

Prison and the Poverty Trap - wallflower
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/science/long-prison-terms-eyed-as-contributing-to-poverty.html?hp

======
scotty79
I think that what happened in US is what happens when society persistently
refuses to take responsibility for the people that are worth so little on the
job market that they can't provide for themselves and their families.

Number of such people are growing because of automation. You have nothing to
do for them valuable enough. You are refusing to give them money when the
don't do anything so they turn to last profitable things they can do. Those
things are illegal. Now you can lock them up and finally have an excuse to
give them money (mostly in form of food and shelter and bit of security) for
nothing. As additional benefit you can now have an excuse to use tax money
hire bunch of people (who are also pretty close to not being able do anything
valuable) to watch and re-catch the ones you've locked up.

Root cause IMHO is the stubborn insistence on the rule that you have to work
to provide for basic necessities and that people won't work if they are not
scared of loosing food and shelter. Meanwhile only 0.01% of all the work done
is still done by people. The rest is done by the machines. We don't have
99.99% unemployment rate only because the amount of work we do increased
roughly 10000-fold. But it's not exactly that and there's no reason it should
be. We have lot of coping mechanisms, like prisons, government inventing new
rules and hiring new officers to enforce those rules, corporate jobs that
consists mostly of keeping your head low and making friends so you don't get
kicked out, unemployment benefits. Huge number of people takes money for
nothing already but no one wants to be honest about it. Even if you are sure
you don't then you still do because part of the money you should be paying for
your food is paid by the government in form of subsidies for farmers. If you
are living in European country you were likely given lots of free education
and some free health services.

------
lifeisstillgood
One week inside for a first timer is, I am told, the optimum time. That first
week is so disorientating and upsetting that "I won't go back" is the
strongest motivator. After a month people settle to the routine and six months
are adapted.

YMMV but deterrence and prison have long been as effective e alone in crime
reduction. The US is ahead of the field in long term incarceration but you are
just leading a pack all travelling in the same direction

------
buro9
There is something else.

If you're in this position, you know full well that the odds of ever escaping
from the trap are heavily against you. So the question comes up, why try?

Why sacrifice what little you now have and pit yourself against years of
hardship to build yourself to a point where you will still be 10 to 20 years
behind those with the privilege of being born into wealthier and more stable
families?

Unfortunately the answer I saw time and again in others, was that there is no
value in trying.

And my experience with growing up in poverty, sleeping rough, working without
education (I thankfully never went to prison even though members of my family
did)... is precisely that whilst I succeeded in breaking the cycle of poverty
that disadvantage creates, I am indeed 10 to 20 years behind my peers who were
born into a better situation.

People born into privilege (white, male, Western, middle-class, stable
extended family) are born at the top of the mountain. Those born without
privilege have a mountain to climb. Those born into disadvantage have an ocean
to swim just to find the mountain and will get lost along the way.

I'm a big believer in giving people a chance. You will never see such
determination and resourcefulness in people like you will in someone who has
come from a dark place and will pit everything they are to make sure that they
never return to that dark place. And even at the base of the mountain, you
will never find people who will help lift others like those who have already
struggled to get there.

It's a real blight on the Western world that we collectively abandon and
condemn so many able and smart people who want to do better.

~~~
kamaal
Though the white-black situation doesn't apply to me here in India. After
coming from a poor background, I can attest to the spirit of your post.
Especially:

>>whilst I succeeded in breaking the cycle of poverty that disadvantage
creates, I am indeed 10 to 20 years behind my peers who were born into a
better situation.

and

>>Those born without privilege have a mountain to climb. Those born into
disadvantage have an ocean to swim just to find the mountain and will get lost
along the way.

Life for me so far has been only one thing - "A ocean's distance to swim just
to find the mountain".

Every time I see some one born into a rich family wasting time doing small
work, chasing small time goals and living the everyday life- I pity them, I
pity them for not knowing what a gift they have/had and what they have made of
it.

>>It's a real blight on the Western world that we collectively abandon and
condemn so many able and smart people who want to do better.

This is true anywhere in the world and not just the west.

------
tunesmith
I found the tipping point part interesting. Where up to a particular point,
incarceration is good for a community, but past that point, it hurts the
community. It made me wonder if it were possible to identify where that
tipping point is, perhaps as a function of incarcerated criminals per capita
for a geographic region or something. And then relaxing sentences according to
that function.

~~~
screature2
Hmm... I think that a per capita view of the tipping point misses too many key
conditions underlying a true tipping point.

My instinct is that the tipping point would differ wildly based on the
community characteristics i.e. availability of jobs, quality of schools,
racial tensions, prevalence of drug or alcohol availability and/or abuse

I think the tipping point is more a factor of figuring out at what point the
incentives for behavior that puts you at risk for incarceration enough to
counter the risk of the incarceration given your current state/status/level of
resources.

Additionally, I think in many circumstances the threat of imprisonment is
dulled both because as serving prison time gets more prevalent in a community
it becomes more normal/acceptable as a risk (prison inflation if you will) and
because as serving prison time reduces alternative options for earning a
decent livelihood for the re-entry community it may ends up paradoxically more
worth it to risk future prison time.

------
OGinparadise
Reason #X:

Once in prison, good luck getting a job, even if you manage to overcome what
happened inside. Looks like the entire society is designed to look for the
tiniest infraction and punish you for it--for life.

~~~
prewett
It makes things more difficult, but not "good luck getting a job." I have a
friend who did quite a few years time for drug dealing. After he got out, he
got an engineering degree, got married, and has a well-paying job. I think
it's more about your attitude: if you seem like a quasi-criminal, people will
be reluctant to hire you. In my friend's case, he found God while in jail,
which resulted in his complete change in attitude.

~~~
jimmytucson
Hats off to your friend. In my opinion, he's earned it 10 times over. Because
I guarantee you it was 10 times harder for him to get that degree than it was
for the kid who walked the straight and narrow throughout high school and
never deviated from the beaten path.

Many kids have a change in attitude when they go to jail. The problem is,
society will never change its attitude towards them. Once a felon, always a
felon.

------
rdl
I wonder what part of this problem is closely related to drugs; if you
decriminalized or legalized drugs, would people going to jail for street gang
drug dealing move on to other crime (extortion? gambling? prostitution?
robbery?), or would they move on to legal activities? Drugs are uniquely
profitable (extortion, robbery, etc. have direct victims who will fight back,
and I don't think the desire to gamble illegally is anywhere near as
widespread or powerful as the desire to do drugs), so I can't really see
criminal activities replacing all of the drug trade.

~~~
nonamegiven
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. If drugs
were legalized they'd start arresting us for something else. It has nothing to
do with the crime rate.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration#Incarceration_ra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration#Incarceration_rates_by_country)

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_rate>

~~~
rdl
Was this true before the drug war?

~~~
jvm
No. I think parent is being a little sensationalist.

Graphical evidence that the war on drugs specifically is the problem:
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/US_incarc...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/US_incarceration_rate_timeline.gif)

------
spindritf
> The shift to tougher penal policies three decades ago was originally
> credited with helping people in poor neighborhoods by reducing crime. But
> now that America’s incarceration rate has risen to be the world’s highest

But the crime rate has been steadily decreasing since then. Oh, except for the
bump related to the "crack epidemic." Which is exactly what the guy was
dealing.

> they don’t see what good was accomplished by keeping him there for two
> decades

Keeping him away from law-abiding citizens for two decades was accomplished.

Don't get me wrong. It is a sad story. And I sympathize with someone who
didn't see a better way for himself than crack dealing but what about all
those other people, the society at large, who don't want to be afraid to walk
after dark, don't want their property vandalized...?

~~~
agwa
> Keeping him away from law-abiding citizens for two decades was accomplished.

>Don't get me wrong. It is a sad story. And I sympathize with someone who
didn't see a better way for himself than crack dealing but what about all
those other people, the society at large, who don't want to be afraid to walk
after dark, don't want their property vandalized...?

What makes 20 years the magic number after which Harris could be safely
returned to live among law-abiding citizens? A key point of the article is
that we're keeping people locked up long after they become unlikely to commit
more crimes. It's not saying that lawbreakers shouldn't be incarcerated at
all. You also have to consider unintended consequences of long incarceration,
such as the effect it has on children, and the fact that it perpetuates the
cycle of poverty that led Harris to crack dealing in the first place.

Other western countries deter crime and protect the public with far shorter
sentences. Why wouldn't that work here too?

~~~
tsotha
>What makes 20 years the magic number after which Harris could be safely
returned to live among law-abiding citizens?

Actually, there is some logic to it. Men are much less likely to commit crimes
when they reach middle age. If the goal is to keep society safe from
criminals, you could do worse than to keep every serious offender in until
he's forty.

------
habosa
I honestly don't see the point in any prison sentences more than 5 years but
less than life. There are many people who have done terrible things and
deserve to be in prison forever, and for them I understand a life sentence.
For everyone else, when is 5 years not enough? 5 years is a very, very long
time and if we actually made an effort to rehabilitate you could teach a
person a ton in 5 years. I think that for 90% of crimes criminals should be
locked up for no more than 5 years and then placed on probation with mandatory
psychological evaluation after that. If they are well-behaved and pass basic
psychological tests, they have likely learned their lesson. The only reason I
can see for longer non-life sentences is for people who serve multiple years
and then become repeat offenders, they may lack the ability to be
rehabilitated in a reasonable amount of time.

~~~
monochromatic
It's not just rehabilitation. It's also deterrence.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
How much deterrence do you think longer sentences than that actually provide?
Nobody is typically going to commit a crime if they think it will put them in
prison for five years. The people who do are just expecting not to be caught.
A longer sentence can hardly deter someone who doesn't expect to serve it.

It's also worth pointing out that the general public has utterly no idea what
the prison sentences are for specific crimes. How can you deter anyone with no
knowledge of the deterrent?

~~~
monochromatic
The general public isn't out committing these crimes. Do criminals (and
potential criminals) know what sentences are like? I'm not sure, but I'd guess
they'd more likely to than people in general.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
I kind of doubt it. Most street thugs are not about to call up a lawyer and
inquire about the penalties imposed on the crimes they intend to commit -- or
about anything at all for that matter, because street thugs don't generally
have "hiring a lawyer ahead of time" money.

Potentially the ones in gangs will know from personal experience or the
experience of their compatriots, but then you're right back into not expecting
to be caught territory -- or else how can you explain the lack of deterrent
effectiveness in reality?

I mean just look at the evidence: Has increasing the penalties on drug crimes
to insane levels deterred the bulk of the drug dealers from continuing to deal
drugs? Obviously not.

------
jimmytucson
This article points to a real problem in our society but the scope of it is
much larger than just African-Americans or just drug-related crimes.

I know because many of the kids I grew up with (including one very close
family member of mine) were convicted of felonies and sentenced to anywhere
from 1.5 to 12 years in a federal penitentiary. Of the 9-or-10-some-odd kids I
know who did time, less than half of them have gone on to lead normal,
productive lives. Many of them are back in prison now. Bureau of Justice
Statistics back up my experience. If you are a male between the ages of 14 and
17 who is convicted of a violent felony, your chances of getting re-arrested
are better than 80% [1].

So, why is this? Well, in my opinion, based on countless conversations I've
had with these individuals and others, it's practically unfathomable that any
of them actually succeed in going "straight".

It's not rocket science. Imagine you're 17 years old. You've been hanging out
with the wrong crowd, doing drugs, getting into trouble, and leading a scumbag
lifestyle since you were 15 or 16. You get charged with a violent felony,
tried as an adult, convicted, and sentenced to 5 years in a maximum security
prison (where you get to meet and hang out with a plethora of other gang
bangers, drug dealers, rapists, and murderers).

Now picture this. You make parole after 3 years. You're 20. You've got no high
school diploma, no college credits, no work experience, no car, no money, and
the only friends you had who aren't currently either 1) in jail or 2) about to
be in jail are juniors and seniors in college and probably studying abroad in
Asia or something while you're living at home trying to figure out what to do
with your life. 3 of the most formative years of your young adult life have
essentially been obliterated.

What are you going to do? After striking out at 5 or 6 other local
establishments, McDonald's just became the latest to turn down your
application (you have to tell them if you've been convicted of a felony and if
you don't they'll find out when they do the background check). You might have
earned your GED while you were in prison but the prospect of getting that pre-
law degree you sorta once dreamed is looking pretty slim. What would be the
point, anyway? You're not allowed to pass the bar exam. Maybe you should join
the military. Oh, wait... they don't want scumbags like you carrying around an
assault rifle.

Remember your codefendants? One of them lives right downstairs. He wants to
know if you feel like "chilling" later. He just got an ounce of cocaine from
one of his buddies and there's still a ton of beer left over from that party
he had last night. Fuck it, you're not getting anything done in the next 24
hours, anyway. You're bored. You might be embarrassed to admit it, but you're
lonely. Might as well crack open a cold one and try to forget your problems
for a spell...

See, when you get convicted and sentenced, you may only serve 15 months in
prison but you will be a felon for the rest of your life. And if you got
arrested in high school then you don't have any "former life" to go back to.
You are not educated. You have no friends. You are not hire-able. You do not
have the right to vote. You cannot serve in our military. They're practically
begging you to fuck up again.

And, unfortunately, most of them do.

[1] <http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/rpr94.pdf>

~~~
jtreminio
I am being honest here and have no desire to come off as trolling:

What is the difference between a convicted felon and an illegal immigrant?

Why can someone pack up and leave the only country they've ever known, move to
a new country that is by all measures hostile to their plot and speaks a
language that they do not know at all, and end up bettering themselves?

Why can't a felon do this?

If an illegal immigrant can wash dishes for a restaurant, pick crops from a
field, mow lawns in the sun, or paint homes and install carpet, what is
preventing a felon that

* Has work authorization

* Speaks the language

* Quite possibly has a stable family structure already in place

from making something positive and productive of themselves?

~~~
aspensmonster
>What is the difference between a convicted felon and an illegal immigrant?

One has a felony show up on their background check, and the other has no
record to speak of?

~~~
jtreminio
Felons, even if they are looked down upon by a great part of society, still
enjoy many protections.

Illegal immigrants ... not so much.

Any job an illegal immigrant can get, a felon can as well.

If you're a felon, guess what? You fucked up. Time to cowboy up and start from
the bottom.

~~~
jtreminio
Anechoic, I can't reply directly, but that goes back to my original question.

> If you are a male between the ages of 14 and 17 who is convicted of a
> violent felony, your chances of getting re-arrested are better than 80%

Why is this true of felons, but 80% of illegal immigrants don't commit
felonies?

~~~
Anechoic
_Why is this true of felons, but 80% of illegal immigrants don't commit
felonies?_

I wonder if perhaps the added deterrence of getting kicked out of the country
has an effect at reducing felonies among undocumented immigrants. Also,
immigrants in general tend to be, as a group, more determined to better
themselves than most which is why they're here in the first place. Plus you
have things like parole restrictions that limit where a felon can go, move,
visit and work.

------
CleanedStar
Companies which purvey deadly substances like tobacco or hard liquor are
listed on stock exchanges and contribute to federal political campaigns. He,
with a junky educational system and disappearing blue collar jobs sells
marijuana or cocaine and becomes an evil "drug dealer". It's also rather
interesting how cocaine and heroin got into the hands of domestic drug
distributors like Ricky Ross - something covered by the press from time to
time, but not dwelled on.

Was there a poverty trap in feudal Europe, or these American lands before the
Americans? There's a poverty trap because the economic system needs a poverty
trap to function. It is not due to neglect, but due to a massive amount of
attention that poverty exists in the U.S. - it takes a lot of work and effort
to keep people poor, in a country where GDP and productivity have been rising
for a long time.

What would the reason for U.S. poverty? Well it could be the legacy of the New
Deal and progressivism, although that would not explain massive poverty in
slums and rural areas at the end of the 19th century in the U.S. It could be
due to a liberal idea of a lack of caring - although the New Deal, the Great
Society and so forth brought a lot of focus on these things.

Or poverty can exist because it is a necessity, a cornerstone of the economic
system. The reserve army of labor (
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_army_of_labour> ) and all of that.

~~~
ctdonath
_What would [be] the reason for U.S. poverty?_

Lets start with discussing the US legal definition of "poverty", which puts
the line at some 20x world median income.

~~~
cma
At least mention that purchasing power parity makes this less extreme than it
sounds.

~~~
nandemo
While purchasing power parity is certainly relevant, being poor in the US (by
the official US definition) is still better than being poor almost anywhere
else.

This paper goes so far as to argue that, in many ways, the average poor
American lives at the same level or better (materially speaking) than an
European middle class person:

<http://www.timbro.se/bokhandel/pdf/9175665646.pdf>

Also, note that the official definition's minimum yearly income doesn't
include welfare benefits.

~~~
edderly
The paper you cite really only talks in terms of access to/possession of
goods. So yes, in the US you may be more likely to possess a car than someone
in Bhutan. But whether that is better is debatable.

By comparison it's interesting to look at 'happiness', obviously that has it's
own problems in terms of quantifiability. However, at least it involves asking
the poor how well off they are.

[http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic457678.files//Hap...](http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic457678.files//HappinessInequality.pdf)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_national_happiness>

~~~
ry0ohki
You can talk about happiness, but even the poorest people in the US still have
access to basic sanitation and clean drinking water, and (usually) a roof over
their head which is not something you can say for many poor people of the
world.

~~~
edderly
And as long as the poorest in the US are richer than someone in the world that
is somehow satisfactory?

I'm fairly content to talk about happiness, it's fairly fundamental.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life,_liberty_and_the_pursuit_o...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life,_liberty_and_the_pursuit_of_happiness)

~~~
ry0ohki
So if given the choice between the two, you are picking a slightly happier
life in a country where you will not live to age 30? Interesting.

~~~
ctdonath
"Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils." - General John Stark on
July 31, 1809

