The Apollotics Blog

Hypotheses about the US Prison Situation

2009-05-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

Source: The Economist's Daily Chart

Today's daily chart ranks the top 14 countries by highest prison population, showing the US with by far the greatest population by total number and per 100,000 residents.

A lot of great commentary was provided on the site by readers, both American and non-American. I wanted to take a chance to pull out a bunch of interesting insights and hypotheses that might provide further explanation into why the numbers look the way they do...

The US has a violent society, a system of law enforcement that works, and several petty laws that punish victimless crimes. These three in concert make for a very busy prison system.

The US is a country that sends 14 year olds to life in jail; 18 year olds to the death penalty; and minor drug dealers to decades in jail.

America has a large industry in for-profit, private prison companies

A large percentage of inmates in America are mentally ill

Americans love politicians and judges who are tough on crime, regardless of the fact that they're often much tougher on victimless crime, like dealing or using drugs, than they are on people like Bernie Madoff, who stole billions.

Canada, whose standard of living and culture is very similar to that of the USA, has "only" 117 people in custody for every 100,000 population. (Source: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/263251) Canadian legal standards to secure a conviction are perhaps more stringent than American standards. At the same time, Canada has a social safety net that allows our unemployed to exist without necessarily having to resort to crime.
If a cop catches someone with a crack rock, they will get about 9 months in prison. So this hardens addicts into criminals. Once someone gets out of jail there is no chance of them getting certified as a lawyer, accountant, doctor, engineer, architect, or any other professional field that requires certification. Along with that, every job can look at their criminal record. So this acts as a life sentence.
African-Americans represent about 12-14% of the population, but about 50% of the prison population. Another interesting statistic is that 33% of African-American high school drop outs end up in prison.
If you examine the World Prison List (http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r188.pdf), you will find that the small countries of West Africa and Western Europe have the lowest percentage of incarcerations per 100,000 population. (Less than 100 per 100,000.) And, if you examine which people are incarcerated in most of these countries, you will find that they are new immigrants. Which should tell one that being part of a homogenous society, and knowing and sharing the values of your countrymen, will keep you from committing crimes.
Relative deprevation usually creates [envy]. Envy, bad social conditions, [and] racial discrimination, all contribute to elevate the crime rates, which naturally result[s] in a high level of imprisonments (due mainly to the good quality of the police enforcement and the effective judicial system).
In my opinion the problem is not merely the harsh laws enforced to fight drugs, but the length of the prison terms OVERALL, which tend to be much higher than for example in many European countries.
In China and Russia political dissent is viewed as a crime. In India police bribes for petty crimes like speeding is not uncommon and presumably there may be a similar attiture toward other prison-able crimes that are otherwise viewed as "victimless". In islamic countries Sharia law i.e. paedophila, domestic violence, etc. may go unpunished while crimes like robbery may be punished "on the spot" with the loss of a finger or other appendage. As for the U.S, in comparison to the Europeans, unfavourable social factors may play a role.

Evaluating Gun Control Policies on Merit

2009-05-04T17:30:00.000-07:00

CNN published an article today about an increasingly serious shortage of gun ammunition driven by gun owner hoarding, a behavior that is becoming increasingly common among gun owners anticipating new taxes and restrictions on guns and ammunition. The gun control debate's relevance has escalated recently as a result of increased school and drug-related border violence, and was further fueled Attorney General Eric Holder's response to a question in a late February news conference.

The Attorney General's comments put pro-2nd Amendment groups on the offensive, sending the Administration's press staff scrambling to figure out how to avoid the issue, initially skirting questions by insisting they had other more pressing priorities. Since then, as violence has escalated along the border, Obama has begun speaking openly in favor of the ban, and the NRA has increasingly marketed inflammatory stories to its members about how the federal government is trying to eliminate 2nd Amendment rights.

With last year's Supreme Court ruling in DC vs. Heller (click to read the opinions), which protected rights of citizens to carry handguns in our nation's capital (not to mention one of the most liberal areas in America), I've started to wonder why every discussion about the 2nd Amendment continues to incite such a terribly loud outcry.

After carefully reading the full set of opinions in DC vs. Heller, this appears to me like one of the most genuinely ambiguous constitutional issues in existence today. Both the majority and dissenting opinions appear to be written as though the case was decided prior to collection of any evidence. The evidence, arguments, and assumptions of both opposing views seem like 100% valid rationale for justifying the corresponding opinion.

This debate seems so difficult to resolve in a non-partisan, constitutionally-minded legal analysis that it may never yield a satisfactory and legally sound result, and subsequently exposes the court to dangerous levels of politicization if it decides to intervene every time the political composition of the court changes.

Given this reality, is it possible that this issue could or should be resolved outside of the courts? Should both sides of the debate stop trying to use the Constitution as an argument, and make a public policy decision based on best expected outcome?

Hate Groups Moving Left?

2009-04-30T08:34:00.000-07:00

A disturbing article in Newsweek raises a red flag about the surging popularity of extremist neo-nazi and KKK-style groups in America. The article cites a Southern Poverty Law Center study reporting 4% growth in the number of hate groups since 2007 and 54% since 2000. Newsweek also reports, though only based on anecdotal evidence, surging new membership requests with existing groups.

While disturbing, the trend should not be all that surprising given a faltering economy, the rapidly growing non-Caucasian/immigrant population, the election of a Black president, and most recently, the emergence of a Swine Flu pandemic originating from Mexico - which has put right wing radicals on offense. All these make great ammunition for victimizing oneself, a key common thread among most hate groups.

The new membership has been driven mainly by softening the image of these groups and changing the message.

Don Black, a 56-year-old former KKK grand wizard, says he no longer has any formal affiliation with the Klan because "it just got so demonized and attracted the wrong people; it just got to be impossible." But that doesn't mean he's given up the struggle. As the founder of Stormfront.org, he has the white-supremacist world at his fingertips, all from the comfort of his West Palm Beach, Fla., home. Last spring Black made it a policy for the site to "have no swastikas and Third Reich symbols to turn off first-time visitors."

As strange as it may sound, the article to me highlights an overall positive trend in American culture, suggesting that cultural acceptance of hate violence is actually moving in the right direction. If groups change their message and tactics, of course their audience changes, which is reflected in membership numbers. While the day-to-day trends of increased membership in hate groups are alarming, the fact that these groups had to change their strategy at all suggests they may be winning one battle in a losing war.

Should minorities be concerned? Of course. Reactionary politics will always have a place in our society. But, as long as people understand the difference between short-term and long term signals and their root causes, values of equality and justice will allow a more tolerant society to prevail in the long run.

Role Modeling Justice

2009-04-29T11:02:00.000-07:00

Today the civilian trial for Steven Green, the alleged mastermind and leader of a barbaric incident of violence conducted by US troops against Iraqi civilians, will begin in US District Court. Time Magazine has covered the incident extensively with early news coverage reporting the incident, news coverage of today's trial, a story about the victim, and commentary on the US policy guiding prosecution of US soldiers in sovereign territories.

The policy typically guiding the US government has been to offer US soldiers immunity from prosecution by foreign governments (regardless of the US's stance toward that government). The US uses the military court system to prosecute offenses committed by personnel abroad, and only recently began initiating civil trial for former personnel, citing the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act .

This case has brought debate about exposing military personnel to civilian juries, with argument that a civilian-composed jury would not be a jury of peers, due to its inability to sympathize with the actions of a man under the stress of war-time. [The local coverage has been quite informative, providing good legal coverage and relevant facts of the case.]

Our step toward taking crimes of our citizens abroad seriously is a significant one, and handing down just punishments to offendors is critical to credibly maintaining a military force abroad, but advocates of a more egalitarian foreign policy approach should start to question the assumption implicit in the current policy.

Is it fair for the US justice system to retain authority that supercedes foreign authority in their own territory? Does this communicate that we believe our system of justice is always more fair than foreign systems? How does that look to other governments? Would the US allow another country to take this stance if it were their military personnel operating in our territory?

Immigration - Are we our own worst enemy?

2009-04-24T09:21:00.000-07:00

An article posted on the BusinessWeek website regarding a new effort by Senate Democrats to revise the H-1B Visa rules in the US caught my attention this mornig. The bill will tighten loopholes and step up fraud prevention, but will keep the same overall immigration policy. A US Citizenship & Immigration Services report released this past October provided evidence indicating 13% of H-1B visas are fraudulent, with an additional 7% containing technical violations - which provided some of the impetus for the re-emergence of the bill after failing back in 2007.

Such large proportions of fraud indicate to me that something must be broken about our policies if such a huge number of companies are compelled to cheat. Enforcement is great, but why not look at the root cause?

Consider the following:

A tech CEO once told me that he went to Eastern Europe to hire a development team because he couldn't find the talent he needed in the US
A colleague of mine with an MBA from a top US business school and a masters degree in computer science from IIT had to transfer to another office outside the US because he couldn't get an H-1B visa
Canada has taken large steps to open its doors to highly skilled immigrants, and global companies are responding by opening R&D centers there - see Microsoft as one example

While large tech companies have supported this new bill, they still believe the current immigration policies are too restrictive (eg. the total H-1B limit of 65,000 jobs) and don't give them sufficient access to the global talent pool. As a result, they'll create more jobs in Canada... or somewhere else.

Groups in favor of protecting American workers provide the rationale that since these companies need access to the American market, the government should protect American workers. Take that rationale to its logical end and ask yourself, if companies don't want to create jobs here, then over time, will they even need access to the American market? Will anyone in America be able to afford their products?

Staying the Course with Cuba

2009-04-23T07:40:00.000-07:00

Fidel Castro said Tuesday that President Obama "misinterpreted" his brother Raul's sentiments toward the United States and bristled at any suggestion Cuba should free political prisoners or reduce official fees on money sent to the island from the U.S. (Read the full article)

Apparently, Fidel Castro's recent comments may have put the US Administration in a bit of a conundrum regarding what to do about Cuba.

For a while I've had a fairly lackadaisical attitude toward Cuba, always wondering why we didn't just treat them like any other country. I found this Brookings Institute report on the Administration's Cuba policy helpful. Though absolutely more pronounced and extreme, US policy toward Cuba is actually fairly consistent with other nations in the region, and the concerns with human rights are generally shared.

The United States is isolated in its approach to
Cuba. In the 2008 United Nations General Assembly,
185 countries voted against the U.S. embargo
and only two, Israel and Palau, supported the U.S.
position. Although the international community
is opposed to the embargo, it remains concerned
about Cuba’s poor human rights record.

So far, I've been very impressed by the Obama Administration's willingess to constructively engage foreign leaders, even those he strongly disagrees with. While I don't think these recent comments by Castro will cause them to retreat on the US's commitment to an engagement-oriented approach, I do think that it will definitely make it more difficult to stay the course, as the natural reaction to this kind of behavior would be to disengage. I credit the media thus far for doing a good job of entertaining the new strategy, and pointing out its rationale. As further reminder of why we are doing it this way, see Einstein's definition of insanity:

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. -Albert Einstein

Taliban claims victory near Islamabad - thoughts on the "cultural" war the West is Fighting

2009-04-22T06:18:00.000-07:00

This CNN headline caught my attention this morning. It will be truly a frightening situation for nations around the world if the Taliban can increase its influence in a nuclear-armed nation.

One thing I've found frustrating about our news is its inability to accurately present theological, cultural, and political ideologies of Islam along a spectrum. I believe winning the cultural war requires convincing mainstream practitioners of Islam in the Middle East that their values more closely align with the West than they do with the repressive brands of Islam they often find ruling their governments.

In developing my own perspective on Muslim extremism, I've tried to understand the more mainstream versions of the culture and theology that they preach. The Islam For Today site has provided me with lots of interesting information about Muslim theology and culture. While in the past I've been more sympathetic to the view that relgious rules shouldn't impose on freedom, I did find this account from a site on wearing the Hijab quite interesting:

One of the major misconceptions about the hijab (covering of the body except the face and hands) is that young women are forced to wear it by their parents or by male family members.
Sumayya Syed, 16, says that what parents or men want have nothing to do with it. In fact, she astounds people who ask by saying that every woman should have this form of liberation.
Syed maintains that when a woman is covered, men cannot judge her by her appearance but are forced to evaluate her by her personality, character, and morals. "I tell them that the hijab is not a responsibility, it's a right given to me by my Creator who knows us best. It's a benefit to me, so why not? It's something every woman should strive to get and should want."

There are several mainstream books I've found helpful in crafting my own perspective on Muslim extremism, among them:

Carmen Bin Laden's memoir Inside the Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia highlights the stark contrast for women living in modern Western culture versus the traditional Saudi lifestyle
Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns chronicles the lives of two woman living through political and cultural turmoil in Afghanistan from the early 70s to the fall of the Taliban after 2001.

Extremism has always been something I've sought to understand, and contrary to the focus of much of our media, it is not only found in far off nations with unfamiliar religions, but is also present right here at home. Just last week, the administration issued a report suggesting right-wing extremism in the US is on the rise. While there was a lot of outcry on the Right about this as an attempt to create a "witch-hunt", I would have a hard time believing that the opposite phenomenon (eg. left-wing extremism) didn't occur 8 years ago.

First Post

2009-04-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my new site, The Apollotics Blog!

The purpose of this site is to provide insight and commentary on the prevailing political issues in the news, with a slight bend toward business, technology, and the economy.

I will be the first to admit that basing a name on the Greek God Apollo is sort of a cop-out because of its ambiguous meaning . . . but here is the entry that caught my attention:

In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo (in Greek, Ἀπόλλων—Apóllōn orἈπέλλων—Apellōn), is one of the most important and many-sided of the Olympian deities. The ideal of the kouros (a beardless youth), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more.

For more on Apollo, you can read the whole wikipedia entry here.

Because my interests are very broad, amorphous, and constantly in flux, I usually have a difficult time honing in on a single point-of-view and sticking with it. One opinion I don't waver on, however, is strong advocacy for debate and exploration of questions of epistemology. I find understanding and debating various views stimulating and will always strive to get to the philosophical roots of the political disagreements I cover.

Finally, I will keep this blog to at-most a single post each day, and will not try to provide answers, but to bring unconsidered points-of-view to the surface and provoke further questions.

Hope you enjoy!