So, what would change if we took an evidence-based approach to crime and treated crime (and violence) as public health issues?
(An evidence-based approach to education would also be nice.)
Another question, though: how do you keep politics from interfering with the implementation of actually effective approaches? Evidence is not exactly enjoying a heyday at the moment as a way of deciding what gets implemented politically.
The idea that mentally healty people commit violent or drug related crime, and that harsh punishment prevents it, is ridiculous. However, this election cycle tells us that too many people are easily swayed by gut-reactions and fear.
There are a couple of municipalities in the US that have started a “No Questions” policy for people who want to turn over their drugs and start treatment. My understanding is that if they have outstanding warrants, those warrants aren’t executed until after treatment is finished. These programs are still in their nascency, and their aren’t very many of them, so we really don’t have numbers. I’ll try to dig up a link later.
My partner is a Psychologist, working in addictions, with a little background in trauma. It seems obvious but, sending addicts to prison accomplishes the opposite of what we say we want as a society. Yeah. It’s far cheaper to send people to a nice in-patient treatment facility than it is prison, and more effective as well.
Here are the problems that I see in the US
1)Culture of revenge and punishment. No one wants to be soft on crime, even if it means enacting racist policies, let alone evidence based policies.
2) For profit prison system. This is exactly as medieval as it sounds. And no politicians are trying to stop it, because they all benefit from it.
3) NIMBY- “Not In My Back Yard”. No one wants a methadone dispensary in their neighborhood. They’s apparently just rather have the junkies hanging out.
The prison system is probably the hardest one of those to fight.
Pretty much what Derrick Sanders said, except that no. 2 is hard impossible to fight because of no. 1. Most people have no interest in even hearing another side to the issue, let alone having what’s essentially a dogmatic cultural belief challenged.
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