U.S. Exceptionalism in Being a Police/Prison State

[Indy]

That's interesting about the 90s. I wonder why it did fall then.

[Philly]

Abortions

[Indy]

Seriously though? Explain.

[Philly]

About 20 years or so earlier Roe v Wade made abortion legal everywhere in the US. So women in poor areas, which are high crime areas, had the option to abort pregnancies that they didn't want. Typically an unwanted kid in a poor neighborhood is a prime candidate to take up a life of crime. So aborting these pregnancies means less criminals.

[Professor]

[Indy]

Oh you guys are preaching to the choir, which is another reason I am staunchly pro-choice. A kid born into that isn't having a "life" and... guess who's going to be the first to complain about welfare, high crime, minorities, etc.? All those people who want to get rid of abortion.

So, that said: really so it was a traceable demographic thing, that because family planning and abortion were more freely available in the 90s, you didn't have as many future-less kids grow up inevitably to be criminals?

Wow that just proves one of my theories that I never really researched.

Back to this police state thingy--does anybody else think that things like "stop n' frisk" would even fly for a second if cops were stopping and frisking people on Park Ave. or the Upper West Side; i.e., white people? Then you had that horrific incident with the choke hold this week which BTW was eerily reminiscent of what happened to Radio Raheem in Do the Right Thing.

My question is: do you think we tolerate the police overindulgence because white people run the show and don't care that minorities are the targets most often, because they know they're immune? Or is it the first part but they're naive in that they don't think it will eventually happen to them?

Case in point: I'm pretty sure the NSA is targeting everybody.

[eynon81]

Indy, you're Eastern Urban Progressive privilege is showing. While race is a factor it's by no means the only or most important factor. Poor whites get screwed all the time too. It's starting to bleed over into the middle-class though.

[eynon81]

[The Dharma Bum]

[The Dharma Bum]

The actual reason for the drop in crime is an aging population