"over reliance on measures of effectiveness" is a great phrase.
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"over reliance on measures of effectiveness" is a great phrase.
Statistics don't lie to people.
People lie to people.
People lie to themselves.
Adult Warning Label! this is considered controversial by many people but the research is supposedly top notch.
Link to University of Chicago explanation of the crime drop.
http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levi...alized2001.pdf
Maybe rather than looking at why crime dropped, it would be more fruitful to look at why crime increased in the 60s and 70s. Those were the years the welfare state really took off and with it corrosive effects upon family structure. Those were also the years affected by the Warren court and the sort of change in view about what caused crime. If I remember correctly crime had been diminishing during the years prior to those decades.
So perhaps one of the reasons crime has been going down lately is it just took the country some time to get back on the track it had been on prior to the 60s and 70s.
I am listening to Thomas Sowell's The Vision of the Anointed and that prompted this thought (he may have actually said that but I haven't finished it yet).
Moving from the USA to Germany regarding organised crime, specifically biker gangs. First a news report (background to site not researched, perhaps our German readers can assist there? It appears anti-establishment):http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/37/37477/1.html
Oddly the official German state response appears to have "leaked" to the Hells Angels; the cited report is in German and its size defies Google translation:Quote:
A "sub-committee leadership, commitment and fight against crime" (UA FEK) had established a federal-state task force "crime-fighting strategy Rocker conceptual framework" (BLPG BR-RK). The aim of the project group is the coordination of joint action against rocker crime. She has released a document that says, "Report of the federal-state task force of the UA FEK 'Rocker crime reduction strategy - conceptual framework' [BLPG BR-RK]". It comes from the Ministry of the Interior and Sports of Rhineland-Palatinate, is characterized as "VS - ONLY FOR OFFICIAL USE (iS IFG not able to be released)," and it started a few weeks ago on a publicly accessible website of the Hells Angels . It looks real.
I suspect part of the answer is this is when we implemented a number of new drug laws, and I'm sure we created other laws that turned previously legal behavior into now illegal behavior. If there was no war on drugs it is unlikely we have seen abuse evolve into meth and crack and the current crime epidemic that fosters. We're not reducing drug abuse with the drug war, but we are filling up our prisons, and pushing real criminals (rapists, murders, etc.) back into the streets because the prisons are full and prosecuters are focused on lesser crimes.Quote:
Posted by Carl
Maybe rather than looking at why crime dropped, it would be more fruitful to look at why crime increased in the 60s and 70s.
Bill:
I am thinking there is more a big cultural thing going on. The murder rate peaked at around 9.7 in 1933 then fell pretty steadily until it started to climb again in the 60s and stayed at high rate sort of near the 1933 rate from the 70s to the 90s.
The early part of the century saw the urbanization of the country. Mass immigration from Europe and mass migration from the South to the North and from other parts of the country to the West. We handled all that then comes the 60s and everything starts to go to hell again for about 20-30 years until we began to get a handle on it again.
Improved policing may be part of our culture getting a handle on the thing again.
Many words with little actual content or a specific accusation.
The author sounds as if he's still under the influence of the experience how certain politicians and authorities pushed for internet censorship under the most flimsy justifications, which were clearly disproved by activists.
( http://boingboing.net/2010/09/30/onl...sites-blo.html )
heise.de - being a news blog with emphasis on internet stuff - kept its readers informed about the so far abortive plans to censor the internet in a way that most traditional media did not; it was leaning against the plans, as was the vast majority of people who had an idea how the internet works and what internet users are capable of.
The authorities (ranging from city top leadership of police to federal minister of the interior) have tested the patience and tolerance of Germans with lots of domestic spying, data collection and even censorship proposals for the last ten years. Lots of people have reacted with adopting a rather critical stance towards this domestic security establishment (which, btw, failed spectacularly in some cases).
It's a bit similar to the far left wing suspicions about police and authorities from the 70's and 80's, but different. This time it's not about a political wing, but rather about a generational conflict.
Massive drug control spending has no effect on addiction rate
http://boingboing.net/wp-content/upl...2.18.43-PM.jpg
(Chart shows only federal drug control, $1.5T refers to all costs associated with drug prohibition.)
The above chart (even if the numbers are exaggerated) prompts a couple of questions that we really need to understand the answers to before we throw more money at this war.
- Why are we waging a war on the drugs in the first place? What is "real" threat?
- Why is the drug problem getting worse after we spent billions on "combating" it?
- Why don't we wage a war on political correctness (both left and right) which include the argument that we have to wage the war in the first place? It is political dogma and the associated propaganda that traps us indefinitely in a bubble of stupidity. Pop the bubble and we'll have freedom of thought which will enable us to actually come up with more intelligent solutions to real problems.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,5277041.storyQuote:
Two teenagers were killed and 24 others were wounded across Chicago Saturday night through Sunday morning. Police said 15 of the victims were affiliated with gangs.
States could be test cases for marijuana legalization
Apparently marijuana legalization is on the ballot in Colorado, Washington, and Oregon, and leads in Washington.Quote:
The test case instead could be Washington, where voters on Nov. 6 will decide whether to directly confront the federal ban on marijuana and embrace a sprawling plan to legalize, regulate and tax sales at state-licensed pot stores.
Speculation on the potential federal blowback is rife.
Would the Obama administration pick a legal fight over states' rights to try to block Initiative 502? Would federal prosecutors charge marijuana growers and retailers, even if they are authorized by state law?
Or would — as some opponents and supporters predict — federal authorities denounce the law but largely leave Washington alone?
I have to confess it midly irritates me when local papers here make a great fuss of a couple of plants hidden in some forest or some garden. The allocation of law enforcement ressources seems hardly be ideal, especially in the light of the massive scandals which have shaken Italy in those last months.
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In the so-called Controlling courses I enrolled a big topic were the limitations of (and manipulatable) key performance targets, especially if they were tied up with a bonus-malus system. We humans are humans and too often like the easier path more. If the pressure is high and the target difficult to achieve (or sometimes out of our reach) the incentives are big to do something about the yard stick. Professional and personal experience have confirmed it.
There are a lot of rice bowls that would be broken if the current system were to change. The first link that Fuchs provided highlights that. Billions and billions are involved along with all the LE jobs that go with those billions. Combine that with good old fashioned Puritanical moralism (sic) and you have a very firmly established system.
Carl,
I watched the links Fuchs provided and found them very interesting, but on the other hand little new, since I was very aware of those issues for some time. I conducting a security survey of a U.S. prison in the early 90s to assess the security for putting what we now call a HVI there for a while. Spent a fair amount of time with guards, and they were all critical of the drug war back then for the reasons stated in the video.
The point of the questions were to clarify intent of the war for our national leadership. They need to openly discuss why are we waging it to begin with it? What is the real threat? Why is the problem getting worse after 40 years or so of fighting the drug war? What are the consequences of fighting the drug war?
The world was going to end if we legalized alcohol, but somehow we survived. We haven't outlawed tobacco, just made it tougher to use, yet we manage to survive. We can discourage drug use my limiting job options with drug tests, etc. at much less cost than what appears to be tragic waste of dollars and ruining people's lives with the label of felon if they were busted for drug use. You are right though, that would threaten a lot of livelihoods tied to the drug war.
Link to Real News Network interview of Law Enforcement Officers against Prohibition. Never new there was such a group:eek:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kjwv6...eature=g-all-u
Bill:
Sorry I misunderstood.
I think the smart ones have asked all those questions. Their answers to themselves are that it doesn't work and the whole thing needs to be radically changed-ie. legalization to some extent of some to all of it. But they won't admit that openly because they are afraid of the 'But what about the children?' argument.
Here in Colorado the legalization of marijuana is on the ballot. The radio commercials for are what you would expect, it doesn't work, it treats adults like children, tides of money for the cartels and marijuana isn't actually all that bad. The radio commercials against are variations of the 'But what about the children?' argument. We'll see how it plays out.
A fellow I know, a magnificent old gentleman who has done things only a handful of people in the world have done, decided to vote for legalization because he said it just sort of occurred to him that the current course doesn't make any sense. He can't be the only one out there, so maybe things will change.