"Compensatory Opportunites" ??

[fatman]

Dispensing with Uncle Mike for a moment, we all know income has nothing to do with crime.

By your own admission: you know that the vast majority of inmates, White, Black, or Hispanic, are almost always poor,

The only crime sector where income has been demonstrably proven not to be an influence on crime are sex crimes and some personal crimes.  The huge majority of property crimes are income driven.  While I am glad that you have visited a prison and seen things firsthand, how many times have you been there?  I go once every week or two weeks.  I don't dispute that the majority of criminals "did it".  No one has answered my question though, of how do we stop them from "doing it" again?  Is it morally acceptable to you to continue to lock people up like animals, until we have the highest rate in the world?  Higher than Communist China?  Higher than Russia or any of the former Soviet Republics?  Don't you think that we as a nation can do a hell of a lot better than this?

All I see is apathy.  It's kind of like when I visit a prison.  I see the same thing.

[Michael Tee]

<<Dispensing with Uncle Mike for a moment, we all know income has nothing to do with crime. >>

Common sense alone would tell you that income, along with poor parenting and other factors most definitely DO have something to do with crime.

<<To folks like Mike, blacks are preordained to be criminal because life is "stacked against them." >>

Amazing.  For once Rich doesn't twist my words, he says it better than I did.  Thanks, Rich.

<<They don't have a choice, because they're Black. They aren't capable of doing anything else, because they're Black. >>

Ooops, Rich is back to twisting my words again.  Sorry, Rich, it's not that they are black, period.  It's that they are black AND living out the trans-generational legacy of white racism, i.e. , of  slavery and Jim Crow.  They are black AND they are blacks living in a white society which is in the midst of a long transition from a racist to a non-racist society.

<<To Uncle Mike, the White man is wholly evil and delights in the natural condition of Black folks and does everything they can to keep them poor, drug addicted, and in jail.>>

No, only some Whites are as you described them.  I think it's more ignorance than evil.  You seem to be a good example of that - - you reach for ignorant, highly simplistic explanations of very complex events, probably because you don't like to acknowledge the white man's past sins against blacks.  So - - "they're in jail because they did bad things.  They did bad things because they made bad choices."  No analysis whatsoever of the effects of slavery on the great-grandparents' self-image and self-esteem, the effect of white racist total subjugation from generation to generation of black Americans, the effect on ego, on self-image, on self-confidence, on parenting skills.  That blacks DID manage to overcome such obstacles and live lives of worth and dignity is a miracle.  That many didn't should come as no surprise to anyone.  Generation after generation of black males raised to step off the sidewalk when a white approaches, that they could be horribly lynched for looking the wrong way at a white woman.   That the law would never lift a finger to protect them. 

You want to remain willfully ignorant of these factors.  Ignore them, ridicule them or trivialize them.  But there is nothing trivial about any of them.  They would have a significant effect on any human being, yourself included.  And they DID have an effect on American blacks.  An effect that still shows today in the stats that prove every word you say on the subject just can't be true.  You can't explain away those stats.

<<Who do we really blame here? Afterall, the justice system sees a Black person and since they can't linch them outright, simply gives the good defense lawyers to the White folk, and gives the incompetent ones to the lowly Black folk because afterall, they don't know any better do they.>>

You know as well as anyone else in this forum that overall, the whites have access to much better and much higher-priced lawyers than the blacks because whites have more money.  So why pretend otherwise?  You're only making a fool of yourself, while fooling absolutely no one.

<<Brother ...

If you've ever visited a prison (I have), you know that the vast majority of inmates, White, Black, or Hispanic, are almost always poor, come from broken homes, and are gang affiliated.>>

I've been in prisons many times and I don't know any such thing.  There are gangs in and out of prison, that is true.  But unless I saw a credible survey with numbers to support your allegations, I would never go out on a limb and say that "the vast majority" are gang-affiliated.

<<Almost all of them are repeat offenders, and they all DID IT. Once again, these aren't your short timers, under a year, these are people who are doing serious time . . . >>

Nobody says different, if you're talking penitentiary.  And your point is . . . ?

<< . . . for serious crimes.>>

Well, I just don't know how "serious" some of those "crimes" are.  Some are victimless, like trafficking in drugs.  Any conservative worth his salt knows that a trafficker in drugs is just satisfying a market, a market that the nanny state has decreed is "bad for your mental or physical health."  Far as I'm concerned, federal anti-drug law is just federal mind-control and an attempt by the believers in one version of reality to crush their competition.  They have a different version of reality to peddle and they are being criminalized.  That's psycho-fascism.

<<So if you want to be a good communist and repeat what they want you to hear, believe Uncle Mike; Blacks are in jail because the White man, the Conservative White man, wants them there and they can't help themselves simply because they're Black and can't figure out how to avoid prison. Why not? Would a communist lie?>>

That's just such a fucking distortion of my words I'm not even going to waste the time of responding to it.  I'll return the favour, though:  So if you want to be a good Nazi like Uncle Rich, believe that the explanation for the high rates of black incarceration lies not in economics or the failures of the justice system or the legacy of slavery, but know that there are such high numbers of blacks (Rich prefers to call them "niggers") in jail because they are genetically programmed to commit very high levels of criminal activity and also they have smaller brains, which means that they can't figure out how to avoid capture.  Uncle Rich believes that in every sense of the word "inferior," blacks are an inferior race.  In the words of Rich's hero, Adolf Hitler, blacks are "untermenschen" or sub-humans and a world without any of them would be a better world.  You can take Rich's word on this - - would a Nazi lie to you?

[Plane]

<<Dispensing with Uncle Mike for a moment, we all know income has nothing to do with crime. >>

Common sense alone would tell you that income, along with poor parenting and other factors most definitely DO have something to do with crime.

Do you consider white collar crime to be tolerable, or rare?

[Michael Tee]

<<Do you consider white collar crime to be tolerable, or rare?>>

How can a crime which takes away people's life savings be "tolerable?"  How is tax evasion tolerable when all the rest of us have to pay more so that the criminal can get away with paying less?  It's tolerable to steal out of my fucking pocket?  Out of YOURS, maybe, but out of mine, never.   

Anything that's reported more than several times a year can't be rare.  I think it's common and growing.

[Rich]

>>The only crime sector where income has been demonstrably proven not to be an influence on crime are sex crimes and some personal crimes. The huge majority of property crimes are income driven.<<

Just because they?re income driven doesn?t mean being poor is the motivation. The easy way out is the motivation and lack of adult supervision is a contributing factor. There have always been poor people, and they did not resort to crime at the rate we see today.

>>While I am glad that you have visited a prison and seen things firsthand, how many times have you been there? I go once every week or two weeks.<<

I don?t recall exactly. I used to go once a month, but I have only been perhaps 3 times last year. I do however drop off my old magazines every two months or so (county jail).

>>I don't dispute that the majority of criminals "did it". No one has answered my question though, of how do we stop them from "doing it" again?<<

By locking them up. What else can you do? These people are increasing dangerous and are repeat offenders. We offer all kinds of social programs to help people. Some people take advantage of them and they work, other don?t even try. Richard Nixon toyed with the idea of giving every man woman and child $million. Would that work? I doubt it. Money isn?t the problem, morality is.

>>Is it morally acceptable to you to continue to lock people up like animals, until we have the highest rate in the world?<<

What?s the alternative? We have tried just about everything there is to try. We?ve thrown billions and billions of dollars at the problem and it?s only gotten worse.

>>Don't you think that we as a nation can do a hell of a lot better than this?<<

I?d love to. Any ideas?

>>All I see is apathy. It's kind of like when I visit a prison. I see the same thing.<<

I have every sympathy for people who?s freedom has been taken away. It?s something I wouldn?t wish on anybody. It can ruin a person.

[Plane]

<<Do you consider white collar crime to be tolerable, or rare?>>

How can a crime which takes away people's life savings be "tolerable?"  How is tax evasion tolerable when all the rest of us have to pay more so that the criminal can get away with paying less?  It's tolerable to steal out of my fucking pocket?  Out of YOURS, maybe, but out of mine, never.   

Anything that's reported more than several times a year can't be rare.  I think it's common and growing.

Yes , and most of it is motiated by greed rather than need.

[Michael Tee]

<<Yes , and most of it [white collar crime] is motiated by greed rather than need.>>

Well, plane, I have to say as one who has visited at least three jails and penitentiaries in this province quite a few times, the number of white collar criminals locked up there is not very impressive.  Let's just say that if there were a riot in the general population any of the prisons I visited, and the white-collar criminals were pitted against the street criminals, you should put your money on the street criminals because the white collars would be very, very badly out-numbered.

The vast majority of the crime and of the criminals in North America are not white collar.

Furthermore, you are making a big mistake by looking only at the motivation of the crime.  Poverty is not only the immediate stimulus of most crimes, it destroys alternative life styles to crime.   Racism by destroying black self-respect makes good parenting impossible for some individuals (other stronger individuals overcome it, true enough, and more power to them!) but if you consider humanity a spectrum of strong to weak, those who are not strong, if black, will succumb to the degradation that racism engenders, and be incapable of good parenting.  Whites who are not strong will never be put to the same test, and so many more of them will still be capable of good parenting.

I just get the sense of you twisting and dodging any suggestion of responsibility.  As if institutions like slavery and Jim Crow, which are so soul-destroying, could come and go in one generation and leave no trace thereafter.  You just don't want to face up to certain basic truths.  Easier to blame the victims.

[The_Professor]

<<Yes , and most of it [white collar crime] is motiated by greed rather than need.>>

Well, plane, I have to say as one who has visited at least three jails and penitentiaries in this province quite a few times, the number of white collar criminals locked up there is not very impressive.  Let's just say that if there were a riot in the general population any of the prisons I visited, and the white-collar criminals were pitted against the street criminals, you should put your money on the street criminals because the white collars would be very, very badly out-numbered.

The vast majority of the crime and of the criminals in North America are not white collar.

Furthermore, you are making a big mistake by looking only at the motivation of the crime.  Poverty is not only the immediate stimulus of most crimes, it destroys alternative life styles to crime.   Racism by destroying black self-respect makes good parenting impossible for some individuals (other stronger individuals overcome it, true enough, and more power to them!) but if you consider humanity a spectrum of strong to weak, those who are not strong, if black, will succumb to the degradation that racism engenders, and be incapable of good parenting.  Whites who are not strong will never be put to the same test, and so many more of them will still be capable of good parenting.

I just get the sense of you twisting and dodging any suggestion of responsibility.  As if institutions like slavery and Jim Crow, which are so soul-destroying, could come and go in one generation and leave no trace thereafter.  You just don't want to face up to certain basic truths.  Easier to blame the victims.

How are "race relations" in Canada between the invading whites and the natives?

[Michael Tee]

<<How are "race relations" in Canada between the invading whites and the natives?>>

I think they're really sad.  The natives have much higher rates of alcoholism, substance abuse, fetal alcohol syndrome, teenage suicide and there's nothing to be done about it.

There was a whole generation of them taken from their families and raised in residential schools where they weren't allowed to speak their own language, follow their own customs or religions and in addition were beaten, sexually abused and basically fucked up for life.

In Alberta there were Indians murdered by cops for fun.  A few years ago, the cops in Edmonton or Calgary were caught taking Indians for "starlight cruises" - - usually drunks, but one time a mouthy, scrappy teenager.  They dropped them off in the middle of nowhere on a night when the temperature could be 30 or 40 below zero, and the guy would be found frozen to death on the outskirts of the city the next day.  The mistake they made with the teenager was that they left a witness.  Don't worry, nothing much happened to the cops.  It never does.

I read somewhere that the difference between Canada and the U.S.A. was that both fucked the Indians and stole all their land, but that in Canada, once the "deal" was made, it was generally respected.  What was theirs was theirs.  In the U.S.A., if oil or gold was discovered on the reservation, the whites would steal again from the Indians and "renegotiate" the treaty by force.  I just don't know if that's true or not.  It was in a Canadian newspaper or magazine.   Maybe the Canadians were just as bad.

Sometimes whites want to develop land that Indians claim is sacred and the Indians try to block the roads. This is usually a long way from  the city but it does pit the whites of small towns against Indians from the nearest reserve, assisted by militants like the Mohawk Warriors (who I think operate on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border.)

[The_Professor]

I am certainly not an expert in this arena, but why can't something be done in this on both sides of the border?

Perhaps someone needs to come in who isn't caught by that paradigm and think outside the box and come up with a solution. I have no idea what might be done. My simple "white" says "Why not take an automobile plant, or similar successful endeavor, and take it from where it is, or negotiate with Toyota or whomever for a new plant, and put it in a reservation and spend the bucks to properly train the natives to be successful at it?"

Any ideas?

[Michael Tee]

Yeah - -casinos.

In a nutshell, it's a societal problem based on a huge historical injustice that resulted in damaged human beings with terrible self-image producing terrible parenting skills and an intergenerational transfer of the problem.

Again, just as with the blacks, I think that early childhood development programs are the key to the problem and would go a long way toward rolling it back, but there just isn't the funding available.

Our priorities are fucked up, because they're "only children" and they're not even "our" children.  We have to keep an army in Afghanistan, YOU have to keep armies in both Afghanistan AND Iraq, the funds for which are limitless.  For the kids?  Fuck 'em, they're not even white kids so who gives a shit?

[Plane]

<<Yes , and most of it [white collar crime] is motiated by greed rather than need.>>

Well, plane, I have to say as one who has visited at least three jails and penitentiaries in this province quite a few times, the number of white collar criminals locked up there is not very impressive.  Let's just say that if there were a riot in the general population any of the prisons I visited, and the white-collar criminals were pitted against the street criminals, you should put your money on the street criminals because the white collars would be very, very badly out-numbered.

The vast majority of the crime and of the criminals in North America are not white collar.

Furthermore, you are making a big mistake by looking only at the motivation of the crime.  Poverty is not only the immediate stimulus of most crimes, it destroys alternative life styles to crime.   Racism by destroying black self-respect makes good parenting impossible for some individuals (other stronger individuals overcome it, true enough, and more power to them!) but if you consider humanity a spectrum of strong to weak, those who are not strong, if black, will succumb to the degradation that racism engenders, and be incapable of good parenting.  Whites who are not strong will never be put to the same test, and so many more of them will still be capable of good parenting.

I just get the sense of you twisting and dodging any suggestion of responsibility.  As if institutions like slavery and Jim Crow, which are so soul-destroying, could come and go in one generation and leave no trace thereafter.  You just don't want to face up to certain basic truths.  Easier to blame the victims.

Doesn't fit the reality.

Jim Crow used to have the force of law , Racism used to be unabashed and very common.

During that period the Parenting skill of black parents was more effective.
During that period fewer Black people were locked up , fewer were murdered .

Now the law is not an enemy of Black folk , racists are opressed and low on public approval.
If racism were the cheif cause of Black people being locked up , you would expet that even small improvement in race relations would result in reductions in incarceration , but as racism looses clout and White suprimacy is on its way to the dustbin of history he number of black people locked up is still riseing .

A lot of white people are getting locked up too , everyone is setting records.

Blameing racism is a knee jerk , something elese is getting worse at the same time as racism is weakening.

[Michael Tee]

<<Jim Crow used to have the force of law , Racism used to be unabashed and very common.

<<During that period the Parenting skill of black parents was more effective.
<<During that period fewer Black people were locked up , fewer were murdered .>>

Well, you missed two points:

1.  White people were better parents then too.  Fewer whites were locked up, fewer were murdered.  Different times.
2.  In the old days, blacks were taught to know their place, not to look whites in they eye, to go to the end of the line, the back of the bus, never to complain about it and never to raise hell.  Fear kept them in line.  Lynchings helped.

What you can't get away from is the tremendous lack of self-esteem that existed for generations - - they were taught to step off the sidewalk for a white man or woman, even if they were 73 and the white person was 12.  I couldn't even count the ways they were taught their "inferiority."  And the strong ignored it and lived lives of dignity and self-respect.  But how many came through it with the sense of hopelessness, of "why bother?" convinced that the only thing they were good for was the most menial of trades, convinced in their bones that they would never amount to nuthin.  And on top of that, poverty, ignorance, lack of educational opportunities, malnutrition, lead poisoning.  And those children growing up to be parents and produce yet another generation of the same.

[Plane]

<<Jim Crow used to have the force of law , Racism used to be unabashed and very common.

<<During that period the Parenting skill of black parents was more effective.
<<During that period fewer Black people were locked up , fewer were murdered .>>

Well, you missed two points:

1.  White people were better parents then too.  Fewer whites were locked up, fewer were murdered.  Different times.

I agree , how was this lost?

2.  In the old days, blacks were taught to know their place, not to look whites in they eye, to go to the end of the line, the back of the bus, never to complain about it and never to raise hell.  Fear kept them in line.  Lynchings helped.

True , but this should include unjust arrest and incarcration for racist reasons , which you would suppose to happen less now. Did repression and fear for an underclass do a good thing for the society as a whole? Heaven forbid that theworst racist rant be so proven true.

What you can't get away from is the tremendous lack of self-esteem that existed for generations - - they were taught to step off the sidewalk for a white man or woman, even if they were 73 and the white person was 12.  I couldn't even count the ways they were taught their "inferiority."  And the strong ignored it and lived lives of dignity and self-respect.  But how many came through it with the sense of hopelessness, of "why bother?" convinced that the only thing they were good for was the most menial of trades, convinced in their bones that they would never amount to nuthin.  And on top of that, poverty, ignorance, lack of educational opportunities, malnutrition, lead poisoning.  And those children growing up to be parents and produce yet another generation of the same.

I beleive a lot of people who were forced to show deference , knew in their heart that the situation was basicly unfair , and uneeded. Probly every one of them that was of above advradge intelligence had met a few priveledged class people of below advradge intelligence , but they must have done what survival required.

But given just a little chance to and these people gathered up a large number of heros from amoung themselves , and made peacefull resistance work . The boycot of Busses and the sit in of diners and the massive marches required a high degree of courage. What lesser courage is required to merely stay out of the hands of the penal system?

[Xavier_Onassis]

The boycot of Busses and the sit in of diners and the massive marches required a high degree of courage. What lesser courage is required to merely stay out of the hands of the penal system?

=====================================================
Bus boycotts and lunch counter demonstrations did require courage, but they also required organization at a determined time and place, and were effective because of the social opposition of the rest of the nation to the Jim Crow sheriffs who beat up the demonstrators . It isn't possible to organize the few people that are attracted to commit a thousand different crimes in a hundred cities over a long period. You are attempting to compare things that cannot be compared.