You’re right that the 90s `crime bills` didn’t come out of nowhere. But they didn’t come out of a “we need to make our communities safer” perspective (that was merely the sales pitch)—because they increased criminal penalties on acts that generally affect low-income and minority “criminals”. They _built_ the problems we have today. The whole idea of a “super predator” was as much a racist invention as Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queens in Cadillacs”.
Civil Forfeiture and RICO sounded like a great idea when it was to be used against white-collar beneficiaries of criminal enterprises. Except that’s not how it got used, and so cops in all jurisdictions started rolling up money from regular citizens just like a regular protection racket, except without the protection. It was _meant_ to be used against the cartels, but instead it got used as an income booster.
What made communities safer? It _wasn’t_ giving cops and prosecutors more powers. Reinvestment in those communities. Education. Treatment for trauma. Those things _all_ made far more difference in making communities safer than any single power given to cops since the 90s. Those things just destroyed some of the communities even more. Cities are _safer_ when you have people spending money in them and living there. Suburbs and exurbs and white flight made downtowns more dangerous by taking all of the money out of the cities and leaving people in desperate straits. Reurbanization and gentrification reversed the trends (although gentrification has its own problems).
Related to the use of aggregate numbers, read the Pew link. It talks about the rural/urban variability and about local perception of crime (people believe that there’s more crime across America, but most do not believe that there’s more crime in _their_ area).
Color me skeptical. Does banning certain drugs prevent drug-related crime? These kinds of indirect proposals (e.g. ban guns), that purport to solve complicated social problems (e.g. crime-rate) never pan out, but they are attractive because it FEELS like they are the answer - especially if you already have an ideology that underpins that belief.
> But they didn’t come out of a “we need to make our communities safer” perspective (that was merely the sales pitch)
Of course it did. That's exactly why that bill was passed.
>because they increased criminal penalties on acts that generally affect low-income and minority “criminals”.
Because those companies are the most impacted by crime, petty or otherwise. Gated rich communities were perfectly fine.
>Reinvestment in those communities. Education. Treatment for trauma. Those things _all_ made far more difference in making communities safer than any single power given to cops since the 90s. Those things just destroyed some of the communities even more.
None of the things you present as explanations are actually supported by anything. You're putting out explanations that you FEEL are correct based on your own ideology and biases. City, State and Federal governments spend an inordinate amount of money already. Maybe they should spend more, but I don't see evidence that that will lead to outcomes you think it will.
>It talks about the rural/urban variability and about local perception of crime (people believe that there’s more crime across America, but most do not believe that there’s more crime in _their_ area).
Don't gas-light. Pull up the crime and homicide rates of a few American cities and compare to Europe. Clearly, America is an outlier.
Gun controls are not incompatible with the second amendment—at least they weren’t until conservative judicial activists bought long-discredited and ahistorical views of gun ownership in the ~40s and ~50s with the foot on the gas pedal ever since (except, of course, for the utter silence of the NRA on the banning of “assault weapons” when the Black Panthers carried them…).
Guns were rare, expensive, and often owned by the _militia_ to which the citizen belonged until about 1865. They were then more readily available, but cities and towns (especially the so-called “Wild West”) had fairly strict rules on how/when/who could carry (for reasons both good and bad, especially in the Reconstruction South).
Everyone wants to forget the first clause of the Second Amendment: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”. It’s not clear what it means, and I happen to think that Scalia was wrong, but I’ll admit that Stevens may have been wrong, too.
In modern terms, I would argue that the amendment absolutely permits strict licensure of gun owners as a precondition of gun ownership.
Your assertion that the reason crime bills were passed is “we need to make our communities safer” is nonsense. It’s the reason that was sold to terrified Americans—and most of the terror was provided by the news, not the reality. (IIRC, the crime rates were _already dropping_.) The reasons that they were passed is a) racism, b) profit, c) power, and d) racism.
And yes, America’s an outlier. But mostly because it also has the widest wealth gap in the developed world (_mostly_ predicated on race, but not exclusively).
I’m not gaslighting anyone—I’m telling you straight up that America’s crime problems—such as they exist are:
1. Incorrect, usually radicalized, reporting in a way that supports the _fear_ that there is more crime than there is; 2. Overpolicing and overprosecution, especially of minority persons; 3. the effects of extended systemic racism and the casual acceptance of white supremacy in policing; and 4. poverty and the criminalization of being poor or otherwise disadvantaged.
If people have no hope, what do you expect?
You have no basis for anything of those things.
>2. Overpolicing and overprosecution
America has an over-sentencing problem. American prison sentences are higher than anywhere in the world. The people who are actually in prison, are guilty of the crimes they are accused of being guilty, the difference is that in Europe a rapist may get probation, while here (e.g. Weinstein) gets 23 years.