribution explains it. Executions do not.

It is also true, in research carried out by criminologists, that crimes are committed with the view of not getting caught. Few if any criminals will say : "I can commit that crime because when I get caught, the penalty is not too severe." Instead they say : "I can commit that crime because I will not get caught." Mistaken in many cases, but that is their belief.