

Why Are So Many Americans in Prison? A Provocative New Theory - tokenadult
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2015/02/mass_incarceration_a_provocative_new_theory_for_why_so_many_americans_are.html

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Camillo
I am astounded by the fact that this "provocative" new theory is based on
extremely simple and trivially verifiable facts.

How many times have I heard, even here on HN, claims that the high
incarceration rates are due to the war on drugs, and I just took them at face
value without bothering to look up the figures? How many times have newspapers
printed interviews and op-eds arguing the same point, without doing any fact
checking?

(Disclaimer: this time, too, I have not actually checked the numbers myself.
But at least at this point I can be sure that _someone_ has lied to me!)

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Potando
Yes. Though perhaps you can look at the data differently to get that popular
conclusion. For example people with drug convictions being re-arrested for
breaking parole conditions, violence related to gangs funded by drugs, etc.

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wodenokoto
I failed to understand what the radical new theory was, other than debunking
the war-on-drugs story.

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cauterized
It's easy to miss the link to page 2, where there's a theory about DAs trying
to get re-elected.

