#135 Eggplant:
While it was some years ago, before the Department of Justice became “the Peoples’ Ministry of Justice and Retribution”, there was a study of the costs of career criminals -vs- the costs of incarceration. Depending on security levels [A Minimum or Community classification inmate is cheaper to incarcerate than an Administrative Segregation Maximum inmate, largely because of the ultimate driver of all operational costs, staffing levels. While the capital costs of building and maintaining a facility are large, they are one-time costs that are minimal over the life cycle of the facility] it costs between roughly $20k to $90k a year per inmate depending on the security classification in that range, with variations in local costs of living being allowed for.
The higher security classifications, by the way, are not assigned randomly. There are national standards, enforced by the courts, on inmate classifications. To get into Administrative Segregation-Maximum; functionally you have to have repeatedly posed a) a serious escape risk, b) repeatedly committed felony level crimes within the prison system, or c) pose an active risk to the safety and lives of staff or other inmates. All of this has to be documented to a fair-thee-well in formal hearings available to the courts. There is no “throw them in the hole” because someone says so. They earn their way in and out of higher classifications.
Sounds like a lot. Until you look at the other side of the equation.
Most crimes are not “one-offs”. They are part of the ongoing series committed by someone who has adopted a criminal lifestyle as his/her norm. It may be robbery, theft, burglary, rape, child molestation, drug dealing, fraud, or whatever. But someone, say does not go out and commit a single armed robbery or child molestation during their life out of nowhere. As I have said before, 80% of the crimes are committed by 5% of the criminals.
The DOJ added up all the costs to the public of the acts of a career criminal over a year. Not only direct costs such as stolen property, but also medical costs, mental health costs, added insurance costs [in a high crime area, EVERYONE pays higher premiums], the additional costs of policing and other life safety services over the norm, additional court costs, higher costs of doing business in high crime areas, etc. In purely monetary costs, a career criminal costs society over $550k a year. That is not counting the psychological costs [psychological damage to rape and molestation victims akin to PTSD, the equivalent for victims of other violent crimes, fear of being able to go out and about in one's own community,etc.].
However, the costs of having criminals out and preying on people are distributed over the plebians and the politicians of the Left can ignore it. They are safe in their gated communities.
At to why they advocating releasing criminals [and repeat offenders are just the ones who make up that 5%] I have a theory. It is not a politically correct theory. But it matches certain data points.
I do not know how many of you have dealt with clinically sociopathic/psychopathic personality types up close and personal on a long term basis. I will bet that pretty much everyone has, in passing, for statistical reasons I will go into below.
After catching someone doing something in violation of the local Revised Statutes, if the first thing out of their mouth is, “You only busted me because I’m [insert Federally protected class of choice here]!”; it means you have them. It is just a matter of finding the proof. After all that and you have them well and truly caught and the evidence in hand, however, regardless of protected class status; if you engage them in conversation you can guarantee that they will say something to the effect that it is not fair, because you [the cop] are just the same as them, and you [the cop] just haven’t been caught yet. Anyone else in the field care to confirm or deny?
They truly and consistently believe that. That everyone is a criminal, and it is just because of the unfair breaks and prejudice that they got caught. That they really are just like us and we like them.
Now let us look at the attitudes of the Democrats and the few that are farther to the traditional “Left” than they are. When dealing with criminals, they view them as victims of chance, that they are “just like us”, and there for the grace of Gaia, Lysenko, or the Lightworker, go all of us.
Anyone else see a parallel there?
I will toss out some other statistics, knowing that someone will comment about the possible fraudulent use of statistics. It is pretty much a given in demographics that 3% of any statistically significant population group is sociopathic or psychopathic. They are the “lunatic fringe” in common parlance. My humble little home, Colorado, has a population of about 5 million right now. That means we have about 150k sociopaths and psychopaths who are likely to think like those criminals.
Counting all prisons, county jails, and mental hospitals; we have maybe 30-40k people locked up in one form or another.
That leaves maybe 110k of them running around loose. For whom the rules of our society do not apply, as far as they are concerned. This difference has some implication.
I offer the “standard distribution curve” aka the bell curve that applies to most statistical analysis. That includes the range of abilities within that 150k.
If we are only locking up 30-40k out of 150k; would it not be reasonable to assume that we are catching the slow and stupid ones? The left hand side of the bell curve. Where does that leave the rest?
Would it not be within the realm of consideration that a group of people who are arrogant, self-centered, amoral, and who operate outside the rules as a matter of course in combination with abilities on the right hand side of the bell curve; would end up running things like a certain political class we know? And maybe would reflexively advocate policies that would benefit themselves and their fellow 3%?
Not quite QED, but something to think about.
Subotai Bahadur
