Again, this assumes incarceration works, which you don't get to just assume.
If someone comes out of prison and then bashes someone's head in with a bat, then the incarceration didn't work. You're still looking at this from a perspective of, "we have an answer that will work, but we want to avoid it when possible." And that's not the reality, sometimes incarceration doesn't fix the problem.
> What is the alternative? [...] If all your compassion does is allow for someone to destroy themselves (like decriminalize drugs and provide safe places for people to pursue their addictions), then is that the alternative?
I think that part of looking for an alternative should be trying to find out if the alternative produces better results than what we're already doing. If prison doesn't produce lower recidivism rates than social programs, then yeah, obviously the social programs are the correct alternative even if some people take advantage of them -- because we're not looking at a scenario where either system (social programs or prison) has 100% effectiveness at preventing crime.
Let me flip your own question back: if all your cruelty does is drive people into harder crime and more desperate actions when they get out of prison, then is that the alternative? The alternative to social programs is something that is wildly expensive and that is often ineffective at reforming behavior?
You have to look this stuff more pragmatically and less emotionally. We can have a conversation about the ethics of prison, and that can be an important conversation, but it really has nothing to do with the separate question of whether or not prison is practical and cost effective at keeping down crime levels. Both ethics and practicality matter for policy, but they are not dependent variables with each other -- something feeling harsher or crueler to you does not magically mean it works better.
For petty crime like fencing stolen goods, they are looking at a few weeks in jail at most. Not going to change their outlook very much, but will probably discourage them from fencing goods out in the open (at least in Seattle). This focus on petty crime works well for Bellevue (but forces the problem on Seattle).
The current crackdown, the cops aren't arresting anyone for fencing goods even when it's obvious what they are doing. Instead they are just telling them to leave (this happened a few times while we were waiting for the bus at 3rd and Pine a couple of days ago)...not a solution, they will definitely be back.
And yes, if the problem can't be solved locally (too harsh, push the problem somewhere else; too soft, attract more of the problem), why should be in the latter category? Is Seattle just a convenient sacrifice?
Do you know beyond intuition what the stats are on that? If we take an average person and put them in prison for fencing goods, statistically what is the most likely outcome when they come out?
- What are the odds they stop doing this in the open?
- What are the odds they stop doing this entirely?
- What are the odds they move on to something worse? How much worse will it be and are there ways to mitigate that outcome?
- On average, what is the ratio of percent reduction in visible crime to the amount of money we would spend per-person? Are those numbers better/worse than other alternatives that we've looked at?
- Is this a constant across multiple types of crime? Do the numbers become different when we look at petty crime or violent crime?
Have you looked into that stuff, or are you just assuming on intuition that the numbers are good? We're all kind of talking past each other here; I suspect most people on HN know in theory why prisons should work, and I suspect most people know in theory why social programs should work. So explaining the theory is not particularly valuable at this point.
These numbers are really complicated, they're difficult to measure because of confounding variables and implementation details. There are ways of running prisons that make recidivism rates higher or lower, so it's not even an across-the-board single statistic. But that should be the baseline of where any conversation about this stuff starts.
What is the alternative? Just let them keep taking dumps on society until they finally go too far and bash someone's head in with a baseball bat (like that poor girl in Belltown a few months ago)? Incarceration shouldn't be the first answer, but it might very well be the tenth or eleventh...if only to actually protect everyone else.
If all your compassion does is allow for someone to destroy themselves (like decriminalize drugs and provide safe places for people to pursue their addictions), then is that the alternative?