Criminal Trajectories
Further to our lively rumblings on crime and recidivism, including recent comments, Inquisitive Bird has some relevant data:
One illustrative example: people who are imprisoned in the United States have typically been arrested many times. An analysis showed that less than 5% of people admitted to prison had only been arrested the one time that led to the prison sentence… It was more common to have been arrested 30+ times than having only the single arrest that led to imprisonment. The median number of arrests was 9, and more than 3 out of 4 prisoners had been arrested 5+ times.
Another example is that nearly a third of shoplifting arrests in 2022 involved just 327 people, who collectively were arrested and rearrested more than 6,000 times.
But the reality is even worse than this, for criminals (when asked) admit that have often committed dozens of crimes for every crime they were arrested for…
A corollary of the criminal power law is that a large fraction of crime can be prevented by addressing a surprisingly small number of persistent offenders…
In 2020, three prolific burglars were on the loose in Leinster, Ireland. Together they had accumulated over 200 convictions. But one day, they all died in a traffic accident. As a result, the robbery rate plummeted.
That would be this incident here. The gentlemen in question met their maker after colliding head-on with a lorry, while driving down the N7, at more than twice the speed limit, in the wrong direction. Their car, a stolen BMW 3 series, promptly burst into flames, making the identification of their remains a time-consuming endeavour.
Happily, the driver of the lorry survived.
Readers with an interest in the subject are advised to read the whole thing, in which eye-widening statistics abound, along with some rather sensible – and therefore terribly unfashionable – policy suggestions.
Update, via the comments:
Regarding the burglars’ demise, what catches the eye are the gushing tributes from friends and relatives, claiming, rather improbably, that the gleefully malevolent creatures were “too good for this stupid shitty world.”
As if the trio – whose activities included habitual burglary on a prodigious scale, and assaulting and mugging elderly couples and bedridden cancer patients – were somehow deserving of public sympathy. Not the numerous victims of their predations, mind, but the predators themselves. It does rather tell us something about the quality of those friends and relatives, their moral orientation.
Again, I miss the concept of shame.
Oh, and consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
‘College for everyone’ means more mid- and dim-wits pullulating in the halls of academe. Education is a simple subject – you only need a 6th grade education to teach a 5th grade pupil – so those with limited abilities gravitated to it.
To that effect, a striking reminder.
From the subsequent replies:
That, as they say.
I’ve mentioned before an episode of the long-running comedy-quiz show QI, in which Stephen Fry and his celebrity panellists touched on the ‘3 strikes’ policy with much tutting and condescension.
Viewers were given the impression that otherwise harmless and adorable people were being incarcerated simply for stealing “nine videotapes” or a few boxes of cookies. The assorted luvvies seemed oddly incurious about the rather more serious crimes that must have occurred previously. Nor did they seem interested in having those who’d been incarcerated roaming free in their own neighbourhoods, carjacking their neighbours, or breaking into their homes.
But everyone congratulated themselves on being so lofty and enlightened. Not like those redneck Americans and their silly, punitive ideas.
A recurring theme of the QI series is to show how common assumptions are sometimes wrong or misleading. So there was a certain unintended irony in seeing the left-of-centre politics of the host and panellists being affirmed by an eye-widening omission of facts. An omission that could not plausibly have been an accident.
When the series first aired, about 20 years ago, I would happily watch it. Fry can be funny, as can some of the guests. The bien-pensant politics was always there, of course, but it became more prominent, more uniform, and more grating, over time. This political default is seemingly taken for granted by its hosts and almost all of the panellists. In a show about the wrongness of things that are taken for granted.
The afore mentioned Chemerinsky was on – IIRC 60 minutes years ago – muttering darkly about the guy who, under 3 strikes, got the 25 to life sentence when he was convicted of stealing a slice of pizza.
OMG! A slice of pizza? How horrible to throw away his life over pizza!
Um. No. What is never explained 1) he didn’t just swipe it, he confronted a child holding pizza and threatened the kid into handing it over 2) His rap sheet was huge. He had oodles of felonies and misdemeanors on it — only 2 out of hundreds were designated ‘strikes’ by a judge.
“Strikes” were never automatic but had to be argued before a judge who then declares whether the charge itself qualifies as “a strike.”
I think part of it is that progressives, and indeed people generally, struggle to understand what it must be like to be the kind of person who can rapidly generate an extensive criminal CV, or to comprehend the kinds of motives typically in play.
Dozens of burglaries, assaults, and thefts. Countless, routine acts of degrading others, and shitting on their lives. A world of 85 IQs and zero impulse control, in which everything is now, and in which the defining ethos is absolute selfishness.
Instead, the progressive worldview seems based on an assumption, or a need to believe, that the typical violent criminal is somehow just like them, only more oppressed, and maybe not quite so good at mental arithmetic. Which is, to say the least, wildly incorrect.
I’m a heartless asshole. I’ll be the first to admit that fact, and acknowledge it.
When I was being a heartless asshole on a professional basis, as a non-commissioned officer in the US Army, it quite often struck me and the rest of the great unwashed that were the majority of my peers that 10% of the troops took up 90% of our time, in terms of disciplinary “cost”. Perhaps 3% were actively real criminal dirtbags, but the overall numbers were always in that 1 to 9 ratio.
This ties in with the criminality question because of the fact that you generally find that it’s always the same 10%, inside and outside the military, that are doing the negative things like driving drunk and stealing. Always the same ones, always the same sort of idiotic lackwittery on display. And, what’s worse? They never, ever learned, being incapable of that. They were mostly dumber than flatworms; you could continually whack them on the head, and they’d still go for the light of criminal activity as though they were moths to a flame.
This being the case, I long ago came to the conclusion that there’s no reforming that 10%, and that you would be a lot better off if you simply let them self-identify and then either broke them up for parts or otherwise eliminated them from civilized company. They cost waaaaaay more than they will ever contribute. As such, I would suggest that they’d make great involuntary organ donors, once they convincingly demonstrated that they were beyond reform.
Heartless? Well, have you ever tried explaining to a little girl why her mommy and daddy won’t be coming home, because a drunk driver with four convictions for that crime killed them?
Ever watch that sumbitch get off for negligent homicide, because the on-scene cops failed to dot their “i’s” and cross their “t’s”?
Had the signal experience of being on the periphery of that incident, and I suffered a bit of an epiphany: Not every life is of equal value, and to say that such creatures deserve consideration and mercy? Utter folly; that specific asshole acquired two more convictions for DWI, killed another person, and finally managed to kill himself while driving drunk and wrapping his car around a tree.
At least three people would still be alive, if they’d have performed a post-natal abortion on his ass after the third DWI. I’m enough of an asshole to think that it was a pity that they didn’t. I still think they should have used him as an organ donor after number three…
While I’m generally sypathetic to the notion that the current legal system does a very poor job of sifting the rehabilable from the incorrigible, I also live in a country where the government declared martial law against people whose crime was wanting to go outside occasionally.
Any power you give the government will eventually be used against you. There is strong evidence that innocent people have been put to death in states which still have the death penalty. I’m not prepared to grant the government even more power to exterminate its own citizens.
@Daniel Ream, who said:
Your basic problem is that you’ve allowed your government to become infested with the same sort of scum that we’re talking about, the essentially criminal. You don’t solve that problem by eschewing taking action against them; you solve it by fixing your system such that you can trust your government to do the right thing.
The sad fact is this: Civilization springs from within the man, not the institutions that man creates. The institutions are what are failing, mostly because we’ve invested far too much power into them, and that power has served as an attractant for the utter scum that now infest the hierarchy.
Whose fault is that, pray tell? Our own. Why? Because we allowed these creatures to exist as the parasites they are. Were we vigilant, and cognizant, we’d see these sick cretinous power-seekers for what they are, and we’d have kept them from the positions they now occupy and use against us. We got here through lack of forthright care, not anything else.
If you cannot trust your institutions to “do the right thing”, then you’ve failed as a participant in those institutions. It’s that damn simple; you can’t trust your government? Who the hell does that government consist of? Alien space bats, or your fellow citizens? Why do you consent to their abuse of you and your liberties?
The sad fact is that you either live with the criminally inclined, who’re essentially impossible to reform, or you eliminate them when they commit their acts. If you’ve allowed your mechanisms of control to become corrupted and taken over by the mendacious? That’s your damn fault, and you’re going to suffer for it, because now you not only have to deal with the criminally inclined, but with the petty tyrants you’ve allowed to take over the system meant to control the activities of the first group.
The entire unfortunate situation we’ve allowed to grow up like a systemic cancer stems from the root fact that we’ve invested too much power into these institutions, and signally failed to hold the people in them to account. If there weren’t such things as sovereign immunity for prosecutors and politicians, you’d see a damn sight less abuse. Anyone who thinks it’s a good idea to allow prosecutors immunity for abusing their power of life over death is an utter idiot, but that’s precisely what we’ve done. You want to have that sort of power, you need to be accountable for your actions. Which means, sweetie, that if you’re a prosecutor responsible for wrongful conviction, then you get to suffer the same penalty. Up to and including capital punishment. Same-same with anyone perjuring themselves… You testilie, as the phrase goes? You do the maximum time allotted for the crime you lied about someone else committing.
We are not coming out of this era of criminality by any other means than establishing, yet again, the rule of law and then enforcing it with draconian rigor. Having done that, and it will include a hell of a lot of individual cases of less-than-perfect justice, we would do well to ensure that we don’t lose the bubble yet again. The cyclic nature of this crap just pisses me the hell off; it’s just endless rounds of licence followed by repression followed by licence. Set a standard, enforce it evenly and consistently.
In the end, you have to maintain sight of the fact that the justice system doesn’t exist to further the ideal of justice; that’s an unattainable abstract idea that only God can produce. Human legal systems exist only to serve as behavioral conditioning structures such that we can try to live together without too much slaughter resulting from a state of nature. Nothing else; it ain’t perfectible, and it ain’t pretty.
Even those people who read the papers, because most crimes do not get reported in the news. Newspapers used to have a section–called a police blotter?–in which virtually all crimes and arrests were briefly noted, often with mugshots. But nowadays most crimes and arrests are not reported, and follow-up reporting is rare. (That motorcyclist who was run over: Did he survive? Those late night robberies, what were the witness descriptions of the suspects?) I would happily pay for a subscription to a service that faithfully reported such news accurately and completely.
There are some municipalities that release full crime reports, and sometimes one can find online interactive crime maps. But the left continues to oppose this because it is “racist” to allow citizens to know how much crime occurs in any neighborhood.
Case in point: The neighborhood a left-wing relative is thinking of retiring to. It looks nice during the day, and it’s very convenient to culture, restaurants, parks, beach, etc. BUT, there is street crime even during the day–I’ve witnessed some. (So much, in fact, that during the summer months a police mobile command center is permanently parked 100-200 yards from the condo she wants to buy.) I am sure the nighttime crime levels are far higher. Who wants to live where it is unsafe to be out after dark, especially if one is elderly? I won’t even try to persuade her to look elsewhere, as she’s an unteachable leftist who sees opponents of BLM and DEI as evil racists.
Would that Fry’s smug pudgy face met with a mugger’s fist.
Many (most of them, I’ll wager) do not struggle at all. They expend no effort because they don’t want to know the truth. They know what they know and those who say differently are evil people to be ignored and then silenced.
CLETS: California Law Enforcement Telecom System? For rapid access to nationwide crime databases, background checks, etc?
If you’re wondering if the system will learn anything from the burglarque accident, the Irish Garda (police officer) will be tried for reckless endangerment.
I can see the point that following them might have been dangerous but the alternative is that burglars might always decide to endanger the lives of others if they know they just need to head the wrong way on the motorway to evade capture.
This. My emphasis of course.
Certainly I struggle to understand what it must be like but I don’t take my difficulties as proof of troglodytic malevolence on the part of those who would imprison the malefactors.
It’s worth noting that babies are born with distinct personalities–bold/fearful, cheerful/grumpy, social/anti-social, etc. Even with the best of parents, some kids are just born with personality traits that make it difficult or impossible to socialize them.
Liberals and leftists, still wedded to the Blank Slate delusion, hate this and anathematize those who point it out.
I miss the concept of the “bad seed”.
That’s an error right there: I don’t have to “understand what it must be like to be” a wild animal in order to know that tigers and komodo dragons are dangerous to be around.
This is precisely how/why it works:
https://x.com/Gitabushi/status/1837189704707625247
Yes. AKA “rap sheets”. Limited access granted via training & certification. Accessing it, too, with an identification code and reason box to be filled in as the state did regular audits and you’d better have a case/report number to refer to and not be running a rap on your daughter’s boyfriend.
IIRC, per the earlier article, that is a favoured gambit.
See Graham Frederick Young.
Re. tributes for dead douchebags: how about this?
https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/funeral-talented-footballer-thomas-healy-24489370
If you can’t be bothered to read through the linked article, it’s about the 14-year-old victim of a tragic accident; a talented football player and musician. According to a relative of the family who’s a TD (Irish equivalent of an MP), Thomas would have played for the county. There’s a picture of the poor young boy when he would have been about ten, with the caption “Tragic youngster Thomas Healy, killed in horror road crash in Kerry”. There’s just one sentence which gives the game away: “The car he was driving crashed at around 1.10am on the Ross Road, near Ross Castle, in Killarney, Co Kerry.” [Emphasis mine, natch.] (The report of the accident from a few days earlier notes that Master Healey had wrapped the car around a tree.) The rest of the linked article comprises gushing tributes from friends and family.
Yep – a 14-year-old boy is driving a [possibly stolen- we’re not told] car in the early hours of the morning. But apart from that single line, the article is all about the tragic waste of a glorious young life, the anguish of his family and friends, etc, etc.
Whose fault is that, pray tell? Our own
You’re new here; I’ve been pointing out for some time that the West is heading for an inevitable violent civil war over these issues. The most likely result of that is not a shining new republic, but an oppressive, corrupt tyranny.
Bezmenov tried to warn us.
From the link:
I wonder what “interaction” might mean. /sarcasm
@Daniel Ream, who said:
One should take care not to automatically assume that “silence” equates to “non-presence”, anywhere. I’ve been perusing the esteemed Mr. Thompson’s blog now for lo these many years; it’s just that I’ve rarely come into the comment section to say anything.
I am not possessed of a charitable mien, nor do I suffer fools gladly. Which leads to rather a lot of condemnation when I point out folly in all quarters.
I would, in your posting’s case, point out that we will get that “inevitable violent civil war over these issues” precisely because that is what we are allowing to happen. That’s the price of civic sloth; you stand by while the arseholes who’ve graciously put themselves up for election to tyrannize their fellow citizens act upon their baser instincts, looking the other way whilst they pillage and plunder the public fisc?
You get precisely the government you deserve. The outrages of things like the Solyndra BS happened because the voters of Chicago foisted their political corruption upon the nation in the form of Barack Obama, and he and his took the opportunity to loot with glee. Nobody had the will, and certainly not their partners-in-crime on the “Republican” side of Congress, to do a damn thing about. I suppose it’s because they were disarmed and charmed by the “Wise Negro” thing, but I knew that rat bastard for a grifter from day one. Any fool voting for anyone who came up in the Chicago Machine could have told you what was coming, and here we are.
Again, a lack of civic diligence and virtue has gotten us here. Why, do you suppose, all these petty officials like mayors and school board members are so confident in their power that they use that power to shut down discussion in their public meetings? It’s because they’ve no accountability whatsoever, and face no consequence for their malfeasance.
A good tradition of the Revolutionary War days was that of the tar bucket and feather bag; if nothing else, it taught public officials a bit of humility. I would suggest that before we go too far towards excess that it might be a good idea to bring back such non-lethal checks on authority and its abuse, so that we don’t wind up with the tumbrils rolling towards the guillotine again.
In the final analysis, this is all of our fault, and the only real “fix” is to clean out the Augean stables of governance, and then ensure they don’t fill again. Nobody has mucked the damn things out in generations, and that leads to the same thing that allows massive forest fires: Excessive undergrowth creating the fuel for a major conflagration.
Coupla data points in regards to what I’m talking about:
https://x.com/ClownWorld_/status/1837919581995966784
https://abc7chicago.com/dolton-illinois-mayor-tiffany-henyard-scandal/14491732/
What you see here is the result of “victory at any cost” politicization of government. The Democrats know damn good and well that their two mayors here are corrupt and venal… Yet, they’re going to keep voting for them because “Democrat”. Zero accountability, zero responsibility taken for putting these two creatures into office under their imprimatur.
Not that the Republicans are any better, where they’ve done the same thing. The shamelessness with which they do it is what irks me… It wasn’t just Hunter Biden getting the money in Ukraine or China; you can find grifters on both sides of the aisle right alongside him.
And, why is this happening?
Because the voters are simply not taking responsibility. They aren’t doing their jobs as citizens, responsible adults with agency. These innumerable assholes infesting government? THEY WORK FOR YOU; not the other way around.
They only have the power and authority that you grant them. If they misuse it, it is up to you to take it back, and to punish the malefactors.
We do not do enough of that. I can about guarantee you that if there’d been a few incidents like what happened to that Dutch Prime Minister and his brother back in the day, the political hacks of the world might be taking a far less abusive tone with the rest of us. I’m not saying that we ought to be opening up open-air barbecues there in front of the Lincoln Memorial, but you do have to admit that such an event would almost certainly have a salutary effect on our politician’s conduct.
You do have to marvel at the current crop of Dutch politicians, though: That’s the sole Western nation I’m aware of where the constituents turned on and ate their politicians, which is the proper thing to do, when they overstep their bounds. Do they not teach that bit of Dutch history, in schools these days?
Not so sure about the health ‘n safety aspects of it all, but I do believe it would encourage some probity and rectitude in our political classes.
Related articles clarify it: it looks as though the police spotted the car speeding, started following it with sirens and lights, and may have given chase (though the police are a bit coy on that).
Western civilization has become governance, by, for, and at the expense of those three standard deviations below the lowest common denominator.
@Das,
At whose acquiescence and outright apathy…?
If we want this fixed, then we have to do something. Doing nothing means we’re fine with the way it’s going, and since we don’t fight it when we see it, at any level?
We get what we deserve.
It really starts with the little stuff… Looking the other way while a co-worker pilfers from the company, or robs a customer. Not taking action, when seeing something that’s clearly wrong in front of our eyes, thinking “This is someone else’s problem…”
Sad reality? It’s all of our problems. All the time… If you tolerate it, they just get more and more entrenched, more entitled, more prevalent.
The urge to forgive them their trespasses, to be lenient? Offer up excuses? That’s a large part of why this is happening. You have no standards, then there are no standards elsewhere in society. You can’t pick out a couple of threads, and expect the whole piece of cloth to be just as good as though you did not; the fraying of social order begins and ends with the individual.
Yet more proof that a return to capital punishment would improve the lives of the whole.
Those repeat burglers would then have served time for the first offence, then a second bout with the warning that the next time the judge could choose to confer the death penalty for being antisocial scumbags.
Would they have then stopped? Maybe but either way the third conviction could have seen them publicly hanged and with a result they could no longer behave as bandits.