Jewish World Review August 23, 2006 / 29 Menachem-Av, 5766
The Left and crime
By Thomas Sowell
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The general mindset of the political left is similar from country to country and even from century to century.
The softness toward dangerous criminals found in such 18th century writers as
William Godwin and Condorcet has its echo today among those who hold protest
vigils at the executions of murderers and who complain that we are not being
nice enough to the cutthroats imprisoned at Guantanamo.
The specific issues change from place to place and from time to time but the
mindset remains remarkably similar. What is also different from country to
country and from one era to another is the amount of resistance encountered by
the left, which determines how far they can go in practice.
The United States has always been more resistant to the left than most European
countries have been. Often we can see where the American left is headed by
seeing where the European left has arrived.
A new book on crime in Britain shows what happens when the mindset of the left
prevails throughout the criminal justice system. That book is titled "A Land Fit
for Criminals" by David Fraser.
Within living memory, Britain was one of the most law-abiding nations on the
face of the earth. When Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew visited London right after
World War II, he was so impressed with the honesty of the British and their
respect for law and order that he returned home determined to make Singapore the
same way.
Today it is Singapore that is one of the most law-abiding nations in the world
while Britain's crime rate has risen to the point where, for the first time, it
now exceeds the crime rate in the United States.
What happened in the intervening years was the rise of the British left's dogmas
about crime to complete domination of the country's legal system and its
political and media elites.
Today, a burglar caught in the act by the police in Britain is almost certain to
get a warning. If he has previous burglary convictions, he may get a sterner
warning. But he is unlikely to face anything so draconian as being put behind
bars.
Burglary has been described as a "minor" offense by leaders of both the
Conservative and Labor parties in Britain. Rare cases where burglars are put in
prison are criticized by the media.
The left's ideology on crime, including their disdain for property crimes, has
spread across the political spectrum to all who wish to be considered up to
date. That ideology is essentially the same on both sides of the Atlantic but in
Britain it has achieved far greater unchallenged dominance.
Among the dogmas of the left is that putting people in prison fails to reduce
crime and that the social "root causes" of crime must be dealt with to prevent
it beforehand and that "rehabilitation" through various programs "in the
community" are more effective than locking up criminals.
None of this is new and the rationales for it go back at least two centuries.
What is remarkable is how mountains of hard evidence to the contrary have been
ignored, evaded, or simply lied about, on both sides of the Atlantic.
David Fraser's book "A Land Fit for Criminals" examines that evidence at length
and exposes the fraudulence of the claims used to try to justify continuing to
be lenient to criminals as crime rates have soared in Britain.
There are similar mountains of evidence against the left's crime dogmas in the
United States and this evidence is similarly ignored, evaded or lied about by
those on the left. It is just that the left faces stronger opposition here so
that it has not achieved the pervasive dominance that it has in Britain yet.
In both countries, ideologues have the support of "practical" politicians and
bureaucrats who simply do not want to spend the money needed to build and
maintain enough prisons to put career criminals away for many years.
Those weighing costs and benefits define "costs" as government expenditures. But
the costs paid by the public, just in economic terms, vastly exceed the cost of
more prisons. But that does not count for either the ideologues or the
"practical" politicians and criminal justice bureaucrats.
The Left and crime, Part II
By Thomas Sowell
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Do higher rates of imprisonment reduce crime? Is crime a result of poverty, unemployment, and the like? Are alternatives to incarceration more effective in preventing criminals from repeating their crimes?
Some people would hesitate to try to answer any of these questions before going
through a lot of hard evidence and thinking it over very carefully.
But many on the left can answer immediately because they know what answers are
already in vogue on the left and that the only reason others don't accept
those answers is because they are behind the times or just hard-hearted people
who want to punish.
It is one thing to believe that policy A is better than policy B. It is
something very different to believe that those who believe in policy A are
wiser, more compassionate, and generally more worthy human beings than those who
believe in policy B.
Turning the empirical question of the results of policy A versus the results of
policy B into the more personal question of a wonderful Us versus a terrible
Them makes it harder to retreat if the facts do not bear out the belief.
If the choice between policy A and policy B is regarded as a badge of personal
merit, either morally or intellectually, then it is a devastating risk to one's
sense of self to make empirical evidence the ultimate test.
Not only in the United States, but in other countries as well, the political
left has held steadfastly to its assumptions and beliefs about crime for at
least two centuries, not only in the absence of hard evidence but in defiance of
two centuries' accumulation of evidence to the contrary, from countries around
the world.
Where the dominance of the left is greatest in the media and in academia, for
example facts to the contrary are seldom heard.
The futility of imprisonment, for example, is a dogma on the left. It does no
good to point out that crime rates in both Britain and the United States soared
during the decade of the 1960s when poverty rates were going down and
imprisonment rates were also going down.
It does no good to point out that soaring crime rates in the United States began
to turn down only after the declining rate of imprisonment was halted and
reversed, leading to a rising prison population much deplored by liberals.
It does no good to point out that Singapore's imprisonment rate is more than
double that of Canada and its crime rate less than one-tenth the Canadian
crime rate. Many in the west were appalled to discover some years ago, that an
American first offender in Singapore was sentenced to corporal punishment.
Few of the indignant critics bothered to consider the possibility that this
might be a way to prevent the young man from becoming a second offender and
perhaps saving him from a worse fate later on if he continued to disregard laws.
Self-defense against criminals is anathema to the left in both Britain and the
United States but in Britain the left has greater predominance. Britons who have
caught burglars in their homes and held them at gunpoint until the police
arrived have found themselves charged with a crime even when it was only a toy
gun.
Given the prevailing view in the British criminal justice system that burglary
is a "minor" offense and the fierce hostility to guns, even toy guns, the
homeowner is far more likely to end up behind bars than the burglar is.
The left's jihad against gun ownership by law-abiding citizens has produced a
flood of distorted information. International comparisons almost invariably
compare the United States with some country with stronger gun control laws and
lower murder rates.
But, if facts really mattered, you could just as easily compare the United
States to countries with stronger gun control laws and higher murder rates
Brazil and Russia, for example.
You could compare the United States with countries with more widespread gun
ownership Switzerland and Israel, for example and lower murder rates. But
that's only if facts are regarded as more important than the dogmas of the left.
Millions of crime victims pay the price of the left's illusions about crime
and about themselves.
Jewish World Review August 9, 2006 / 15 Menachem-Av, 5766
Studies prove . . .
By Thomas Sowell
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Whenever I hear the phrase "studies prove" this or that, it makes me think back to the beginning of my career as an economist at the Labor Department in Washington.
Secretary of Labor Arthur Goldberg was scheduled to appear before Congress to
argue in favor of some policy that the Labor Department wanted enacted into law.
Down at the bottom of the chain of command, I was given four sets of census data
that had not yet been published and was told to analyze these data for a report
to go to the Secretary of Labor.
Two of these sets of data seemed to support the Labor Department's position but
the other two went counter to it. When I wrote up a paper explaining why this
was so and concluded that the statistics overall were inconclusive, there was
much dismay among those in the hierarchy between me and the Secretary.
They were also puzzled as to why anyone would write up such a paper, knowing
what the Department's position was on the issues. They took my paper, edited and
rewrote it before passing it up the chain of command.
Secretary Goldberg then made his usual confident presentation of the rewritten
study to Congress, probably unaware of the contradictory data that had been left
out.
It was a valuable experience so early in my career to learn that what "studies
prove" is often whatever those who did the studies wanted to prove. Labor
Department studies "prove" whatever serves the interest of the Labor Department,
just as Agriculture Department studies "prove" whatever serves the Department of
Agriculture's interests.
It is the same story on the other side of the Atlantic, where a new book about
Britain's criminal justice system exposes the fraudulent methods used to
generate statistics about the "success" of various programs of alternatives to
imprisonment. The book is titled "A Land Fit for Criminals" by David Fraser.
The numbers may be accurate but the definition of "success" makes them
meaningless. When a criminal is put on probation and the probation is not
revoked for a violation, that is "success."
Unfortunately, the British criminal justice system does not automatically revoke
probation when a criminal commits a new crime.
A criminal on two years' probation can commit a crime after six months, be
convicted and sentenced and, after serving his sentence, go back to completing
the remaining 18 months of his probation, producing statistical "success" for
the probation program. That is the whole point of the "study."
On either side of the Atlantic, it is a terminal case of naivete to put
statistical studies under the control of the same government agencies whose
policies are being studied.
Nor will it do any good to let those agencies farm out these studies to
"independent" researchers in academia or think tanks because they will obviously
farm them out to people whose track record virtually guarantees that they will
reach the conclusions that the agency wants.
Climate expert Richard S. Lindzen of M.I.T. has indicated that the vast amount
of government research money available for studies of "global warming" can
discourage skeptics from being vocal about their skepticism.
This is not peculiar to studies of "global warming." Many people who complain
about the corrupting influence of money never seem to apply that to government
money.
If high government officials were serious about wanting to know the facts, they
could set up an independent statistical agency, along the lines of the General
Accounting Office, to do studies of the effects of the policies of the operating
agencies.
That would mean that the fox would no longer be in charge of the hen house,
whether the fox was the Labor Department, the Commerce Department, or any of the
other departments and agencies.
It would also mean that various bright ideas originating in Congress or the
White House would now be exposed to the risk of being shown to be costly
failures or even counterproductive. Whole careers could be ruined among both
elected officials and bureaucrats.
Don't hold your breath waiting for it to happen. But do keep that in mind when
someone says "studies prove . . . "
Jewish World Review August 10, 2006 / 16 Menachem-Av, 5766
Studies prove . . ., Part II
By Thomas Sowell
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | My late mentor, Nobel Prize-winning economist George Stigler, used to say that it could be very instructive to spend a few hours in a library checking up on studies that had been cited. When I began doing that, I found it not only instructive but disillusioning.
A footnote in a textbook on labor economics cited six studies to back up a
conclusion it reached. But, after I went to the library and looked at those six
studies, it turned out that they each cited some other study the same other
study in all six cases.
Now that the six studies had shrunk to one, I got that one study and found
that it was a study of a very different situation from the one discussed in the
labor economics textbook.
Some years back, there was a great flurry in the liberal media because a study
showed that (1) black pregnant women received prenatal care less often than
white pregnant women and that (2) infant mortality rates were higher among
blacks.
There were indignant editorials in the New York Times and the Washington Post
blaming the government for not providing greater access to prenatal care in
order to stop preventable deaths of infants.
After getting a copy of the original study, I discovered that in the same study
on the very same page statistics showed that (1) Mexican American women
received even less prenatal care than black women and that (2) infant mortality
rates among Mexican Americans were no higher than among whites.
A few pages further on, statistics showed that American women of Chinese,
Japanese and Filipino ancestry also received less prenatal care than white women
and had lower infant mortality rates than whites.
Apparently prenatal care was not the answer, though it was the kind of answer
that suited the mindset of the liberal media and provided an occasion for them
to wax indignant.
More recently, the National Academy of Sciences came out with a study that
supposedly proved beyond a doubt that human activities were responsible for
"global warming." A chorus of voices in the media, in politics and in academia
proclaimed that this was no longer an issue but a scientific fact, proven with
hard data.
The NAS report not had only statistics, it had an impressive list of scientists,
which supposedly put the icing on the cake.
The only problem was that the scientists had not written the report and in fact
had not even seen it before it was published, even though they had some
affiliation with the National Academy of Sciences.
At least one of those scientists, meteorologist Richard S. Lindzen of M.I.T.,
publicly opposed the conclusion and has continued to do so. But that fact was
largely lost in the midst of the media hoopla.
Besides, what is a mere meteorologist at M.I.T. compared to Al Gore and his
movie?
Nobody can afford the time to check out every claim of what "studies prove."
Even with the help of outstanding research assistants, I can only check out
some.
However, the big television and print media have ample financial resources to
check out claims before they present them to the public as "news." But when "60
Minutes" didn't bother before basing a story about President Bush's national
guard service on a forged document, do not look for a lot of zeal for facts when
that could kill a juicy story or the political spin accompanying it.
Let's face it. There is not much pay-off to checking original sources.
Once a minister was explaining to me the structure of his funeral orations. He
said, "At this point, you are expected to say something good about the deceased.
Now, Tom, if I were preaching your funeral, what would I say good about you at
that point?"
He thought and thought for an embarrassingly long time. Finally, he said
gravely: "In his research, he always used original sources."
I'll take that.
Jewish World Review August 11, 2006 / 17 Menachem-Av, 5766
Studies prove . . ., Part III
By Thomas Sowell
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Often we hear that "all the experts agree" that A is better than B or that "studies prove" A to be better than B. But one of the reasons for this can be that only people who favor A over B are likely to get the money to conduct studies or be given access to the data needed for a study.
A few years ago, a book by William Bowen and Derek Bok paraded various
statistics that they interpreted as proving the success of policies of
preferential admission of blacks to colleges and universities.
A chorus of praise for this study was heard throughout the media and echoed in
academia and among liberal politicians. The study was later cited in a landmark
Supreme Court decision on affirmative action.
Not everyone thought this was a great study, however or even an adequate
study. But no one was allowed access to the raw data on which the Bowen and Bok
study was based. So no one else could run the numbers for themselves and reach
their own conclusions.
Those who sought such data included Harvard professor Stephen Thernstrom, whose
long and distinguished record of scholarship included being one of the creators
of the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. He was refused access to
the data.
When only people with one set of views are allowed to do certain studies, do not
be surprised if "studies prove" that set of views is right.
I was not surprised that Professor Thernstrom was refused access to the data. I
had had similar experiences.
Back in the 1970s, I tried to get statistical data from Harvard to test various
claims about affirmative action. Derek Bok was then president of Harvard and he
was the soul of graciousness, even praising a book on economics that I had
written. But, in the end, I did not get to see one statistic.
During the same era I was also researching academically successful black
schools. I flew across the country to try to get data on one school, talked with
board of education officials, jumped through bureaucratic hoops and, after all
this was done and the dust settled, I still did not get to see one statistic.
Why not? Think about it. Education officials have developed explanations for why
they cannot educate black children. For me to write something publicizing
outstanding academic results in this particular black school would be to open a
political can of worms, leading people to ask why the other schools can't do the
same.
Education bureaucrats decided to keep that can sealed.
Critics of affirmative action have long said that mismatching black students
with colleges that they do not qualify for creates wholly needless academic
failures among these students, who drop out or flunk out of colleges that they
should never have been in, when most of them are fully qualified to succeed in
other colleges.
Has the ending of preferential admissions in the University of California system
and the University of Texas system led to a rise in the graduation rates of
black students, as critics predicted? Who knows? These universities will not
release those statistics.
This is not peculiar to the United States. In Britain, the claim has been
repeated endlessly that putting criminals in prison "doesn't work" and that
various rehabilitation programs "in the community" are more successful in
reducing criminals' repetition of their crimes.
When statistical data from the Home Office showed the direct opposite of what
was being proclaimed by the Home Secretary, other high officials, the media, and
academics, the solution was simple: Such data were no longer released.
Sometimes it is not the data but the money that is used to limit who can do
studies on controversial issues. Advocates of "global warming" have access to
all sorts of government research money but skeptics and critics can depend on no
such largess and may even be risking their careers by angering bureaucrats who
have staked a lot on this crusade and who control the purse strings.
Even when the taxpayers' money is used to collect data or finance research,
those who dispense that money and control that data often treat these things as
if they were their own private property, to be used to promote research
congenial to their own ideologies or interests.