As noted here many, many times, progressives often have a wildly inaccurate conception of the criminal demographic and of the psychology and motives in play, as expressed by the criminals themselves. A conception so inaccurate, one might call it perverse.
On the subject of prison and its occupants, Inquisitive Bird shares some corrective statistics while poking at one or two common myths:
The median number of prior arrests was nine. More than three quarters have at least 5 prior arrests. Having 30+ prior arrests was more common than having no arrest other than the arrest that led to the prison sentence (i.e., 1 prior arrest)…
As striking as these figures are, they still understate prisoners’ criminal histories. This is because of the dark figure of crime—the amount of unreported, undetected, or undiscovered crime. A highly replicated finding is that criminals self-report having committed many offences for each police contact. That is, they readily admit to having “gotten away with” many offences.
One study of 411 males found that the self-reported number of offences was over 30 times greater than convictions. For sexual offending, studies have estimated the dark figure to be anywhere from 6.5 to 20 times the official figure. In a recent study of American delinquent youths, the self-reported number of delinquent offences was 25 for every police contact.
However large the dark figure of crime exactly is, it is undoubtedly practically significant. Prisoners’ criminal histories are therefore substantially more extensive than their criminal records would suggest.
There’s much more to be had in the linked piece, along with some eyebrow-raising charts.
Unsurprisingly, a similar pattern is found here in the UK:
And then there’s Sweden:
Another notable fact: approximately half of violent crime convictions were committed by people who already had 3 or more violent crime convictions. In other words, if after being convicted of 3 violent crimes people were prevented from further offending, half of violent crime convictions would have been avoided.
In short, before ending up in prison, the vast majority of the perpetrators, the supposedly downtrodden and marginalised, have at least five prior arrests, with almost half having 10 or more, and one in seven, 20 or more:
At which point, the phrase that comes to mind is the nature of the beast. Conceivably, other phrases may occur to readers.
Those with a taste for grim humour are steered towards this rather vivid indication of how a crime rate can improve when just three burglars – with over 200 convictions between them – flee the police in a stolen car before colliding with something solid and ceasing to be.
An illustration, one of many, of how a very large fraction of crime could be prevented by dealing decisively with a surprisingly small number of persistent offenders.
And as commenter Geoff quipped, following this:
Well, indeed.
For those of you with X accounts, Inquisitive Bird can be followed here.
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