Is the criminal justice system racist?

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Heather Mac Donald says no in an interesting piece in today’s City Journal.

The black incarceration rate is overwhelmingly a function of black crime. Insisting otherwise only worsens black alienation and further defers a real solution to the black crime problem.

I find her discussion compelling, but would still argue that the criminal justice system is disproportionate. There’s too many people of all types in prison, black, white, Hispanic, men and women. It seems reasonable to take the next step that the over-carceral nature of the criminal justice system is felt more harshly by poorer and more minority populations.
I agree with Mac Donald that this is not racism, but it is a problem. Her facts are accurate that blacks commit an overwhelming majority of the violent crime in America, but what she fails to comment on is that prisons are politically promoted and assumed to be a salve for this ailment. Where are the great deterrent effects of increased incarceration, harsher penalties and cracked down drug policies? Obviously such efforts are falling short from their expectations amongst the activist community. Lacking any real viable outlet to express their unease with the current system, lacking any real mechanism to effect the system to meet their unique needs, activists are left to entertain the theories that Mac Donald argues to be unsupported by the facts.

Links to pass the time…

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Once again it’s been a long while between posts. I’m off to Vegas tomorrow morning for this years APEE conference. The ominous dissertation defense is right around the corner, scheduled for April 22.
Here are some interesting links to help pass the time without real post:
Are prison populations a crises?
Do cheap consumer goods deter burglary?
If the writer of the wire decided on prison policy.
Apparently marriage gives more housework to women. Seems reasonable but I wonder if they held constant for the size of the house. Also wonder what Caplan would have to say?

ENJOY!

Gainfully employed!!!

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Once again a thousand apologies for such delays between posts, I am sad to report that much of the same can be expected for at least another month or so as I am finalizing my dissertation and defending in the very near future.
As for the title of the post, I am very excited to report that I have accepted a tenure track appointment as assistant professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans. What a fine feeling this homecoming will be. Thanks to everyone who has already wished me a kind congratulations and thanks to everyone who has helped and supported me throughout this grueling process.

Prison stats make another new record

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I saw this from the New York Times yesterday. Originally I wanted to put up a post that asked the following question: For how long will America continue to set new records in the realm of incarceration and punishment trends without a serious call for social change? These record breaking new descriptions of the current prison crises come out year after year. Every year we break new boundaries and every year we exceed everywhere else. How long can this go on? I don’t think there’s a good answer for this question so I was hesitant to put up this post.
In the meantime I noticed Jeremy (via facebook) and Brian seem interested in the topic so I thought I’d comment on one point that Brian makes:

This understates the cost of prison because it does not factor into what the prisoners could add to the economy if they were gainfully employed. The actual costs to society are significantly higher than what is spent on prison.

While I think Brian’s intuition is right – the costs of prison are understated – I’m skeptical that this argument holds ground in the current debate. The traditional response to this claim is what’s called “the incapacitation effect.” In other words, if the costs of prisons are understated because those individuals would otherwise be productive in the economy, then the opposite may also be true. Inmates would be committing more crimes were they not incarcerated, thus the benefits of prisons may also be understated. At this point its an empirical question of one unknown counter factual scenario against another. The little available evidence that we do have often points to the fact that current inmates are better characterized as career criminals than they are one time offenders. Researchers are more likely to believe that the benefits of incapacitation are more understated (because of incapactiation) than the costs of a smaller labor pool are understated.
On net I still agree with the broader claim that the costs of prisons are understated but not because of the reasons above. Instead I think the greatest cost to prison is the debilitating effects that social provision of criminal justice has upon innovation and entrepreneurship in criminal justice.

Smoking bans lead to drunk driving.

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Productivity Shock posted a great abstract on this topic. I would guess that any number of the following might be true and also contribute to the phenomenon in question, but might not be detectable by the existing data.
1. Bumming out cigarettes is more likely when you have to go outside to smoke because smokers are put in a more socialized setting — smoker solidarity. Smokers have to stock up mid-way through the night, thus driving is increased.
2. Most cities don’t let you take your drink outside when you go outside for a smoke. This resulted in a date rape drug problem in New York when women left their drinks unattended. Tobacco companies also pushed smokeless tobacco campaigns because it was so inconvenient to go outside of large night clubs. In addition to the above my guess is that smokers are more likely to order shots and hard spirits rather than beer with smoking bans because they can drink their drink go out and smoke, come back and repeat. My guess is that their on average more drunk than they otherwise would be.
3. The costs to leaving a bar in search of another (better) bar are lower with smoking bans. You’ve stepped outside, you don’t have a drink in your hand. The costs of hopping in your car and checking out another bar to inform your social group about once you’re there are lower than if you’d stayed inside. In other words, it’s not just traveling to one bar across the border that’s more likely with smoking bans but also multiple different locations in a single night – again on net more driving.