tl;dr: In the U.S. in only 20% of murder cases the perpetrator is found and convicted of murder, compared with (allegedly) 90% in Japan. At the same time, even if all non-violent offenders (that includes all drug offenses) were released from prisons in the U.S. tomorrow, the U.S. would still have double the incarceration rate of Western Europe.
Going from 7 times Europe's rate to double Europe's rate is still pretty significant.
On your second link, the first half is reasonable, but the second half utterly misses the point. The reason why the police wait in 'The Wire' and in real life is because they're gathering evidence. If they don't have enough evidence, the case won't stick. Similarly, they're trying to catch the kingpins. If you catch the front-line dudes you can fill your prisons with them, but there will always be more (in places where it's bad, like where the Wire is set).
It's weird that given the US already has such an immense problem with overincarceration that you think the solution is to lock people up over even more trivial issues. Where are those people going to be stored? Given the already clogged courts, aren't you going to have to abandon due process in order to get so many through?
You still haven't shown that overincarceration is actually a problem in any meaningful sense. The solution could just as easily be to open more courts.
There already is too little money for courts (and the prisons the subsequent influx of prisoners are going to need), so where is it going to come from?
It's pointless, really, because if you honestly don't think that overincarceration is 'actually a problem', then you're so one-eyed that nothing I say will sway you.
There are stories all the time about prisons being run for profit. If the prison industry is profitable, perhaps it can be made profitable enough to pay for more courts as well. More prisons would of course be a net gain rather than a loss.
Who is it that you think pays for the prisons that are profitable? Who is their customer?
I mean, you're saying here that somehow the state would get more money back from the private prisons than they paid them, so they could spend this surplus on courts?
I don't give a damn about statistics. I want to be able to live anywhere in the US safely.
Would you allow your 6yo to walk alone at night through any city in the US?
I think you should be able to. I think a person should be able to live anywhere in the US without encountering violence on a daily basis, without hearing gunshots every night.
Because that isn't true, I think there is too much crime.
There is a solution. A totalitarian police state with no privacy and draconian punishments.
Increased incarceration and police powers reach an eventual point of diminishing returns.
Do you know what the likelihood of a 6 year old being abducted or killed by a stranger are? Do a google search and you'll probably be surprised by how uncommon it is. Fewer children are abducted in the classic "stranger danger" manner (unknown attacker as opposed to a friend or family member) than are struck by lightning each year.
If we can save 10 6 year olds per year, is it worth incarcerating 100 extra people, 1000, 10,000...1,000,000? At what point does the increased risk of snaring innocent people, and the financial cost outweigh the small gains in "safety"?
This is a surprising stance to encounter on HN. The article I linked to asserted that although crime in NYC has gone drastically down, incarceration rates have not gone up. I found that interesting, do you?
Elsewhere in this thread you suggest executing bike thieves as they commit theft, and although I'm not sure you were entirely serious, I'm afraid we're going to agree on much about this issue.
