When you aggregate all races and population, about 43% of all males in the U.S. are arrested by age 23. The vast majority of them are arrested on petty offenses and infractions. A fair number of those cannot find work afterwards because now they have a record. Your thinking is too myopic.
Princeton professor Cornel West was able to show that only about 30 percent of America's prisoners are considered dangerous enough to be a threat to society stating that 62 percent of them are there for soft, non-offensive, convictions.
Usually these are drug convictions but moral citizens are locked up for failing to fill out a form correctly. Here's one for you. A man and a harmless orchid. You may have even voted to pass the law that siphoned away this good man's retirement and put him in a federal prison:
Orchid Kingpin? Mistake Lands Elderly Gardener in Prison - US - CBN News - Christian News 24-7 - CBN.com
The Unlikely Orchid Smuggler: A Case Study in Overcriminalization
Just localities (not counting the enormous cost of state and federal courts, prisons, programs, etc...) were $1.6 trillion between 2005 and 2010.
Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) - Publications & Products: Justice Expenditure and Employment
When you add the cost of the justice system and incarceration for states and the federal government, the costs soar far far beyond that. The cost of the federal prison system alone has increased by 1,700 percent in the last three decades!
I'm in agreement with you Nautilus about living a moral life and also being tough on crime. For example, I support the death penalty and believe the process should be streamlined to reduce costs and ensure that murderers are executed by the state in a reasonable period of time.
But understand, that when moral people who believe we should be tough on crime begin to argue that we've reached a point of overcriminalization and that our justice system costs too much now for both taxpayers and the everyday Americans caught in its web: you should take note.
For example, using an empty handicap space to turn your car around in a parking lot now costs $1,200.00 after all the fees, fines, excises, etc... are piled on in the county I live in. If you can't pay it, then you go to jail. Since you can't work in jail, you could lose your job and then your housing, etc... Now you're homeless with a record and can't get a job so you become a "revolving door" petty criminal and begin your new career as a student of crime in the jail system for that's what they are.. universities for criminals.
The cost to both the former law abiding citizen who work and paid taxes but no longer does and the taxpayer who foots the enormity of the cost which is being incurred for this individual over the rest of this life is completely unacceptable.
And there are hundreds of thousands of minor infractions with enormous costs attached to them in the U.S. today. This is not normal but it is "normal" in the U.S. today. It needs to be corrected.
We need to toss out stupid laws and reduce the penalties dramatically on infractions and "paperwork" crime in cases like the moral everyday gardener that imports a harmless orchid but uses the wrong form.
We also need to control immigration better as the newer emerging information available shows that in many parts of the country immigrants are responsible for a significant share of crime despite real difficultly in trying to come to any conclusion about the extent of immigrant criminality historically.
For example, ICE’s Secure Communities Initiative and data estimate from the 287(g) program shows high rates of immigrant crime but this directly contradicts earlier academic research based on census data and other demographic and generic crime reporting data that shows immigrant crime is higher than the average but not by much.
Immigration and Crime: Assessing a Conflicted Issue | Center for Immigration Studies
My point is that the point is being missed. Every illegal immigrant removed reduces labor supply in this country driving up wages and providing opportunities for unemployed citizens to go to work and make a life for themselves. This reduces crime all by itself. Fixing our economy so people work at good paying jobs reduces crime. That's the point which gets overlooked in discussions about immigration and crime.
How many will be arrested by 23? not me. Guess there is something to be said for either not breaking laws or not getting caught.
