Incarceration Insanity: US Passes the 1% Mark

In news sure to improve America's reputation around the world, we have more than one of a hundred Americans incarcerated.

"The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.

Using updated state-by-state data, the report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world.

The steadily growing inmate population "is saddling cash-strapped states with soaring costs they can ill afford and failing to have a clear impact either on recidivism or overall crime," said the report.

The report said the United States is the world's incarceration leader, far ahead of more populous China with 1.5 million people behind bars. It said the U.S. also is the leader in inmates per capita (750 per 100,000 people), ahead of Russia (628 per 100,000) and other former Soviet bloc nations which make up the rest of the Top 10."

We should all let that one sink in for a while. More than any other country in the world. More than Russia. More than China. More than totalitarian regimes like North Korea, Iran, or even Cuba. How can we call ourselves the land of the free when we imprison more people than any other land? It sounds like something that came out of the Ministry of Truth, or Pravda.

I quibble with the comment above comparing rates of change between the prison costs and higher education. Such comparisons are easy to manipulate, and unless the underlying totals are similar, can be very deceiving. However, no doubt any legit comparison would also leave us disgusted at the absurd priorities we have.

So of course, we need to look at ways to cut costs.

Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States, said budget woes are prompting officials in many states to consider new, cost-saving corrections policies that might have been shunned in the recent past for fear of appearing soft in crime.

"We're seeing more and more states being creative because of tight budgets," she said in an interview. "They want to be tough on crime, they want to be a law-and-order state — but they also want to save money, and they want to be effective.".

This is the same old rhetoric, and it isn't going to work. As long as the American definition of "crime" remains that which includes a whole host of offenses against no one (drug use, gambling, prostitution, pornography), or amounts to a clerical discrepency, such as failure to appear, we will make no headway. Changes like those in Texas and Kansas are a move in the right direction:

"The report cited Kansas and Texas as states which have acted decisively to slow the growth of their inmate population. Their actions include greater use of community supervision for low-risk offenders and employing sanctions other than reimprisonment for ex-offenders who commit technical violations of parole and probation rules."

And the most shocking part of the whole issue? We don't have increasing crime:

The report said prison growth and higher incarceration rates do not reflect a parallel increase in crime or in the nation's overall population. Instead, it said, more people are behind bars mainly because of tough sentencing measures, such as "three-strikes" laws, that result in longer prison stays.

As with so many other issues, America has some choices to make. We simply cannot afford, both economically and morally, to imprison so much of our population, especially when so many are there for offenses that are either not offenses at all in the rest of the world, or are considered minor. We have a de facto Sharia in this country, and it has to stop before we have no one left to guard the prisoners, and no respect left in the world.

Know Who David Paterson is? You Soon Will

David Paterson is about to accomplish a lot of firsts. The man who stands to be promoted to Governor of New York (when hooker-hunter turned hypocritical hooker-fucker Eliot Spitzer steps down) would be its first black governor the state has ever had, and as an added bonus, the first blind governor in US history. Amazingly, he has been virtually blind since birth.

This is a great American success story. Whatever our past flaws, and whatever flaws we have left to fix, this shows just how far we've come.

Homophobe Sally Kern: Idiot of the Week

For not only being a total homophobic ignoramus, but for adding more stupidity on top of that by allowing herself to be taped doing it, and having the audacity to complain about the taping (you're a public official, hello!) Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern gets this week's Idiot Award. And her rant was such a complete steaming pile of fetid faggot fallacies I think a detailed dissection is in order. For the record, I am, and always have been, a rabid heterosexual:

"The homosexual agenda is destroying this nation"

I find it interesting that the people who say things like this are also highly likely to say things like "America is the greatest nation on earth", which leads me to ask: how can we be both? We are the best, but we are being destroyed? Sounds a position on America that shifts per political convenience.

"I am not anti, I'm not gay bashing, but according to God's word that is not the right kind of lifestyle"

She's obviously a Billy Tubbs fan, who as coach of the OU Sooners basketball team, once said in a post game interview: "I don't want to criticize the officials, but they were terrible." Be honest Ms. Kern. You are most certainly gay bashing. You just think a 2,000 year old book of flat-earther sheepherder fables justifies it.

"It has deadly consequences."

Unsafe sex, not necessarily homosexual sex, risks deadly consequences. It would be good if someone near Ms. Kern reminds her that lesbians have a lower rate of STDs than heterosexuals do.

"The people involved in that have more suicides, they're more discouraged, there's more illness, their lifespans are shorter."

You really have to have some chutzhpa to demonize and otherwise make a group's lives as miserable as you are able, deny them personal and important rights the rest of us take for granted, and then tout their discouraged suicidal state and reduced lifspans as proof that you were right all along. I wonder if Judge Kern would, on the basis that he was an orphan, give leniancy to a child who murdered his parents.

"Studies show no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than a few decades"

This, lads and lesbos, is what we call Making Shit Up. What studies? Who conducted them? Where do they publish? What societies does she mean? What exactly does she mean by "last"? After all, Rome is still there, we just call them Italians now. What exactly does it mean to "totaly embrace homosexuality"? Has the US done so? If so, for how long must we do so and continue to "last" to disprove this notion? France is at least a decade ahead of us on this, how close are they? Her claim is so ill-defined it doesn't even rise to the level of being wrong.

"I honestly think it's the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam"

Whenever anyone says something like this, press them on specifics. Exactly what form does this threat take? Marriage? What damage to society, exactly, does allowing Chris and Pat to marry, even if their naughty bits match, do? I can't think of one way my life would change. Granted, the double tux wedding cake will take some getting used to, but I think we can handle it.

"They want to get our children into government schools so they can indocrinate them...as young as two years of age...that the homosexual lifestyle is an acceptable lifestyle"

This lengthy rant was notable for the complete lack of clarity of exctly what is so wrong with that. On no other subject are the Religious Reicht so vacuous, and for a very simple reason. They think it's icky. Real icky. And a SIN! That's really all it takes. All these fact-free ratonalizations illustrate their internal need for tangible support (just like the creationists), but in the end it matters not to them.

"Gays are infiltrating City Councils"

OH MY GAWD! The queers are coming! The queers are coming! Heteros get elected. Homos infiltrate. Makes them sound like spies, like they are hiding some secret agenda. Sort of like, the creationists!

Did you know the Eureka springs city council is controlled by gays?

So? Got a problem with pink microphones? Too many flowers in the median? They making citizens sing and dance before speaking or something? I'll bet those councils are a lot more scientifically literate than average, and fashionable to boot. What's the downside?

It's deadly and it's spreading and it will destroy our young people and will destroy this nation

What on earth could she be talking about? HIV? Meth? One more season of American Idol? Sheer ignorance? NO! Homosexuals are the most dangerous thing out there. More dangerous even than them there Islamics.

Of course, the Muslims pretty much agree with you Ms. Kerr, on a lot of things. This one's for you.

Hat Tip PZ Myers, Ed Brayton

Is Fertility in the Public Interest? Population and the Tragedy of the Commons

While reading yet another article about the rising teen STD rate, and the abject failure of abstinence-only programs to deal with it, I noted this odd comment:

"Because some sexually transmitted infections can cause infertility and cancer, U.S. health officials called for better screening, vaccination and prevention...for sexually active women. [It is] among our highest public health priorities."

I have been talking a lot about The Tragedy of the Commons lately, and here is a prime example of a key component of it: the divergence of private and public interest. In this case, it diverges on the subject of fertility.

For someone who desires children, fertility is obviously a very important, personal issue. But when we look at the issue from a public health point of view, that changes. The advantages that would come with a smaller population are obvious to all but the most ardent libertarian. The planet and its resources are limited, certainly in the short term, and likely in the long term as well. And whe we have limited resources, private and public priorities conflict.

And they conflict here. The speaker above is wrong: fertility is not a public health priority. If anything, INfertility is. Consider for example a disease descending on us which magically made 50% of the population infertile. Consider the impact this would have on global warming, world hunger, even crime (due to less congestion). We'd have reduced carbon emissions, less highways to build, less waste to dispose of, fewer prisons, and on and on. We would be far better off than we are now.

This is the sort of distinction that is practically nonexistent in American politics today, and is part of why so much of our public policy is poor. It's time we stopped pretending what is good for one person is good for all of us.

An Oldie but a Goodie: The 2002 NCSE ID Conference

For those who may not understand fully why the ID proponents spend so much time avoiding scientifically rigorous examination of their ideas, check out this old NCSE conference at the American Museum of Natural History where Robert Pennock and Ken Miller rip William Dembski and Michael Behe to shreds. Dembski can't seem to answer the simplest question about what ID even means, much less what first steps an ID researcher would take. Behe simply will not submit his ideas to any kind of test where he can't weasel-word his way out failed performance in the end. His answer to any tough question is "it depends", and he always "reserves judgement". It's classic crankery, and it gets splattered on the windshield of science speeding by.

Atheism's Golden Rule

Gotta love this one. It gets right to the heart of this bullshit that being religious gives one a moral leg up, as they continue to kill each other over whose absolute superior religious moral code is the correct one. We silly atheists just skip that part and go straight to peace.

hat tip: Grrlscientist

Hoofnagle on Cranks in the Heartland, and the Potential Green/Hawk Alliance

Over at Denialismblog, Mark Hoofnagle has a nice article about the Heartland Institutes conference on climate change. I must say, give the Heartlanders credit for actually putting their money and mouths where their views lie and putting it out there for public consumption. Unfortunately, they merely revealed what cranks they are, as described by the Wall Street Journal, and then expounded on by Hoofnagle:

"WSJ: One challenge they faced was that even within their own ranks, the group -- among them government and university scientists, antiregulatory campaigners and Congressional staff members -- displayed a dizzying range of ideas on what was, or was not, influencing climate."

Hoofnagle: This is a feature of cranks we discussed in our Unified Theory of the Crank almost a year ago. There is no interest in creating an explanatory theory or framework to incorporate the data into a useful picture, just a desire to crap on that which they don't want to hear.

It explains the tendency of cranks not to care if other cranks (and denialists in general for that matter) have variations on their own crazy ideas, just as long as the other cranks are opposing the same perceived incorrect truth. Cranks and denialists aren't honest brokers in a debate, they stand outside of it and just shovel horse manure into it to try to sow confusion and doubt about real science. They don't care if some other crank or denialist comes along and challenges the prevailing theory by tossing cow manure, as long as what they're shoveling stinks.

This is something we see among cranks of all stripes. Some of the global warming denialists claim there is no global warming (though their number is shrinking), some claim it is occurring but is overstated, or not caused by man, or will not cause disasters, or will but there is nothing we can do about it, or will actually be a good thing. And this causes them not one whit of concern or intellectual curiosity. All they care about is attacking the mainstream view.

This is the same don't-ask-don't-tell strategy we see among evolution deniers as well. Some accept common descent and some don't, some think the world is thousands of years old and some think it is billions, some believe all the design was at the beginning, some think it occurred at various points, and some think it is ongoing. Search the literature of HIV denialists and you'll see the same pattern. This is not how science is done.

There is also a tendency for denialists to frame the issue in personal terms, usually attacking the perceived authority of the theory that chaffes them so. This is predictable given the authoritarian religious background of most denialists, regardless of topic. Evolution deniers are fond of digging up any kind of dirt they can on Charles Darwin, even to the point of making shit up, as if a tarnished personality changes the data.

But with AGW, it is even more personal. Conservatives have a hate for tree hugging hippies that goes far beyond anything a historical figure could elicit, with roots as far back as the Viet Nam War and the fight against communism. Those of the Bill Buckley era are unlikely to give anyone even remotely resembling anti-war commies a fair scientific hearing:

"Global warming crankery, more than anything, isn't a generalized dismissal of science but an extreme dislike for the people identified with the science. Consistently through these arguments you see this streak of defiance, that no one should be able to tell anyone else how to live. If they want to spend their free time disposing their used motor oil by pouring it onto a pile of burning tires, that's their business, and Al Gore can go screw himself...If we care about convincing the remainder of Americans, or at least diminishing crankery on this topic, we also have to make the people who despise Al Gore care...

Ah yes, Al Gore. Nothing illustrates the echo-chamber life of so many conservatives as the impression they have that global warming is about Al Gore. They attack Gore personally, as if any of his flaws of character or behavior change the data. It's "Al Gore's global warming theory" to many. This is the danger of getting one's news from Fox, Townhall, and the rest of the Republican Shill Media.

Hoofnagle is right. To bring the Bushites on board, we have to make this not about Al Gore, but about something they care about. And here is where Hoofnagle hits on what I've always thought the common ground between the Greens and the Hawks is - the fight against the radical Muslims.

"For one, we must continually point out that being stubborn about using fossil fuels doesn't make you a rebel but rather OPEC's bitch. By letting the cranks frame this around Al Gore we've missed out on a lot of ways to make this matter to a larger group of people. For one, we could do a better job pointing out that all that money we spend on oil goes to the repressive governments we like least in the world. There's a good reason Putin's underlings showed up at this event. Oil money is what props up his regime. Same for Ahmadinejad. Same for the genocidal thugs in Sudan. I think the best frame is "Save the environment, stop sending your money to these assholes".

Amen! Those opposing environmental measures to combat global warming and develop non-fossil fuels need to be reminded over and over again that every SUV they buy, every gallon of gas they put in their cars, every extra degree of cooler AC they waste money on, every disposable camera they throw away, every extra plastic bag they use but don't need, puts money in the hands of the very same radical Islamic extremists that they are so eager to sacrifice our civil liberties in order to fight. Color me liberal, but I'd much rather give up a few small wasteful comforts than my 4th amendment rights. Hit the terrorists where it hurts - their pocketbooks - and help the environment at the same time. It's beautiful.