5/12/23

Criminal Overachievers

Criminal Overachievers

There goes the neighborhood [Source]

The Inquisitive Bird—great pseudonym, by the way—reports that a mere handful of violent criminals perpetrate the vast majority of violent crimes.

It is clear that people tend to have many arrests before being incarcerated. The data show, among persons admitted to state prison, more than 3 out of 4 have at least 5 prior arrests, including the arrest that resulted in their prison sentence. Going further into the tail: 46% (almost 1 in 2) had 10 or more prior arrests, 14% (1 in 7) had 20 or more prior arrests, and 5% (1 in 20) had 30 or more prior arrests. Indeed, having 30 or more prior arrests when admitted to state prison was more common than having no arrest other than the arrest that led to the prison sentence (i.e., 1 prior arrest). Further, it was more common to have 9 or more prior arrests than it was to have 8 or fewer.

That’s based on U.S. state prison statistics. The bird also cites (squawks?) sources pointing out that policing in the U.S. is understaffed relative to the total population and to the crime rate. I can’s say I would be surprised if this were the case. Even in a place with a relatively low cost of living, police pay is not all that appealing on its own.

Anecdotally, everyone I run into locally decries the fact that thefts (non-violent crimes, of course) seem to go unpunished, if the thieves can be caught successfully at all. But the property crimes that result in arrests contribute to the statistics behind the story. It seems likely that the mantra that the United States over-incarcerates relative to other countries elides the question as to whether the United States may actually not incarcerate enough.

Finally, the bird chirps that:

An implication of the fact that most crimes are committed by repeat offenders is that there are more victims than offenders³. More people get robbed than there are robbers, more victims of rape than there are rapists⁴, and so on. More generally, few people can cause great harm to society at large. Of course, the victims themselves experience this damage most directly. But the harms of crime extend beyond those directly affected.

It isn’t so much that incarceration helps as a deterrence or as a means of reform, but most likely serves to keep harmful people away from the rest of society.

The statistics also appear to support one theory of negativity bias: that a “bad apple” can spoil the bushel. Just as one coworker with a bad attitude can render a workplace unproductive, so a violent criminal can presumably make a much larger neighborhood feel unsafe for most residents.