Posted 2010-December-13, 22:35
One viewpoint :
"I wonder if you could explain by what means you eliminated every other possible cause for the increase in crime rates in the 1960s other than changes in rules of evidence due to Supreme Court rulings.
Asked by: Robert
Answered: December 8, 2010
Very little of what one knows, do we know as a consequence of studies or of logic, and very little of what we believe do we believe as a consequence of studies or of logic. "Studies" inform, refine and improve our peripheral assumptions; they do not form--in baseball or in any other area--our core understanding of the issue.
I don't know how old you are or how well you remember this era (I do know in rough terms, actually, but I am writing not to you but to the public.) The U. S. Supreme Court in the 1960s issued a series of rulings requiring police and prosecutors to meet standards, in the process of investigating crimes and prosecuting criminals, that they were not in the habit of meeting.
This was entirely appropriate, and many, most or all of the specific standards ordered by the court were entirely appropriate. The police in the 1950s and into the 1960s not infrequently beat suspects with a rubber hose in an effort to get them to confess. It was necessary to put a stop to this. Prosecutors ran roughshod over those they accused--as they still do today when the courts fail to prevent it. It was totally appropriate, in my view, to attack these ills and to do what could be done to correct them.
But the problem was that, as this was being done, the crime rate exploded. There were 8,640 murders in the United States in 1963. In 1974 there were 20,710. There were 317,000 violent crimes reported to police in 1963. In 1974 there were just short of a million.
The police in that era (and to a lesser extent the prosecutors) universally or almost universally felt that the actions of the courts (not limited to the Supreme court, but led by them) were making it impossible for them to do their job. This became a common, even a dominant political position in our country; vast numbers of people came to believe that the "interference" of the courts was feeding the explosion in crime. The country was driven sharply to the right by this. The fear of crime was a Godsend to the conservatives.
In response to this. .. .shouldn't state it in that way. There was a study published no later than 1968 pointing to demographics as a contributing factor in the explosion in crime. The preponderance of crimes are committed by males between the ages of 16 and 34. The post- World War II Baby Boom had led to an increase in the number of people in that age range--hence, to an increase in crime.
In discussions posted here, people have attributed this "theory" to the Freakonomics guys, but that's totally wrong; that theory dates at least to the late 1960s. Liberals in this era were hemorrhaging votes based on the fear of crime, and they picked up this "explanation" for the increase in crime as a way of saying, "It's not the courts; it's just the Baby Boom."
The problem is that this is logically preposterous. The increase in murder from 1963 to 1974 was roughly 125%; in violent crime, a little more than 200%. The increase in the number of men aged 16 to 34 in those same years was 32.7%. In no eleven-year period is there an increase in the "crime population" greater than 37.5%, and no way you slice the data--males aged 16 to 30, 16 to 32, 18 to 40, eleven years, twelve years, you name it--in no way you slice the data is their an increase above 41%. This would be the expected increase in crime if those people committed ALL of the crimes, which they don't; they merely commit a disproportionate share of the crime. The actual increase in crime that should have resulted from the changes in population is less than 25%.
Well then. ..what DID cause the increase in crime?
This is the way that I see it. First, the criminal justice system by 1975 was in a fantastic mess. You really have to read about a hundred crime books to understand what a mess it was. There were many, many, many, many people who were known to police and prosecutors for an absolute certain fact to be vicious, violent sociopaths, who were nonetheless turned loose on the public again, and again, and again following arrest after arrest after arrest. If you understand how the criminal justice system operated in that era--or failed to operate--it is no surprise that the crime rate was horrific. I should hasten to add. . .it's not that way anymore. The system has, to a large extent, healed itself.
I arrived at my position as a consequence of pondering this question: What happened to us? By "us" I mean liberals; I am, I acknowledge, a very bad liberal who would be kicked out of any liberal group for unrepentant heresy, but I was thinking about this from a liberal perspective. What the hell happened to us? For a hundred years, from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, we made tremendous progress on issues of judicial reform and decent treatment for prisoners. We had eliminated the cutting off of fingers and toes as punishment for theft; we had dramatically improved prison conditions and conditions in madhouses or insane asylums. We were on the very edge of eliminating capital punishment. We had gotten job training integrated into prisons, and psychological counseling, and a thousand other improvements.
And then. . .whoosh; it was gone. Prison reform movements died overnight. America fell back into atavistic attitudes about crime and punishment; lock 'em up and throw away the key. Capital punishment made a comeback, and, worse yet in my mind, we began warehousing prisoners in vast, increasingly horrible prisons ruled by gang violence. What in the hell happened to us?
Well, I hate to say it, but it's obvious what happened to us. The Warren Court dragged prison reform out behind a barn and put a bullet in it's head. The carelessness of the Warren Court, the arrogance, the failure to monitor the system and see that it was still working. . .this had dreadful consequences for the America people--the murders of tens of thousands of people--and the American people bolted right-ward politically as a direct consequence of that. We are still living in the political era created by the collapse of belief in progressive policies.
So how do we get going back in the right direction?
Prison reform relies upon public support for prison reform. We have entirely lost that, and we will not get it back as long as the public suspects that we--liberals--are willing to risk triggering another massive crime wave in order to "improve" the system.
We have to take ownership of our failings. We have to stop whining about the Warren court being maligned, and admit the truth: that, meaning to do well and in the process of doing good, they made terrible mistakes that had horrific consequences. We understand these mistakes, and we will not allow them to be repeated.
It is my view that until we admit that this is true, we will not be able to resume progress in the area of judicial reform."
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