Comment by falsestprophet | Hacker News Reader

Comment by falsestprophet | Hacker News Reader

"Who’s to Blame for Mass Incarceration?" is a review of the book Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment about New York state drug laws and their impact on the black community.

Are drugs laws the cause of "mass incarceration" of blacks in the United States?

The review article does not offer any statistics. Here are some from the US Bureau of Justice Statistics (a federal agency belonging to the DOJ) about state prisoners with sentences over one year (state sentences of less than a year are general served in county jails).

Only 4% of black state prisoners are sentenced for cases where the most serious offense is drug possession.

Only a further 11.9% of black state prisoners are sentenced for cases where the most serious offense is other drug crimes including trafficking.

58.3% of black state prisoners are sentenced for cases where the most serious offense is violent crime (including 12% for murder)... 16% for property crimes... 9.5% for public order crimes.

States account for over 92% of prisoners. Though over 50% of federal prisoners are sentence for cases where the most serious offense is drug crimes.

If no one was sentenced for cases where drugs crimes were the most serious offense, then 85% of black state prisoners would still be imprisoned. So, that wouldn't solve the problem of black "mass incarceration" in US state prisons.

Source: Bureau of Justice Statics http://imgur.com/sE1D137 http://felonvoting.procon.org/sourcefiles/USBJS%20-Prisoners...

"If no one was sentenced for cases where drugs crimes were the most serious offense, then 85% of black state prisoners would still be imprisoned. So, that wouldn't solve the problem of black "mass incarceration" in US state prisons."

This is a gross misunderstanding of the war on drugs that only takes into account the percentage of people who are in prison simply for drug charges. There is a lot more drug-related crime that would not exist if no one was imprisoned for drug crimes anymore so the statistic is simply useless.

What drug-related crime would not exist? I seriously doubt the legalization of anything is going to change this (unless you get rid of our law system entirely).

The illegal drug market will always exist, regardless of legalization. Why? Anything legalized will be regulated and taxed and many people will still find it easier to go around both.

A lot of theft, burglary, robbery, assault, murder, etc. would simply not exist or be marginalized just like they are currently for alcohol. It's been awhile since I heard of a shootout over booze distribution. Yes, there is still a black market for alcohol, but the crime surrounding it is a tiny fraction of what it was during prohibition. No one denies that violence related to alcohol dropped dramatically after prohibition and obviously, the same thing will happen to other drugs as they're not special.

The crime dropped after prohibition because the FBI became a bigger part of preventing crime and rooted out all of the police corruption. Violence in Mexico will continue, unless the government can prevent any cop, judge, or agent from being bought.

Drugs arent special as you say, but they also arent the cause of the violence. Gangs will still be violent and kill each other. It will just be over something new. So yes, we might see a decrease in drug-related violence (im still not convinced of this though), but we will see an increase in violence related to something else being traded on the black market.

I also have a hard time seeing crack or meth being legalized when many people still sue the cigarette companies for giving them cancer. I think tort reform is also needed.

> Why? Anything legalized will be regulated and taxed and many people will still find it easier to go around both.

You're ignoring that legal things, even when taxed are cheaper and safer than illegal things. Legalizing something kills the black market for that something. The reason is simple and obvious, real markets tolerate real business and real business out competes illegal business because it doesn't have to markup the product to make up for the overhead of being illegal which is what makes up the majority of prices for drugs on the black market.

Drug dealers don't tolerate competition under threat of violence and charge as much as they can and have to make up for product lost to law enforcement, real business has to compete with other businesses on price driving the price down to reasonable levels and also delivers a better safer product.

So are the people who have been convicted of violent, property or public order crimes unjustly imprisoned? Should they be released?

>Are "racist" drugs laws the cause of "mass incarceration" of blacks in the United States?

Are sexist laws the cause of mass incarceration of men in the US (and in other countries)?

No, but the legal system does have a sexist slant to it.

Why not both (or all 4)?

There are laws with racist and sexist underlying reasoning and disparate impacts and the legal system does have a racist and sexist slant to it. There are also decently fair laws that are broken at unequal rates due to sexual and racial differences in society (those differences themselves often caused by social racism and sexism).

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