> Dennis:
> > Wojtek, this country has more than 2.1 million people in prison or
> > jail. That's one out of 138 people. We're number one in putting people
> > behind bars.
>
>
> So unless those people are framed innocents, it would make sense to start
> asking questions why do so many people commit crime, no?
No. It would make sense to find out if the rate of crimes for which people are incarcerated in the US is higher than in other western countries. If an equal percentage of citizens are found using drugs then finding out why so many people commit this crime in the US would tell us nothing about the high incarceration rates. Same for rape or burglary. If you find a crime that has a particularly high rate in the US when compared to other western countries then your idea of questioning why people commit this crime in greater numbers in the US would give us a very partial explanation for the differences in incarceration rates.
> Which gets us back to the question of personal responsibility vs. social
> structure. They are after all causally connected - I agree. Since we have
> the me-centered culture that says it is ok to do anything to get me what I
> want and fuck the rest, that might be a reason or rather a contributing
> factor why we also have so many people behind bars - they just follow the
> morality of capitalism and individualism to the letter. In that context,
> the issue of personal responsibility - that is - accountability to other for
> my own action sounds radically progressive no?
Identifying "criminal" behaviour without identifying and correcting the underlying social causes, whatever they may be, under the name of personnal responsibility solves nothing.
> I would go as far as saying that statistically speaking,
> the privileged have a greater probability of becoming delinquent or losers
> than the poor people do. It is just because there so many more poor people
> than privileged people, we see so many more poor delinquents and losers.
>
> Wojtek
The question, as I understood it, was concerning punishment. If you believe that the privileged have a greater probability of deviating from what we claim to be acceptable social norms of behaviour then unless the rates of punishments are equally skewed I don't see how you can be that concerned with enforcing behaviour on the less privileged.
John Thornton