Breakdown In Civil Order

[TSwizzle]

Near my neck of the woods;

A man who is now in custody was arrested three times within 16 hours Sunday in Glendale.
due to L.A. County’s emergency “Zero-Dollar” bail order, Langdon was released from custody within three hours of being booked with a notice to appear in court at a later date, the department said. A few hours after Langdon was released, just before 7 p.m., officers responded to an apartment building on the 600 block of Balboa Avenue regarding a burglary that had just occurred.
After further investigation, officers discovered Langdon caused an estimated $6,000 in property damage to the victim’s apartment and to the apartment complex, the news release states. Langdon was arrested and booked on suspicion of burglary and felony vandalism. He remained in custody on $150,000 bail as of Thursday morning.

KTLA News

This is part of the chronic "homeless" problem in Los Angeles. And by "homeless" what is really meant is a raging substance abuse addiction problem or crazy person.

 

[bilby]

If you believe that it is meaningful to make crimes unlawful but not punished, then provide an example...

I do not believe that, and I don't have a clue why you imagine that I might.

 

[bilby]

The vast majority of us do not DUI and exceed the speed limit because we know it will affect cost of insurance. Most of us pay bills on time because we know it affects our credit score.

Neither of these are motivators for anyone in my jurisdiction, because neither consequence is an issue here. Insurance costs are determined by at-fault crash history, not traffic offences; And despite a recent push by credit rating organisations to change it, credit ratings are really not a thing. I don't know what my credit rating is, nor have I ever knowingly been in a situation where it mattered.

The idiosyncrasies of your homeland are not universal truths.

 

[Trausti]

I'm a bit concerned that you think you're just as likely to rape someone as a convicted rapist is... that you're just as likely to molest a child as a child molester is... that you're just as likely to murder someone as a convicted murderer is.

Just as likely? Given identical circumstances, yes.

Though obviously my actual circumstances, like yours, are very different from those of the people who actually perpetrated those crimes.

The question is how to modify their circumstances such that they too feel aghast at the very idea that they might do those things.

The blank slate is so bizarre. Absolutely bizarre.

 

[Trausti]

Recently a guy driving a stolen car crashed through police cars and escaped. Per the new state laws it did not meet the requirement for hot police pursuit and police let him get away.

Reduce consequences for crime and people will exploit it.

When we incentivize crime, we get more crime. I'm shocked.

 

[bilby]

Recently a guy driving a stolen car crashed through police cars and escaped. Per the new state laws it did not meet the requirement for hot police pursuit and police let him get away.

Reduce consequences for crime and people will exploit it.

When we incentivize crime, we get more crime. I'm shocked.

When we accept irrelevant anecdotes as though they were evidence of things we want to believe, our beliefs are reinforced and feel even more true. I'm shocked.

 

[Trausti]

Recently a guy driving a stolen car crashed through police cars and escaped. Per the new state laws it did not meet the requirement for hot police pursuit and police let him get away.

Reduce consequences for crime and people will exploit it.

When we incentivize crime, we get more crime. I'm shocked.

When we accept irrelevant anecdotes as though they were evidence of things we want to believe, our beliefs are reinforced and feel even more true. I'm shocked.

You don’t think you get more of what you incentivize? Your world is peculiar.

 

[bilby]

Recently a guy driving a stolen car crashed through police cars and escaped. Per the new state laws it did not meet the requirement for hot police pursuit and police let him get away.

Reduce consequences for crime and people will exploit it.

When we incentivize crime, we get more crime. I'm shocked.

When we accept irrelevant anecdotes as though they were evidence of things we want to believe, our beliefs are reinforced and feel even more true. I'm shocked.

You don’t think you get more of what you incentivize? Your world is peculiar.

I don't think that laws to eliminate police pursuits that do more harm than good incentivise crime.

And if you want truly peculiar beliefs, just imagine a person who believes that criminality is an inherent character trait (rather than a result of circumstances), while living in a world where criminals were sent to an isolated continent for a century, and yet that continent now has very low crime levels.

Or someone foolish enough to believe simultaneously that crime is a character trait and not circumstantial; And that crime can be incentivised (or de-incentivised) by the passing of laws.

That's a truly bizarre set of beliefs.

 

[Trausti]

Recently a guy driving a stolen car crashed through police cars and escaped. Per the new state laws it did not meet the requirement for hot police pursuit and police let him get away.

Reduce consequences for crime and people will exploit it.

When we incentivize crime, we get more crime. I'm shocked.

When we accept irrelevant anecdotes as though they were evidence of things we want to believe, our beliefs are reinforced and feel even more true. I'm shocked.

You don’t think you get more of what you incentivize? Your world is peculiar.

I don't think that laws to eliminate police pursuits that do more harm than good incentivise crime.

And if you want truly peculiar beliefs, just imagine a person who believes that criminality is an inherent character trait (rather than a result of circumstances), while living in a world where criminals were sent to an isolated continent for a century, and yet that continent now has very low crime levels.

Or someone foolish enough to believe simultaneously that crime is a character trait and not circumstantial; And that crime can be incentivised (or de-incentivised) by the passing of laws.

That's a truly bizarre set of beliefs.

Dude, you wrote that the only reason you haven’t yet raped and killed a child is circumstance. If you really believe that, stay far away from my children (and all children).

 

[bilby]

Recently a guy driving a stolen car crashed through police cars and escaped. Per the new state laws it did not meet the requirement for hot police pursuit and police let him get away.

Reduce consequences for crime and people will exploit it.

When we incentivize crime, we get more crime. I'm shocked.

When we accept irrelevant anecdotes as though they were evidence of things we want to believe, our beliefs are reinforced and feel even more true. I'm shocked.

You don’t think you get more of what you incentivize? Your world is peculiar.

I don't think that laws to eliminate police pursuits that do more harm than good incentivise crime.

And if you want truly peculiar beliefs, just imagine a person who believes that criminality is an inherent character trait (rather than a result of circumstances), while living in a world where criminals were sent to an isolated continent for a century, and yet that continent now has very low crime levels.

Or someone foolish enough to believe simultaneously that crime is a character trait and not circumstantial; And that crime can be incentivised (or de-incentivised) by the passing of laws.

That's a truly bizarre set of beliefs.

Dude, you wrote that the only reason you haven’t yet raped and killed a child is circumstance. If you really believe that, stay far away from my children (and all children).

Do you have a point, or are you now just randomly spewing emotional triggers to conceal the fact that you don't?

Perhaps you missed the point that not only do I believe that the only reason I haven't killed and raped a child yet is circumstance; I also believe that the only reason YOU haven't is also circumstance.

Perhaps you too should stay far away from your children.

Or maybe it would be better for you to think seriously about the circumstances that lead people to harm children, and seek to prevent those circumstances from arising. But that would require mental effort on your part, so I shalln't hold my breath.

Your argument is indistinguishable from the old religious saw that "without God, what is stopping me from killing and raping all I want?" Well, there is no God, and there is no inherent character trait of "criminality".

So perhaps it would be useful to step beyond the rhetorical, and seriously ask what is actually stopping me from wanting to kill or rape, and how we can make that lack of desire to do those things apply to everyone.

Or we could just pretend that crime is only committed by "evil" people, and that therefore we need do nothing to prevent crime other than identifying the "bad guys" and removing them from society. No real effort needed for that, other than to ignore the mountain of evidence that it's nonsense.

And deliberately ignoring evidence is easy - look, you're doing it right now!

 

[Enigma]

If you believe that it is meaningful to make crimes unlawful but not punished, then provide an example...

I do not believe that, and I don't have a clue why you imagine that I might.

I am trying to determine what exactly is the objection you have to legalizing armed robbery, arson, rape, and murder, given your previous statements.

If performing such actions is determined entirely by circumstances (which you have argued) and those circumstances are not significantly modified by the threat of punishment from the criminal justice system (which you have also argued), then what exactly do you believe making those things illegal accomplishes other than arbitrarily punishing people purely due to circumstances?

I know what I believe it does, and thus what my objection would be to legalizing those acts would be. However, given that I don't believe the first two premises that you have argued for in the above statement are correct, my answer to that question won't work for your stated position.

One possibility to answer the above question given the above premises is that things being illegal somehow modifies circumstances in a way that does not depend on punishment. Hence why I asked. Apparently it's not. 1 question down.

If you would like me to not resort to 20 questions to determine your position and nail down the logical implications thereof, then kindly answer my inquiries about your position instead of going on a tangent about how retribution is bad.

 

[Trausti]

Recently a guy driving a stolen car crashed through police cars and escaped. Per the new state laws it did not meet the requirement for hot police pursuit and police let him get away.

Reduce consequences for crime and people will exploit it.

When we incentivize crime, we get more crime. I'm shocked.

When we accept irrelevant anecdotes as though they were evidence of things we want to believe, our beliefs are reinforced and feel even more true. I'm shocked.

You don’t think you get more of what you incentivize? Your world is peculiar.

I don't think that laws to eliminate police pursuits that do more harm than good incentivise crime.

And if you want truly peculiar beliefs, just imagine a person who believes that criminality is an inherent character trait (rather than a result of circumstances), while living in a world where criminals were sent to an isolated continent for a century, and yet that continent now has very low crime levels.

Or someone foolish enough to believe simultaneously that crime is a character trait and not circumstantial; And that crime can be incentivised (or de-incentivised) by the passing of laws.

That's a truly bizarre set of beliefs.

Dude, you wrote that the only reason you haven’t yet raped and killed a child is circumstance. If you really believe that, stay far away from my children (and all children).

Do you have a point, or are you now just randomly spewing emotional triggers to conceal the fact that you don't?

Perhaps you missed the point that not only do I believe that the only reason I haven't killed and raped a child yet is circumstance; I also believe that the only reason YOU haven't is also circumstance.

Perhaps you too should stay far away from your children.

Or maybe it would be better for you to think seriously about the circumstances that lead people to harm children, and seek to prevent those circumstances from arising. But that would require mental effort on your part, so I shalln't hold my breath.

Your argument is indistinguishable from the old religious saw that "without God, what is stopping me from killing and raping all I want?" Well, there is no God, and there is no inherent character trait of "criminality".

So perhaps it would be useful to step beyond the rhetorical, and seriously ask what is actually stopping me from wanting to kill or rape, and how we can make that lack of desire to do those things apply to everyone.

Or we could just pretend that crime is only committed by "evil" people, and that therefore we need do nothing to prevent crime other than identifying the "bad guys" and removing them from society. No real effort needed for that, other than to ignore the mountain of evidence that it's nonsense.

And deliberately ignoring evidence is easy - look, you're doing it right now!

Would be interested if any other member of this board feels that, but for circumstance, they'd be a child rapist. Suspect that you're the only one Bilby. That you openly admit to having this proclivity is kinda frightening.

Anyhoo, it's your fealty to blank slate which draws the criticism. For example,

The 1 % of the population accountable for 63 % of all violent crime convictions

Population-based studies on violent crime and background factors may provide an understanding of the relationships between susceptibility factors and crime. We aimed to determine the distribution of violent crime convictions in the Swedish population ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Criminals, especially violent criminals, engage in crime because that's who they are. Humanity has know this since forever; The Scorpion and the Frog and all that. A psychopath is a psychopath. No denial of nature is gonna change that.

 

[bilby]

Recently a guy driving a stolen car crashed through police cars and escaped. Per the new state laws it did not meet the requirement for hot police pursuit and police let him get away.

Reduce consequences for crime and people will exploit it.

When we incentivize crime, we get more crime. I'm shocked.

When we accept irrelevant anecdotes as though they were evidence of things we want to believe, our beliefs are reinforced and feel even more true. I'm shocked.

You don’t think you get more of what you incentivize? Your world is peculiar.

I don't think that laws to eliminate police pursuits that do more harm than good incentivise crime.

And if you want truly peculiar beliefs, just imagine a person who believes that criminality is an inherent character trait (rather than a result of circumstances), while living in a world where criminals were sent to an isolated continent for a century, and yet that continent now has very low crime levels.

Or someone foolish enough to believe simultaneously that crime is a character trait and not circumstantial; And that crime can be incentivised (or de-incentivised) by the passing of laws.

That's a truly bizarre set of beliefs.

Dude, you wrote that the only reason you haven’t yet raped and killed a child is circumstance. If you really believe that, stay far away from my children (and all children).

Do you have a point, or are you now just randomly spewing emotional triggers to conceal the fact that you don't?

Perhaps you missed the point that not only do I believe that the only reason I haven't killed and raped a child yet is circumstance; I also believe that the only reason YOU haven't is also circumstance.

Perhaps you too should stay far away from your children.

Or maybe it would be better for you to think seriously about the circumstances that lead people to harm children, and seek to prevent those circumstances from arising. But that would require mental effort on your part, so I shalln't hold my breath.

Your argument is indistinguishable from the old religious saw that "without God, what is stopping me from killing and raping all I want?" Well, there is no God, and there is no inherent character trait of "criminality".

So perhaps it would be useful to step beyond the rhetorical, and seriously ask what is actually stopping me from wanting to kill or rape, and how we can make that lack of desire to do those things apply to everyone.

Or we could just pretend that crime is only committed by "evil" people, and that therefore we need do nothing to prevent crime other than identifying the "bad guys" and removing them from society. No real effort needed for that, other than to ignore the mountain of evidence that it's nonsense.

And deliberately ignoring evidence is easy - look, you're doing it right now!

Would be interested if any other member of this board feels that, but for circumstance, they'd be a child rapist. Suspect that you're the only one Bilby. That you openly admit to having this proclivity is kinda frightening.

Anyhoo, it's your fealty to blank slate which draws the criticism. For example,

The 1 % of the population accountable for 63 % of all violent crime convictions

Population-based studies on violent crime and background factors may provide an understanding of the relationships between susceptibility factors and crime. We aimed to determine the distribution of violent crime convictions in the Swedish population ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Criminals, especially violent criminals, engage in crime because that's who they are. Humanity has know this since forever; The Scorpion and the Frog and all that. A psychopath is a psychopath. No denial of nature is gonna change that.

If you were correct, then Australia would have a far higher crime rate than any other developed world nation.

It doesn't.

So you aren't.

And psychopathy is a mental illness. It needs treatment in a secure hospital, not punishment through the legal system. It's also very rare, in comparison to mere violent crime.

Conflating psychopathy with criminality isn't helpful, they're unrelated problems with a small similarity in symptoms.

You might as well say that brain tumours are not responsive to Tylenol, so headaches cannot be treated.

Psychopaths might be criminals, but criminals are rarely psychopaths.

 

[Trausti]

Recently a guy driving a stolen car crashed through police cars and escaped. Per the new state laws it did not meet the requirement for hot police pursuit and police let him get away.

Reduce consequences for crime and people will exploit it.

When we incentivize crime, we get more crime. I'm shocked.

When we accept irrelevant anecdotes as though they were evidence of things we want to believe, our beliefs are reinforced and feel even more true. I'm shocked.

You don’t think you get more of what you incentivize? Your world is peculiar.

I don't think that laws to eliminate police pursuits that do more harm than good incentivise crime.

And if you want truly peculiar beliefs, just imagine a person who believes that criminality is an inherent character trait (rather than a result of circumstances), while living in a world where criminals were sent to an isolated continent for a century, and yet that continent now has very low crime levels.

Or someone foolish enough to believe simultaneously that crime is a character trait and not circumstantial; And that crime can be incentivised (or de-incentivised) by the passing of laws.

That's a truly bizarre set of beliefs.

Dude, you wrote that the only reason you haven’t yet raped and killed a child is circumstance. If you really believe that, stay far away from my children (and all children).

Do you have a point, or are you now just randomly spewing emotional triggers to conceal the fact that you don't?

Perhaps you missed the point that not only do I believe that the only reason I haven't killed and raped a child yet is circumstance; I also believe that the only reason YOU haven't is also circumstance.

Perhaps you too should stay far away from your children.

Or maybe it would be better for you to think seriously about the circumstances that lead people to harm children, and seek to prevent those circumstances from arising. But that would require mental effort on your part, so I shalln't hold my breath.

Your argument is indistinguishable from the old religious saw that "without God, what is stopping me from killing and raping all I want?" Well, there is no God, and there is no inherent character trait of "criminality".

So perhaps it would be useful to step beyond the rhetorical, and seriously ask what is actually stopping me from wanting to kill or rape, and how we can make that lack of desire to do those things apply to everyone.

Or we could just pretend that crime is only committed by "evil" people, and that therefore we need do nothing to prevent crime other than identifying the "bad guys" and removing them from society. No real effort needed for that, other than to ignore the mountain of evidence that it's nonsense.

And deliberately ignoring evidence is easy - look, you're doing it right now!

Would be interested if any other member of this board feels that, but for circumstance, they'd be a child rapist. Suspect that you're the only one Bilby. That you openly admit to having this proclivity is kinda frightening.

Anyhoo, it's your fealty to blank slate which draws the criticism. For example,

The 1 % of the population accountable for 63 % of all violent crime convictions

Population-based studies on violent crime and background factors may provide an understanding of the relationships between susceptibility factors and crime. We aimed to determine the distribution of violent crime convictions in the Swedish population ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Criminals, especially violent criminals, engage in crime because that's who they are. Humanity has know this since forever; The Scorpion and the Frog and all that. A psychopath is a psychopath. No denial of nature is gonna change that.

If you were correct, then Australia would have a far higher crime rate than any other developed world nation.

It doesn't.

So you aren't.

Well, now you're being silly. You know that transportation to Australia was for petty crimes, not murders and rapes.

 

[bilby]

Recently a guy driving a stolen car crashed through police cars and escaped. Per the new state laws it did not meet the requirement for hot police pursuit and police let him get away.

Reduce consequences for crime and people will exploit it.

When we incentivize crime, we get more crime. I'm shocked.

When we accept irrelevant anecdotes as though they were evidence of things we want to believe, our beliefs are reinforced and feel even more true. I'm shocked.

You don’t think you get more of what you incentivize? Your world is peculiar.

I don't think that laws to eliminate police pursuits that do more harm than good incentivise crime.

And if you want truly peculiar beliefs, just imagine a person who believes that criminality is an inherent character trait (rather than a result of circumstances), while living in a world where criminals were sent to an isolated continent for a century, and yet that continent now has very low crime levels.

Or someone foolish enough to believe simultaneously that crime is a character trait and not circumstantial; And that crime can be incentivised (or de-incentivised) by the passing of laws.

That's a truly bizarre set of beliefs.

Dude, you wrote that the only reason you haven’t yet raped and killed a child is circumstance. If you really believe that, stay far away from my children (and all children).

Do you have a point, or are you now just randomly spewing emotional triggers to conceal the fact that you don't?

Perhaps you missed the point that not only do I believe that the only reason I haven't killed and raped a child yet is circumstance; I also believe that the only reason YOU haven't is also circumstance.

Perhaps you too should stay far away from your children.

Or maybe it would be better for you to think seriously about the circumstances that lead people to harm children, and seek to prevent those circumstances from arising. But that would require mental effort on your part, so I shalln't hold my breath.

Your argument is indistinguishable from the old religious saw that "without God, what is stopping me from killing and raping all I want?" Well, there is no God, and there is no inherent character trait of "criminality".

So perhaps it would be useful to step beyond the rhetorical, and seriously ask what is actually stopping me from wanting to kill or rape, and how we can make that lack of desire to do those things apply to everyone.

Or we could just pretend that crime is only committed by "evil" people, and that therefore we need do nothing to prevent crime other than identifying the "bad guys" and removing them from society. No real effort needed for that, other than to ignore the mountain of evidence that it's nonsense.

And deliberately ignoring evidence is easy - look, you're doing it right now!

Would be interested if any other member of this board feels that, but for circumstance, they'd be a child rapist. Suspect that you're the only one Bilby. That you openly admit to having this proclivity is kinda frightening.

Anyhoo, it's your fealty to blank slate which draws the criticism. For example,

The 1 % of the population accountable for 63 % of all violent crime convictions

Population-based studies on violent crime and background factors may provide an understanding of the relationships between susceptibility factors and crime. We aimed to determine the distribution of violent crime convictions in the Swedish population ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Criminals, especially violent criminals, engage in crime because that's who they are. Humanity has know this since forever; The Scorpion and the Frog and all that. A psychopath is a psychopath. No denial of nature is gonna change that.

If you were correct, then Australia would have a far higher crime rate than any other developed world nation.

It doesn't.

So you aren't.

Well, now you're being silly. You know that transportation to Australia was for petty crimes, not murders and rapes.

Nah, that's just modern revisionism. Most transportees weren't petty criminals.

 

[Trausti]

Recently a guy driving a stolen car crashed through police cars and escaped. Per the new state laws it did not meet the requirement for hot police pursuit and police let him get away.

Reduce consequences for crime and people will exploit it.

When we incentivize crime, we get more crime. I'm shocked.

When we accept irrelevant anecdotes as though they were evidence of things we want to believe, our beliefs are reinforced and feel even more true. I'm shocked.

You don’t think you get more of what you incentivize? Your world is peculiar.

I don't think that laws to eliminate police pursuits that do more harm than good incentivise crime.

And if you want truly peculiar beliefs, just imagine a person who believes that criminality is an inherent character trait (rather than a result of circumstances), while living in a world where criminals were sent to an isolated continent for a century, and yet that continent now has very low crime levels.

Or someone foolish enough to believe simultaneously that crime is a character trait and not circumstantial; And that crime can be incentivised (or de-incentivised) by the passing of laws.

That's a truly bizarre set of beliefs.

Dude, you wrote that the only reason you haven’t yet raped and killed a child is circumstance. If you really believe that, stay far away from my children (and all children).

Do you have a point, or are you now just randomly spewing emotional triggers to conceal the fact that you don't?

Perhaps you missed the point that not only do I believe that the only reason I haven't killed and raped a child yet is circumstance; I also believe that the only reason YOU haven't is also circumstance.

Perhaps you too should stay far away from your children.

Or maybe it would be better for you to think seriously about the circumstances that lead people to harm children, and seek to prevent those circumstances from arising. But that would require mental effort on your part, so I shalln't hold my breath.

Your argument is indistinguishable from the old religious saw that "without God, what is stopping me from killing and raping all I want?" Well, there is no God, and there is no inherent character trait of "criminality".

So perhaps it would be useful to step beyond the rhetorical, and seriously ask what is actually stopping me from wanting to kill or rape, and how we can make that lack of desire to do those things apply to everyone.

Or we could just pretend that crime is only committed by "evil" people, and that therefore we need do nothing to prevent crime other than identifying the "bad guys" and removing them from society. No real effort needed for that, other than to ignore the mountain of evidence that it's nonsense.

And deliberately ignoring evidence is easy - look, you're doing it right now!

Would be interested if any other member of this board feels that, but for circumstance, they'd be a child rapist. Suspect that you're the only one Bilby. That you openly admit to having this proclivity is kinda frightening.

Anyhoo, it's your fealty to blank slate which draws the criticism. For example,

The 1 % of the population accountable for 63 % of all violent crime convictions

Population-based studies on violent crime and background factors may provide an understanding of the relationships between susceptibility factors and crime. We aimed to determine the distribution of violent crime convictions in the Swedish population ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Criminals, especially violent criminals, engage in crime because that's who they are. Humanity has know this since forever; The Scorpion and the Frog and all that. A psychopath is a psychopath. No denial of nature is gonna change that.

If you were correct, then Australia would have a far higher crime rate than any other developed world nation.

It doesn't.

So you aren't.

Well, now you're being silly. You know that transportation to Australia was for petty crimes, not murders and rapes.

Nah, that's just modern revisionism. Most transportees weren't petty criminals.

They weren't murderers or rapists, either. Pre-modern Britain had no issue dispensing capital punishment.

 

[Trausti]

Blank slate devotees, look away!

Biological explanations of criminal behavior

There is a growing literature on biological explanations of antisocial and criminal behavior. This paper provides a selective review of three specific biological factors – psychophysiology (with the focus on blunted heart rate and skin conductance), ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Trausti]

Blank slate acolytes are like Flat Earthers or creationists. Their denial of natural world - and that humans are part of the natural world - is bemusing.

Impact of Behavioral Genetic Evidence on the Adjudication of Criminal Behavior

Recent advances in behavioral genetics suggest a modest relationship among certain gene variants, early childhood experiences, and criminal behavior. Although scientific research examining this link is still at an early stage, genetic data are already ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Hermit]

Would be interested if any other member of this board feels that, but for circumstance, they'd be a child rapist.

For the vast majority of cases I agree. Most people are not born criminals or psychopaths, though. Their upbringing made them so.

And now we are back to your assertion that

...incarcerating criminals protects the public. These last few years of lax on crime policies makes that abundantly clear.

This is arrant nonsense. Empirical data show it to be so. You have based your assertion on data covering eight years. Classic case of cherry picking because those eight years were preceded by 18 years where crime rates and incarceration rates rose simultaneously, and another 10 years where crime rates rose significantly while incarceration rates remained almost unchanging before that. Given your assertion of harsher punishment reducing crime neither should have happened. If you were right, the trends shown in the graph below would be mirror images of each other, at least approximately so. That is not even remotely the case.

 

[Emily Lake]

Yeah, but that's because you believe that "violent criminal" is a class of unperson, rather than an action by a real human person.

STOP TELLING ME WHAT I BELIEVE.

You are wrong, completely wrong, and you are not a mind-reader. So screw off with your arrogant condescending assumptions about what I believe.