“Tough on Crime” Makes No Sense — Unless You Understand the History of Crime (Mother Jones)

[Buzzman]

I'm not talking about the racism. Why was there no restrictive crime bill passed in 1940 when the racism was even worse? There's plenty of ways for racists to go after black folks without needing to pass a wide ranging crime bill that also meant white people went to jail for dumb reasons as well.

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Because they probably didn't need to. They had massive amounts of racial violence to oppress minorities, random attacks, lynchings, police raids etcetera.
Later when those options weren't as politically feasible anymore they had to move to more subtler forms of discriminations.

 

[Kirblar]

Nixon and his advisors were the pioneers of that shit and it was most definitely rooted in racism

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Absolutely. "Why were even elected black democrats signing onto this in 1994" is the question the article's answering to help give context to, and also to why what made sense in 1994 out of sheer desperation makes absolutely no sense to perpetuate a quarter-century later in 2019.

 

[Deleted member 1445]

I'm not talking about the racism. Why was there no restrictive crime bill passed in 1940 when the racism was even worse? There's plenty of ways for racists to go after black folks without needing to pass a wide ranging crime bill that also meant white people went to jail for dumb reasons as well.

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Either you're just trying to explain why they implemented the strategy at large (which you can't, because the why will differ per person, and the influencing factors will always be more than just more crime) which is pointless, or you're doing that, and also trying to say something with it. So what are you trying to say?

 

[AuthenticM]

lead or no lead, the "tough on crime" mentality has always been a dog whistle for "let's lock up the blacks".

and also to why what made sense in 1994 out of sheer desperation makes absolutely no sense to perpetuate a quarter-century later in 2019.

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It didn't "make sense" then. It doesn't matter that some black people supported it. The fact is that tough-on-crime laws don't reduce the crime rate, and what happened in the 90s was fueled by racist nonsense by politicians who wanted votes.

 

[TheGhost]

The hipotesis you bring doesn't explain why black people who lives in big cities are more easily taken to make crimes
Than in smaller cities. They both feel the same problems, but act differently in the face of the same problems.
This is a interesting idea. Lead polution may case people to act more instinctively than they would on a normal circumstance. Besides, led polution increase the number of sick people.

Anyway, this is an interesting theory. It may need more studies.

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I did explain it, thoroughly

 

[Deepwater]

Absolutely. "Why were even elected black democrats signing onto this in 1994" is the question the article's answering to help give context to, and also to why what made sense in 1994 out of sheer desperation makes absolutely no sense to perpetuate a quarter-century later in 2019.

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Well I disagree with the conclusion that lead was the primary driver of the crime spike. It's just too reductive for my taste. And to sort of piggy back the admittedly reasonable correlation onto moral/ethical justification for the crime bill unattached to an analysis of policing, crack, et al...yeah Issa no for me.

 

[JesseEwiak]

Well I disagree with the conclusion that lead was the primary driver of the crime spike. It's just too reductive for my taste. And to sort of piggy back the admittedly reasonable correlation onto moral/ethical justification for the crime bill unattached to an analysis of policing, crack, et al...yeah Issa no for me.

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It's so reductive it basically lines up everywhere on Earth. Some things have pretty simple answers, at least partly. Everything else you listed comes back to the fact there was a massive increase in crime, and that gave the political cover to the things you've described.

 

[Entryhazard]

Is this to excuse Biden?

 

[Deepwater]

Well I disagree with the conclusion that lead was the primary driver of the crime spike. It's just too reductive for my taste. And to sort of piggy back the admittedly reasonable correlation onto moral/ethical justification for the crime bill unattached to an analysis of policing, crack, et al...yeah Issa no for me.

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Absolutely. "Why were even elected black democrats signing onto this in 1994" is the question the article's answering to help give context to, and also to why what made sense in 1994 out of sheer desperation makes absolutely no sense to perpetuate a quarter-century later in 2019.

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Ok so I'm reading the study closer with some supporting material and i see the argument for it now.

It's so reductive it basically lines up everywhere on Earth. Some things have pretty simple answers, at least partly. Everything else you listed comes back to the fact there was a massive increase in crime, and that gave the political cover to the things you've described.

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I disagree with the notion of that because there was such a huge spike in crime that the only reasonable solution at the time was to expand policing and the prison complex. They got it wrong. And the fact that it just wasn't one or two people saying they were wrong in their solution means they gotta hold the L as an indictment on their governance.

 

[Jade1962]

Well we know that lead didn't have a thing to do with giving more years for crack than powder. We know lead didn't cause white folks and black folks to be stopped and searched at different rates. Lead didn't cause police to send little Timmy home with a warning while Tyrone was getting out under the jail. I came up during this era and I can tell you lots of people had a problem with the lock them up and throw away the key mentality reserved for us. Drug users were treated like dirt back then when it was us funny how things have changed recently. I wonder why that is?

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I don't think that, I think that it's a carefully timed screed which is meant to make excuses for their favourite presidential candidate. And again, Biden still thinks that the bill was great so I'm not sure we can trust his policy-making chops going forward either.

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These sum up my views on this article and theory.

 

[JesseEwiak]

I disagree with the notion of that because there was such a huge spike in crime that the only reasonable solution at the time was to expand policing and the prison complex. They got it wrong. And the fact that it just wasn't one or two people saying they were wrong in their solution means they gotta hold the L as an indictment on their governance.

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I'm not arguing it was the right call or that nobody should face political consequences.

But, it's good to know the deeper reasons for why certain things were passed beyond the facile ideological reasons most people are pushing. Neither kirblar or myself are saying Biden deserves a pass, but I think this article is a good look on how, along with everything else, lead helps explain why there was the public space for such draconian measures.

I'll make a somewhat tortured analogy - in 2019, Escape from New York is an obvious dystopian sci-fi flick. When it was released, the idea of crime completely spiraling out of control like that wasn't completely crazy.

 

[Blader]

This is a tiny bit ahistorical as the "tough on crime" became a popular policy position right after the civil rights era

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Well I wasn't arguing for the virtues of tough on crime policies as sensible solutions to violent crime. I was just saying Joe Biden has a demonstrated record of serious deficiencies in policy foresight.

 

[Cor]

This is 20/20 hindsight thinking at its worst. This was not an association that was in any way possible to catch until violent crime rates started dropping decades after leaded gas was banned. There was no way for people in the 1980s/1990s to make the connection because the drop didn't start happening until the late 90s.

They could not act on this information. It's ridiculous to pretend that they could.

You're not empathetic to black leaders seeing a massive upsurge in violence in their communities desperate for a solution?

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This is only 20/20 hindsight if criminologists and academia were backing up tuff on crime approach. If they werent, which is probably the case because brazilian criminologists in the 80's *sure as fuck* werent, then its just another case of ignoring the experts to go along with whatever the fuck's easier and popular.

And thus i wonder what prominent US criminologists thought of that approach back then.