
Crime is a Family Affair - whocansay
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/10/crime-runs-family/573394/
======
felonthrowaway1
Felon here. Like the article describes, my father was arrested and jailed, and
his father before him. Many of my family have spent time in prison. When I
turned 18, I also shared the same experience. Less than a year in min security
prison.

Now I'm 35, moved away from my troubled youth, and have made millions of
dollars building startups.

A few points:

\- To this day, I am terrified to speak to police or any authority figures. I
sweat every time I pass through passport control when my wife and I go to
Europe every summer.

\- I can't break my "guarded" way of thinking, that everyone is out to get me,
that I need to take what I can when I have the chance because the chance won't
come around again. I am never relaxed.

\- I have a 4 year old and not a day goes by that I don't spend working with
him to provide things I never had. The fact that I can afford to send him to
piano lessons or that we can afford to live in the "rich" part of town makes
me emotional.

\- I lost every part of my childhood. My parents are ghosts and my friends
from then are long sense forgotten. Some people go back to their home town to
feel nostalgic, but all I do is feel anger. I am angry every day.

\- Many people are afraid to take risks for their careers, but as an ex-
convict who spent over a year as a homeless person, I feel no fear. Moving
across the country when I have no money, sleeping at my desk to launch a
product due the next day, giving a speech in front of 1000 people, or
aggressively gunning for a better company is nothing compared to begging
someone for their half eaten sandwich. That's true fear.

Even the ones who escape a criminal family never really escape.

~~~
notafelonthrow
My father is a felon, and his father before him, and most of my uncles (one is
even a convicted murderer). I didn't follow in their footsteps -- never even
gotten so much as a speeding ticket.

The funny thing is I can completely relate. I had to cut off my father's
family from my life to escape; all police make me nervous as I think they will
arrest me; every interaction I have with non-best-of-friends is "fuck you, I'm
getting mine".

I'm not sure how many generations it takes to escape the mentality, but I'm
hoping my sons aren't the same way.

------
rdtsc
> a possible biological or genetic basis for crime could be misconstrued as
> racism.

But what if it is isn't and it is something like impulsivity? I know someone
who worked for a large state prison system for many years. They've observed
one common trait of the majority of people incarcerated is that they are very
impulsive. They react rather than think things through. Often they regret the
crime, but could be too late by then [+].

However the same impulsivity is also a trait of someone we might consider a
"hero". Say someone jumping into the river or a fire to rescue a person, a
salesperson quickly responding to a customer need and so on. Someone quickly
responding and standing up to a bully to defend someone being abused.

At the genetic level it could be the same low level drive, but family, society
and culture have a chance of molding that into either something good or
destructive.

[+] There is a lot to be said there for the society and the correctional
system being punitive and not much correctional per se, and mental illness
playing large role as well but that's for a different post perhaps.

~~~
tclancy
Yeah, I found that strange. One of the things that stuck with me from reading
"How Children Succeed"[0] was that violence/ crises in the household tend to
make kids impulsive and short-sighted in decision making. The idea kids who
grow up around criminal parents would wind up doing the same because of
modeling and the likelihood of violence or other frightening events like being
put in foster care makes sense to me and doesn't have to have a biological
underpinning to be true.

[0] [http://www.paultough.com/the-books/how-children-
succeed/](http://www.paultough.com/the-books/how-children-succeed/)

~~~
PeterisP
Factors like this mean that the heritability of such things is even larger
than the purely genetic effect, as the "nurture" part i.e. home environment
also is quite hereditary.

------
patrickmay
The article traces the Bogle's family start in crime back to the Prohibition
era. While there are, of course, a host of reasons why people become
criminals, ridiculous laws are a contributing factor. The War on (some) Drugs
is repeating the same behavior and expecting different results. It's well past
time to end it, along with the human devastation it causes.

~~~
panzagl
"Tracey Bogle, who served a 16-year prison sentence for kidnapping, armed
robbery, assault, car theft, and sexual assault"

Yeah, he'd be a saint if drugs were legal.

~~~
rconti
The article is scant on details, but if the ancestor's only crime during
Prohibition was bootlegging, then actually, it's possible Prohibition caused
generations of other crimes that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

~~~
panzagl
Then we should also get rid of the prohibition on ivory- after all, think of
all of those future generations of criminals we're creating by jailing
poachers.

~~~
arminiusreturns
its not the same thing at all, and your argument is logically fallacious
because of it. A person consuming a drug violates no other beings rights. This
is obviously not true about ivory poaching.

~~~
panzagl
The fallacy is defining all crimes as drug crimes, then saying legalizing
drugs will end all crime. Might as well legalize violence directly.

~~~
rconti
But actually, crime IS crime, in important ways. Put it this way; marijuana
can be a "gateway drug" without being addictive, because people who are
_willing to break the law and social norms_ to do one thing are the kind of
people who might break the law and social norms to do another thing; it's
correlation in that case, though. To extent the analogy, maybe now the
marijuana user's child begins using marijuana because their parents did, but
then they move on to hard drugs. Their willingness to break the law and social
norms in one way made them more open to doing so in another way.

Same thing here; if you create too many victimless crimes, children of 'crime'
may grow up to do crimes that actually have victims.

------
wahern
> “We need another solution,” [Judge Norblad] told me, “something to separate
> Bogle family members so they will not keep reinfecting themselves.” Norblad,
> who died in 2014, did not know how to do that.

Once upon a time judges could kick offenders out of their jurisdiction or a
state entirely. I think this was eventually deemed unconstitutional, though I
can't find any on-point caselaw and suspect it simply fell out of favor and
assumed unconstitutional. IIRC the closest scholarly analysis I could find at
the time (~10 years ago) discussed a governor's right to impose conditions on
a pardon, and in particular the condition that one leave the state, which
concluded that it was probably still constitutional because of how extensive
is the pardon power.

In the 1960s or 1970s a relative of mine was kicked out of Wisconsin by an
exasperated judge after drunkly shooting up a yacht in search of rumored
hidden money; receiving a suspended sentence as long as he never set foot in
Wisconsin again. He was happy to leave and both he and Wisconsin were probably
the better for it. He was only in Wisconsin temporarily so it's not like
Wisconsin exported its problems, either.

EDIT: 2013 Slate article on banishment and exile: [https://slate.com/news-and-
politics/2013/01/banishment-as-pu...](https://slate.com/news-and-
politics/2013/01/banishment-as-punishment-is-it-constitutional-for-states-to-
exile-criminals.html)

~~~
barrow-rider
I know at least one dude banned from the city of Richmond.

Anecdotally it worked, and he's now quite a successful programmer, married,
kids, decent house, etc.

------
cat199
"Yet, despite the abundance of evidence showing the role of family in crime,
criminologists and policymakers have largely neglected this factor—as the
University of Maryland criminologist John Laub told me, it’s because any
suggestion of a possible biological or genetic basis for crime could be
misconstrued as racism."

How exactly does a family connection imply a biological basis? Did nature
defeat nurture when I wasn't looking? or is this just a poorly written
sentence implying that connecting the two could then result in ascribing the
trait to biology, and so was avoided?

~~~
macintux
> How exactly does a family connection imply a biological basis?

...because most families have a biological connection?

I don't believe it's poorly written, but the truth is closer to your third
question.

Race is a very touchy subject, especially when it comes to crime, and making
it known that you're looking into something that could lead to
biological/genetic assertions about criminality is a good way to draw
unpleasant attention.

------
slv77
Odd how many parallels this has to the “Jukes family” study that was used to
justify eugenics.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jukes_family](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jukes_family)

------
tomlock
> as the University of Maryland criminologist John Laub told me, it’s because
> any suggestion of a possible biological or genetic basis for crime could be
> misconstrued as racism.

Or, it is because biological and genetic factors aren't as powerful at
predicting crime as other factors. The idea that crime runs in families
indicates a biological factor in crime is nonsense. Families and children that
start in lower deciles of wealth are likely to stay there. Social mobility is
awful.

~~~
frank_nitti
Seriously. I would say that also applies over to the author's claim that
"doctors produce doctors, lawyers produce lawyers", etc. Sure, kids whose
parents/relatives have forged a career in a particular industry have a much
easier time making their way in, I would seriously doubt that genetics are a
major factor other than general cognitive ability.

~~~
PeterisP
IIRC studies about career choice imply that "doctors produce doctors, lawyers
produce lawyers" is somewhat true, however, not because ability (there was no
evidence that there's much specialized ability, someone who has the qualities
where they're likely going to be a good doctor is also likely to be a good
lawyer and vice versa), but because career choice is highly influenced by the
options you consider, by the choices that seem "normal" in your community, and
that is highly influenced by having parents/relatives in that field.

------
lmaximus1983
Err nope.

My Grandfather was a sex offender and my Uncle is a convicted Armed Bank
Robber.

The rest of the family has their problems like all families do. Mostly
recovering from abuse of the previous two guys.

What is a bigger problem (especially in the UK) is welfare dependence which
does become a family thing.

~~~
abhchand
> Err nope.

This is kind of a flippant dismissal based on the multiple findings backed up
by numbers. Yours may be an anecdotal story (and not my place to comment on)
but there's no evidence that welfare dependence causes crime. It seems to be
more of a political talking point. There may very well be a correlation, but
it doesn't imply causation.

~~~
lmaximus1983
Sorry welfare dependence does cause crime.

Almost all of my step family on the Isle of Wight (this in the UK) are doing
this along with most of their friends.

I know what I saw with my own eyes. I know what some women have said "I can
get X amount if I have another kid". I also know that almost all of my step
brothers and step sisters abuse the welfare system mainly by having children
with other people.

Telling me that it doesn't happen, when I know it blatantly does and then
telling me it doesn't because of some academic release that for all we know
probably hasn't been peer reviewer properly. A slight aside ... some dudes
managed to get Mein Karph through peer review recently by changing the wording
slightly.

Also guess the arrest rate for my step family? The first day I met them they
got arrested. Every-time I hear something about them one of them or their
mates or both have got arrested.

You know what the connecting thing is ... they are all on welfare and their
parents were drunks and lived off of welfare on the Island because there are
no jobs.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
The poster above was respectful that they would not comment on your
experiences, merely that a single persons experiences does not defy
statistical data results. To argue further with more personal experiences does
not adequately address the concern...

~~~
lmaximus1983
LOL. This is the problem with you guys. I don't care if he is respectful

Sometimes what is right in front of your face is true. That is why stereotypes
exist.

No one has addressed the point I made. Just saying it in anecdotal when I have
observed it in a number of instances by myself is incorrect. I am not saying
it is one personal experience. I am saying it is a pattern I have seen 5 or 6
times myself and I have seen it as a recurring theme in news etc.

BTW I have been programming computers for 15 years. There are these things
called Heuristics. They are based on experience. I am sure a lot of people
would be will to agree with a lot of programming Heuristics ... but when it
comes to something else ... it must be much higher bar all of a sudden.

~~~
ALittleLight
"Anecdotal" doesn't mean "happened once" or even "wrong". Anecdotal means
that's it's a relation of personal experiences filtered through memory. That's
fine.

Evidence that meets scientific or academic standards is different than
anecdote. Such data is gathered in a way that tries to minimize biases, and
analyzed in a way that tries to account for random chance, and then presented
with quantitative precision.

For example, suppose I saw an article saying that men are typically taller
than women. "Nope" I reply. "My sister is taller than I am. My cousin is
taller than her brother, my aunt is taller than my dad." That may so be true,
but it doesn't refute the general claim that is backed by real data.

There's nothing wrong with telling about your personal circumstances. There is
something wrong with imagining that your personal circumstances invalidate or
even compare to real research.

You suggested that you are familiar with heuristics. To put things in those
terms - the heuristic of using anecdotes and stereotypes may well produce
better results for life's decisions than random chance would. Using real
research and analysis to inform decisions is likely a better heuristic than
anecdotes and prejudices though.

