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America’s incarceration rate is in decline

(www.theatlantic.com)
264 points paulpauper | 2 comments | 25 Jun 25 17:14 UTC | HN request time: 0.735s | source
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casenmgreen ◴[25 Jun 25 18:01 UTC] No.44380132[source]▶
Freakonomics argued that crime correlates to whether or not abortion is available.

If it is not, crime rates are up, and by a lot.

If it is, crime rates are down.

When you flip from one to the other, takes about 15/20 years for the effect to show up.

Rationale is that forcing parents to have their kids when they're not ready for them significantly increases delinquency in young adults.

This is apparently the only possible theory at the moment. It's not proven, of course, but the other theories which were given have been found lacking. This is the only theory which has some evidence, and hasn't been found to be wrong.

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jjcob ◴[25 Jun 25 18:17 UTC] No.44380312[source]▶
I doubt there is a single explanation. I think it's multiple factors.

Unleaded gasoline could also be a factor. Every country has shown drops in crime rates when leaded gasoline was phased out.

If I recall, leaded gasoline was phased out in the 80ies, which fits a drop in crime rates in the 90ies.

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leptons ◴[25 Jun 25 18:33 UTC] No.44380477[source]▶
Availability of pornography has cut down the rate of rapes significantly. Too bad the republicans are going to try to ban all porn pretty soon, according to their stated agenda. They do love their wealthy donors that run the prison-industrial-complex.
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Spivak ◴[25 Jun 25 23:34 UTC] No.44382796[source]▶
This would be a good theory if it was supported at all by data. There has been a decrease but if you squint it's a flat line. The best you can really say is that the availability of pornography is neutral.
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leptons ◴[26 Jun 25 08:45 UTC] No.44385460[source]▶
I have seen the data that suggests strongly that pornography lowers rapes. You've put up no data to refute that, so until you do I will continue believing the data I saw. If you do put up some actual data to support your claims (instead of just saying "nuh uhh"), I'll review it and then provide my own.
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jrflowers ◴[26 Jun 25 14:54 UTC] No.44388052[source]▶
Can you share that data
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leptons ◴[26 Jun 25 16:52 UTC] No.44389115[source]▶
There are numerous articles all over the internet both supporting my claim, as well as negating it, depending on the agenda of the source - there are many people that are morally opposed to porn that would want my claim to be false (and they would still want to ban porn even if that increases rape). Here's some articles that support:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-sunny-side-of...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101130111326.h...

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/201601...

The data I saw, probably about 20 years ago...

https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-d6f248400fd5308b6d5d0...

I can't verify the source since this data is 20 years old and I can't remember where it came from, but at the time it seemed like a good enough source, and this was before "truth" lost all meaning in the age of the conservative-bent "my feelings are as good as your facts" world we currently live in.

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jrflowers ◴[26 Jun 25 18:34 UTC] No.44390031[source]▶
The rate of homicides and other violent crime have also declined significantly over the same period, so unless you contend that pornography also caused that, the data shows that it does not increase the rate of rape.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rate-1990-vs-202...

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1. leptons ◴[27 Jun 25 00:04 UTC] No.44392654[source]▶
Nice try moving goalposts, but the data I showed correlates reduction in RAPE with availability of porn, nothing more, nothing less. You can also say that people dying in car accidents reduced during the same time, and seatbelt laws enacted during that time would be the cause. Nothing you've provided disproves that access to porn has no effect on rape. You've only moved goalposts.

But sure, let's ban all porn and watch the rape cases start increasing - I'm sure that's the best way forward. /s

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2. jrflowers ◴[27 Jun 25 07:17 UTC] No.44394457[source]▶
>Nice try moving goalposts

Uh, yep? I absolutely did that. Your goalposts were in a crazy place. If your goalposts are “rape has to be a special type of violent crime even though rapists frequently (kind of by definition) commit other violent crimes” then yes, I moved them to where pretty much everyone else has them: among other heinous, violent crimes that share the same downward trend over the same period of time.

>the data I showed correlates reduction in RAPE with availability of porn

I could also draw a graph of rapes going down from 1990 and mp3 usage going up, would that indicate that there is a causal relationship between the two?

>nothing more, nothing less.

That is factually untrue. I showed you data of another correlation. That would be the more or less.

Unless the porn and rape graph is meaningful but the rape and murder graph is not? Or the rape and assault graph? Only porn has a meaningful correlation to rape? If your assertion is that rape does not correlate with other violent crime then the onus is on you to provide data and explain why.

Also I’m not anti-porn at all. I think it’s great and consenting adults should be able to watch other consenting adults do whatever. But I have never seen a worse argument for it than “porn line go up rape line go down down therefore causality”. It is a fantastical and indefensible assertion based on anecdotes at best. It is basically what I would come up with if my specific goal was to not be taken seriously.