
Small Indiana county sends more people to prison than San Francisco - GabrielF00
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/upshot/new-geography-of-prisons.html
======
whack
It's interesting how the exact same facts can be described in so many
different ways, in order to imply vastly different conclusions.

\-----

 _" This small Indiana county sends more people to prison than San Francisco"_

Implication - the county's law & order apparatus is dysfunctional and is
oppressing the local population

\-----

 _" This small Indiana county has more convicted drug dealers than San
Francisco"_

Implication - the county has a severe drug problem, and harsh efforts are
needed to combat this problem

\-----

 _" This small Indiana county catches more hard-drug-dealers than San
Francisco"_

Implication - either other counties are incompetent/indifferent in combating
the selling of hardcore drugs, or this county is exceptionally good at
achieving this goal.

\-----

 _" This small Indiana county leads in the nation in narrowing the racial-
incarceration-gap"_

Implication - the county's law & order system is tough but fair, and should be
a role model for others in pursuing White criminals just as vigorously as
Minority criminals.

\-----

The phrasing involved in _" sending more people to prison"_ in particular,
sweeps under the rug the fact that the people being sent to prison are dealing
hard drugs, and spawning/enabling a generation of drug addicts whose lives are
going to fall apart as a result. Instead of making the drug dealers the lead
actors who initiated the subsequent chain of events, the headline is
structured such that the county's justice system is portrayed as the lead
actor instead. Neither wording is _wrong_ , but they clearly bias the audience
in different directions.

I trust the NYTimes more than any other American media source, but it's hard
to deny that they too have their own spin that focuses more on one side of the
story, more so than others.

~~~
dave_sullivan
Fair points, but did you read the article? There's more to it than that.

> Donnie Gaddis picked the wrong county to sell 15 oxycodone pills to an
> undercover officer ... After agreeing to a plea deal, he was sentenced to
> serve 12 years in prison.

> From 2006 to 2014, annual prison admissions dropped 36 percent in
> Indianapolis; 37 percent in Brooklyn; 69 percent in Los Angeles County; and
> 93 percent in San Francisco.

> Prison admissions in counties with fewer than 100,000 people have risen even
> as crime has fallen

> Just a decade ago, people in rural, suburban and urban areas were all about
> equally likely to go to prison. But now people in small counties are about
> 50 percent more likely to go to prison than people in populous counties.

> “I am proud of the fact that we send more people to jail than other
> counties,” Aaron Negangard, the elected prosecutor in Dearborn County, said
> last year. “That’s how we keep it safe here.”

I think the implication of "Small towns are sending way more people to prison
for petty drug crimes (like selling 15 pills to an undercover cop) than big
cities" is supported by the article.

~~~
whack
I read the entire article yesterday, long before it was posted here. Not sure
why you think I haven't read it, or how your quoted snippets contradict what I
said in any way.

My previous comment doesn't take a stand in any direction, or make any
normative statements. Simply pointing out that there are multiple valid ways
of headlining the exact same facts, each of which would bias the audience in
very different ways.

~~~
dave_sullivan
> Not sure why you think I haven't read it, or how your quoted snippets
> contradict what I said in any way.

You seemed to be saying the article was generic and the slant could be changed
by changing superficial aspects of the argument. I'm saying that this is
sometimes true but does not apply here. In fact, I thought your comment was so
out of place that I wondered if you'd read the article. Apparently you have.
Regardless, I didn't want your comment to dissuade people from reading the
article and making up their own mind; it's well written and well researched.

~~~
whack
The article makes the case that the county has a large drug-abuse problem, and
also that the justice system is responding to this problem with very severe
policing/sentencing policies, in a way that severely punishes not just
Minority offenders, but also White offenders. In this regard, any one of the 4
spins can be reasonably made, given the facts presented in the article.

You seem to think that just because I pointed out the spin in the headline,
I'm attacking the article in some way - that's a vast misunderstanding of what
I said. Let me clarify this further: _there is no concise headline that can
possibly describe the article in a spin-free manner_. No matter what concise
headline anyone comes up with, it will be biased in one direction or another.

I certainly hope people read the article regardless, but I also hope that
people will read the article while being mindful of how the wording used will
bias them towards certain directions.

------
mckoss
Make the counties pay for the cost of sending their offenders to (state)
prison and you'd see this "overconsumption" of an expensive resource self
correct.

------
brooklyndude
People should also know that people go to jail for years for 1 failed drug
test in rural communities. Happens everyday, just not on our radar.

~~~
imaginenore
You mean the ones on probation? In which case they don't go to jail for the
failed drug test, but for the crime they had committed, then were given a
chance to be released early, and failed at that chance.

~~~
qbrass
Did they fail that chance, or false positive that chance?

------
kiba
Perhaps all prosecutors and public defender would be chosen randomly from a
pool, instead of making prosecutors a political office?

~~~
tn13
It is like saying fill water in gas tank if you are worried about gas
pollution.

If prosecutors are chosen randomly they will little incentive to go after
anyone. I think we must drastically reduce the tools these people have at
their disposal.

------
tn13
The whole f __*ing USA sends more people to jail than any other normal country
in the world.

~~~
jbicha
…than any other country, by both absolute numbers and per capita (with the
exception of the Seychelles)

~~~
tn13
I was not sure about North Korea and China.

------
bluejekyll
It sounds like the article is suggesting defenses under the equal protections
clause in the Constitution.

Does anyone know of cases where it's been applied in this way? It seems like
this would be a new way of showing bias, and possibly reducing harsh prison
sentences.

------
mrits
I find it worse that San Francisco would possibly give 0 years to someone
dealing heroin.

~~~
bluejekyll
Do you believe prison should be used punitively or for rehabilitation?

Prisons currently fail very badly at rehabilitation, and actually tend to make
worse criminals. We should be spending less money on punitive unfair sentences
and more on trying to make people productive members of society through good
rehab and education programs. This would actually make society better. Fixing
the root of the problem rather than ignoring it by just locking people away.

We should reserve prison for only those people from which we need to protect
the general population, e.g. violent crimes. Though I do have a special place
in my heart for locking away fraudsters and con artists.

~~~
djrogers
Rehabilitation? The parent post was about dealing - not using.

Someone who makes money off of the victims of drug dependence is horrible
scum, and if you're willing to lock up con artists you should be able to work
up the give-a-crap to lock up a heroin dealer.

~~~
CarpetBench
You're thinking of rehabilitation in the "recovery from addiction" sense.

The poster you're replying to is using rehabilitation in the "correct this
person's future behavior" sense.

> lock up a heroin dealer

The problem is that nearly 3/4 of all prisoners end up back in prison within 5
years [0]. Locking people up isn't changing their behavior. Locking up a
heroin dealer isn't keeping them from dealing heroin once they get out.

So, either we need to lock people up indefinitely (which costs $$$ even if
you're not swayed by the humanitarian arguments), or we need to figure out
something more effective than trying to hammer our square peg (prison) through
this round hole (reducing criminal behavior).

0:
[http://www.nij.gov/topics/corrections/recidivism/pages/welco...](http://www.nij.gov/topics/corrections/recidivism/pages/welcome.aspx)

~~~
bluejekyll
Precisely.

And since the other post mentioned my comment on fraudsters and con artists,
dealers are not lying to people, they're just providing the consumer with what
they want.

The ones who should be locked up are the fraudsters, because they mix things
like Fentanyl, which may directly lead to someone's death (not to say people
don't OD without that, but it is less often).

Honestly, I dislike anyone who takes advantage of other people's ignorance or
incompetence. They are the bottom of the barrel of society in my opinion.

------
diyorgasms
So the new face of mass incarceration is white rural conservatives, the same
demographic that is largely responsible for the "tough on crime" push that led
to disproportionate incarceration of poor people of color. Now that their
fortunes are shifting, I wonder if the rural white conservatives will still be
so gung-ho for harsh criminal penalties.

~~~
danso
FWIW, it was Democrats who pushed for severe mandatory sentences to create a
hot button electoral issue:

[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/143/t...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/143/transcript)

> _Eric Sterling: The Speaker convened the Democratic leadership, the Steering
> and Policy Committee, the chairs of the committees, and says we 're going to
> put together an anti-drug bill. It is going to be a Democratic initiative
> and I want everybody involved. We're going to have a comprehensive anti-drug
> provision. And I want it out of committees before we go on our August
> recess, August 14 or 15. And this set off about a four week stampede. They
> were told, look, you've got one month to put together your anti-drug agenda
> and then you're going to go home in the middle of August and you're going to
> campaign the hell out of that agenda. And we're going to come back in
> September, we're going to take it to the floor, and we're going to vote on
> it. And this is what we're going to ride to electoral victory in November.
> That's the plan._

~~~
diyorgasms
"Tough on crime" has always been incredibly popular. But Nixon was the "law
and order" candidate. Reagan was the "tough on crime" guy. Center-right Bill
Clinton continued and expanded Reagan's policies. So yeah, there's a lot of
blame to go around. But I think you're being disingenuous if you think
liberals support mass incarceration policies to the same extent that
conservatives do. I don't think urban liberals are the ones clamoring for
harsher law enforcement.

~~~
danso
I disagree that I'm being disingenuous but I could be a moron. Are you
disputing the claim that congressional Democrats initiated the tough-on-crime
laws that are responsible to this day for harsh mandatory minimums for low-
level drug crimes? The piece I linked to is from 1999 and it refers to bills
initiated by Democrats in the 80s which are still largely in effect today, and
for which we can plausibly argue a correlation with a 700% increase in the
prison population and Bureau of Prisons's budget [0].

I agree Democrats are pushing for reform today (and some sentencing reform was
passed when they controlled Congress in 2010). Republicans [1] and
conservative think-tanks [2] today are also actively fighting for sentencing
reform. Tt's one of the few issues that are bi-partisan today. You can make a
judgment based on how you've ascertained the composition of political
cockwalking, but in the end, it's the actual laws that get passed that put
people in prison.

[0]
[https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2016/04/08/addressing-...](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2016/04/08/addressing-
mass-incarceration-with-evidence-based-reform/)

[1]
[https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s2123](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s2123)

[2] [http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-
room/228145-charles-k...](http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-
room/228145-charles-koch-eyes-sentencing-reform-as-a-priority)

~~~
thesimpsons1022
There is a difference between your average liberal and what the politicians
did. it's widely known that liberals have always been against mass
incarceration. However I don't dispute that Democratic politicians did that to
gain votes in a center right country. (at that time)

