It may have been a shitty policy, but it was shitty policy black leaders, supported by the black population, agreed with, to start with.
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“Tough on Crime” Makes No Sense — Unless You Understand the History of Crime (Mother Jones)
- Thread starter Kirblar
- Start date
It may have been a shitty policy, but it was shitty policy black leaders, supported by the black population, agreed with, to start with.
It's not implausible at all to think that they could have caught it earlier. Sure, it's not a foregone conclusion, but that doesn't really make a difference to the central argument of my post. I talk about how empathy should be there for all the victims as well, for everyone, and how it's even more abhorrent that they decided to be tough on crime instead of focusing on mental help and rehabilitation, if some of these people were poisoned. The "this is even more justification" obviously wasn't solely referring to the "could have caught it earlier", so focusing purely on that aspect is discussing in bad faith really.
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Yes, he explains why it happened. There was a violent crime epidemic. People got (rightfully) scared and politicians responded. It made sense back then. However, being tough on crime does not make sense now. Crime rates have dropped, because there is less lead poisoning (it is still around though and that should be fixed). So we should abandon the tough on crime approach/legislation.
I can't help but feel like this is an attempt to inoculate some politicans from some bad decisions. Lots of black people were opposed to those laws at that time. People were asking for jobs and help not to have their kids do life in prison. Here
Some people got rightfully scared. A lot of other people got scared, but not rightfully.
She's rolling in her grave. Some people are old enough to remember when MoJo was progressive!
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In Bernie's defense, he criticized the bill before voting for it because of the Violence Against Women Act. Also, he also said that the bill's tough on crime laws weren't the right solution.
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It's been used as a cudgel for the past 3-4 years. It's a really dumb argument to be having instead of focusing on what policies should be now.
If you think the article is an argument for a continuation of "Tough on Crime" you haven't read the article.
The central argument for your post, as I understand it, is that the public response in the 80s and 90s to upticks in violent crime fueled by widespread lead poisoning should not have been with tough on crime policies but with mental health treatment services. Assuming that's right, my point (and I think the point Kirblar was making too) is that nobody knew at the time that the violent crime was caused by lead poisoning. There wasn't empathy for victims of lead poisoning because it wasn't known that that's what was happening in the first place. Why would you prescribe mental health rehabilitation services if, as far as people knew then, the problem had nothing to do with mental health? The lead link was discovered after the fact, many years later, not in the moment.
Well it's not a line item vote.
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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This is the closing of the article:
This is not an argument for a simple continuation of the status quo.
Yeah this was basically my reaction when I read this article.
✔️ Crime wave was real.
✔️ Lead-crime link is real and hard to know at the time.
❓ Tough on crime was a desperate play.
Personally, I say tough on crime was unjust then and hideously unjust to maintain now. So I figure I can sort of forgive someone for supporting it then only if they're real remorseful about how it played out and committed to undoing it.
For the reason I stated in the post your quoted: for the Violence Against Women Act.
If Biden still thinks the bill is great, then how does this make excuses for him, when they are clearly saying the bill is not great?
Again, I'm not saying that it is. I'm saying it's an attempt to paint the 1994 crime bill as the right choice at the time because of a theory which is completely unprovable, and is actually pretty gross because it tries to hand-wave the actual social causes of crime and blame biological ones.
See above.
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I have a lot of objections actually, that would be a very major one which we can discuss if you'd like.
Biden still stands by the bill so it's fair game to criticize him for it. Also I don't think the lives and communities that his bill destroyed are all thinking "well that's in the past now".
seriously am I taking crazy pills or is someone trying to dismiss my argument because I think using biology to explain criminality is a practice which should have died in the 19th century
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I mean, if you can look at the link between de-leading and violent crime reductions starting ~20 years from that date in multiple countries, cities with iron pipes having lower violent crime rates than ones with lead ones, that lead poisoning causes brain damage to parts of the brain responsible for judgement and impulse control, along with many other studies and come away from this going "Nah, it's all wrong because it challenges my pet theory" I don't think there's much of a discussion to be had.
The theory is not saying that lead is the only cause of crime. It's saying that it's a massive contributor to the uptick in crime we've seen across the board, especially once leaded-gas run cars and urbanization combined to pump massive amounts of lead into the air. You will still have crime in any place. The argument is that you'll get more crime than you would normally if that place has lead pipes.
You are making a link with empathy for victims of lead poisoning specifically, where I was talking about victims of the tough on crime laws, both innocent and guilty. The addition of lead poisoning only serves to strengthen the ethical stance of a focus on rehabilitation and mental health when dealing with crime, because it further removes intent and control from even guilty criminals. Being tough on crime withpeople who are more aggressive because of lead poisoning (assuming that this is true) is worse than being tough on crime with people who are not poisoned. This, compared to looking at "tough on crime" laws without taking lead poisoning in consideration.
In the end, the entire link between "not knowing about lead poisoning" and "therefore it was pointless" is completely imaginary. See this part:
This quote from the article sort of reveals the intent to at least defend the legislation and/or the legislators in some way. The first claim is that the legislation was horrific because it was pointless, and then it continues on to say that "we know now" that the crime wave was caused by lead poisoning. Clearly implying that if it wasn't for the lead poisoning, that it wouldn't be as horrific, when it's the other way around. There's a clear implication here, and the implication is the other way around. So the implication is at least insincere, you can feel the bias, because if you don't have that bias, you would notice that it's reversed.
Except it's not arguing it as the "right choice."
It's explaining to young liberals and leftists why the law was passed, beyond the usual "they just want to throw non-white people in jail."
Next time you could just say "I don't understand correlation vs causation" and save yourself the trouble.
Also the idea that social causes are at the root of most crime is not my "pet theory", it's a longstanding academic belief supported by decades of studies. You know, actual studies, not crank junk science like the lead theory.
Starting to read this, but boy the opening paragraph does not give me a lotta hope
Isn't the lead thing still a hypothesis? Not that I don't believe it, I'm just curious if there is now a consensus among the scientific community.
By using an unprovable theory which excuses the brutalisation of an entire generation of young black men to show that they just really felt like they were doing the right thing.
There is not consensus, it's never been studied and it never will because it would involve poisoning people for decades to reach a conclusion.
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When the correlation repeats itself over and over and over in completely different contexts and time periods, at a certain point you can draw causation when the evidence gets overwhelming. "Correlation is not causation" is a caution, not a hard rule.
Yes, I think even if there is a sort of justifiable reason for the crime bill's existence beyond just white people hating black people, it fits into a history of Joe Biden supporting or writing policies that were seemingly well-intentioned at the time but ended up having disastrous consequences over the long term. Like the Iraq War. Like the bankruptcy bill. And even more irritating than his support for things like the crime or bankruptcy bills at the time are his doubling down on them today!
His refusal to apologize or reflect on their failings may be better for him politically — certainly Hillary Clinton did not win any goodwill for acknowledging past mistakes or growing from them — but it's not exactly the quality I'm looking for in a candidate.
You literally just explained why social causes is a more rational explanation than lead.
This is a tiny bit ahistorical as the "tough on crime" became a popular policy position right after the civil rights era
Have you considered the social issues may be the root of much crime, but lead poisoning caused a jump in crime that allowed severe tough on crime policies pass with the support of people who'd otherwise never back them? If we'd stayed at 1960 levels of crime (as we're getting close to getting back too), moderates never would've signed on to tough on crime bills, because they wouldn't have constituents throwing insane crime stats back at them.
Except there's been the same increase and drop in crime, everywhere, connected to lead levels, regardless of the social issues in an area.
Not everything is because people are poor.
I don't disagree with your larger point but I don't know that it's never been studied: https://twitter.com/IronEconomist/status/1137349749831536641
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Crime Level X - The crime level that happens because of various social causes, greed, whatever. Can be increased or deceased through various policies and better or worse economic times.
Crime Level X + Y - The crime level that happens because of all of the above + lead poisoning.
In America, crime level X leads to the situation we're currently in - where even some conservatives are supporting criminal justice reform because crime is low enough there's no argument for tough on crime policies outside of Boomers who see only Fox News and local news stories.
But, also, crime level Y leads to even moderates supporting tough on crime legislation, because conservative extremists can run just on tough on crime and win, because people are (correctly) that worried about things.
The other issue, is thanks to availability of guns and other things, our crime level was already higher than Europe, so even though both Europe & the US had a crime wave during the 60's-80's, there was never quite as much of a backlash in Europe.
Crime Level X - The crime level that happens because of various social causes, greed, whatever. Can be increased or deceased through various policies and better or worse economic times.
Crime Level X + Y - The crime level that happens because of all of the above + lead poisoning.
In America, crime level X leads to the situation we're currently in - where even some conservatives are supporting criminal justice reform because crime is low enough there's no argument for tough on crime policies outside of Boomers who see only Fox News and local news stories.
But, also, crime level Y leads to even moderates supporting tough on crime legislation, because conservative extremists can run just on tough on crime and win, because people are (correctly) that worried about things.
The other issue, is thanks to availability of guns and other things, our crime level was already higher than Europe, so even though both Europe & the US had a crime wave during the 60's-80's, there was never quite as much of a backlash in Europe.
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 no such thing. The idea that it's "rational" to ignore countless studies on the topic is absolutely ridiculous. The argument is not that lead is the primary originator of crime, it's that it's a force multiplier.
I'm gonna link a thread from a few weeks ago on the topic that was able to examine this from another fresh angle - https://www.resetera.com/threads/st...ntion-actively-reduces-behavior-rates.121785/
And the takeaways/implications from this one are big, because it strongly suggests that
a) our "safe" lead levels aren't ok in the slightest
b) active intervention to lead-exposed kids results in significant positive improvements in behavior down the line
This suggests that we need to be much more aggressive in preventing and treating lead exposure than we currently are. This is actually something Castro's proposed this cycle.
I was born in 92 but I had family that lived in Manhattan in the late 80's early 90's so lemme just say this.
Fresh off the boat polish immigrants with very little money were able to afford to live in Manhattan a few blocks from Times Square.
Cities were R O U G H.
Yes I'm sure 1960s """moderates""" would've suddenly done a 180 on racism because facts proved them wrong.
Okay while I understand the correlation between exposure to lead and crime rates, but the author doesn't make a convincing argument (and admits as much) that can explain that worldwide crime rates have been dropping since the turn of the millennia/century, and that you can't really explain that using lead levels
It also fails to really paint a point that the crime bill was a necessity/obligatory and that black people for the most part supported it. Someone else linked a counter point article exploring that line of thought.
Lastly, framing radical criminal justice/policing theory as thing black leftists discovered in the past five years is disingenuous as hell.
It also fails to really paint a point that the crime bill was a necessity/obligatory and that black people for the most part supported it. Someone else linked a counter point article exploring that line of thought.
Lastly, framing radical criminal justice/policing theory as thing black leftists discovered in the past five years is disingenuous as hell.
Reading this really soured my view on the MJ article. That one seemed to suggest that the black community was onboard with the crime bill. How can you distill this:
NYT said:
to this?
MJ said:
No single variable will explain crime rates because crime is an incredibly complex phenomenon.
The vast majority of African Americans aren't black leftists. There were radical criminal justice supporters in 1994, absolutely. They just had no political power at all. Hell, today, 60%+ of African Americans want more police in their neighborhood.
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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That goes back to the original Nevin study . Other countries that deleaded gas saw the same dropoff pattern we did starting two decades later. But it hasn't been a universal even pattern because different countries did this at different times- central America didn't fully de-lead gas until the turn of the millenium.
Nixon and his advisors were the pioneers of that shit and it was most definitely rooted in racism
Definitely a reactionary to the civil rights era and coincided with the complete deindustrialization of black communities
It was rooted in racism, but it also wouldn't have worked if there wasn't evidence on the ground. There's a reason why the same scare mongering about Baltimore & Chicago falling apart because of cities doesn't advance much beyond the hardcore 30-40% base of Republicans - because even slightly racist white people can look around and notice things seem pretty safe in most of America.