Pawpaw recently posted an essay titled Root Causes.
We look at teen violence and try to ascribe root causes to try to rationalize behavior. Most of that rationalization is bullshit.
The sociologists try to put people in groups to explain societal problems and that is not always predictive. There are always outliers.
The best thing that a society can do to establish tranquility it to set rules and enforce them. A rule that is not enforced is useless.
As a cop, I learned that the rules change from time to time. It was not my job to try to understand why someone would choose to break the law. It was simply my job to enforce it.
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| Sergio Yanes Preciado pictured above |
An example of First-World "justice" involves Sergio Yanes Preciado who allegedly approached a family in a public park in Montreal’s Parc-Extension neighborhood and without provoction assaulted him by spraying the father with an unknown substance and then proceeded to batter him.
Now, a criminologist, who was not identified, has suggested the hot weather might have contributed to Preciado's actions that day. Temperatures reached a high of almost 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
The criminologist had conducted a quick mental health evaluation ahead of Preciado's appearance before Quebec Court Judge Martin Chalifour inside Montreal courthouse Wednesday, according to The Montreal Gazette.
Are you following this line of reasoning? The father was assaulted because of Global Warming. Preciado was not responsible. The weather was.
The court ordered a 30 day psychiatric evaluation pending any legal action against Preciado.
The flaw in this logic
There are approximately four-million people living in the Montreal metropolitan region. Approximately 1/3 of a million are men of Preciado's age +/- five years. If the weather is to blame, why didn't the other 333,332 men go nuts on that day?
To quote Pawpaw, "Most of that rationalization is bullshit." and it does a disservice to the people living in the communities where anti-social people are not held accountable.
The same flaw shows up in the "It's always the --gg--s!"
Granted, as a demographic they are disproportionately represented in crime statistics. But why is there a 4.5X difference in incarceration rates for Blacks (as a per-100k/per-100k white people) between New Jersey and Mississippi/Georgia/Alabama? What about all of the Black people who do NOT commit crimes but quietly go about their lives, work at their jobs, raise their children. If race is destiny, then how do you explain them?
Perhaps there is more of a culture of personal accountability in Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama. Maybe the courts don't make excuses (like "it's of climate change") for juveniles-of-color.
New York some time ago showed the benefits of zero tolerance policing (the 'broken windows' theory). Actually enforcing compliance resulted in a dramatic fall in crime.
ReplyDeleteConversely, we can see in London now how ignoring low-level crime like fare evasion and shoplifting is fostering a culture that encourages more serious criminality like stabbings.
It's foresight, nature and nurture. I speak of this by virtue of my personal observations and that of my fellows working in prisons. This is still simplification, but I don't have time to write a book about it. If you want a book anyways, here is one that tells about a prison, the staff and the inmates. https://www.amazon.com/Walls-Wire-Souls-Peter-Grant-ebook/dp/B00F98NJYM/ref=sr_1_1?sr=8-1
ReplyDeleteFirst, foresight. A decent percentage of the felons I dealt with did not have the capacity to look ahead at possible rewards or consequences of their actions. This differed, but more than a week was generally too long. Their morals were poor, but the difference between these folks and quite a few corporate executives was that ability. The executive would rip you off in a heartbeat if they could get away with it, these folks couldn't discern the chances one way or another.
Second, nature. Tendencies built into us from the start, that can be overridden or gone along with. Compared to white men, black men commit more violent crimes, hispanics commit more sexual assaults and orientals tend more towards embezzlement and such. This is not to say one group is more moral than another, because that is not so. We are not color coded to be good or evil, but the bad folks tend to sort themselves out in this way.
Third, nurture. The family, culture and society we grow up in. Children growing up in broken homes, neglect and abuse have a much higher chance of becoming felons. Child actors and models get a lot of abuse, which is why they go off the rails so often. It isn't absolute, we have free will, but what we see and experience makes a difference. Law enforcement, religion and school are parts of society, but are just parts.
So, what can we change? Nurture is the only place that we have any real control. Cold hard justice is often unfair, but it's the lowest hanging fruit, as it were. It can also help with abuse and neglect. Without justice, no other social change will stick.
It's always about 'accountability'. Down south, it's expected...
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