I protest.

Commentary.

I don't know what category to put this under, so "politics" is as good as any.

I've been having a couple of conversations over the last few days, one in the commentary of my recent Hate Crimes entry and another in email, related to the Fear Itself entry from May 2. Both are, as one might expect, from people who are apparently pretty far to the right.

The interesting thing about both is that while I'm more or less matter-of-factly asserting my opinion while saying nothing at all about theirs, they are painting me as a "leftist" or are putting words in my mouth. One, Matt, admitted in email that he assumed that I was "for civilian disarmament" (i.e. gun control), "being as how your[sic] a lefist." He had attacked me over my stance on gun control, when I hadn't even mentioned it, nor have I talked about it in this weblog at all! He was particularly incensed, though, at my "appeal to authority" with respect to Michael Moore's movie. An appeal I never made, in fact. He also challenges my thesis about people being fearful based on his personal experience. That challenge has merit in that it does deal directly with what I wrote, but why didn't he bring it up first rather than erecting all these straw men? Ultimately, though, he says, "Really, what would you do if you were attacked? If you know the answer, then I can't see the point of being afraid." Which was exactly the point of my original article: There is no point in being afraid.

The other, Michael, is reacting to a single, throwaway line in the Hate Crimes entry that was written in the heat of anger. I wrote, "Catch them, flog them publically, run them through a few sensitivity training courses, and let them go. Maybe after tattooing the word "murderer" on their foreheads." He took off on the "let them go" part of that. Interestingly, I had expected people to go after me for the "public flogging" part, since flogging has been almost universally condemned in the West. But, no, however he feels about flogging, he apparently thinks that letting them go afterwards is much more important. In comments (which you can read for yourself if you're interested), I throw out an off-the-cuff recidivism rate of eighty percent, which he challenged, so I went to the DoJ statistics site. They have published a study of recidivism rates from 1983 to 1994 (and I have no reason to believe that rates have changed to any statistically significant extent since then) in which they show an average rearrest rate of 67.5 percent. Now, they do show an average reconviction rate of 46.9 percent, which compares to Michael's assertion of "30 to 50 percent," but I have no way of knowing whether this is really what he meant, since he gives no source other than "just by Googling." Hmm.

As to making unwarranted assumptions and putting words in my mouth (not to mention actively insulting me), Michael beats Matt by lots. Michael calls my characterization of incarceration as worse than useless (which I think it is) "beyond the normal bounds of stupidity" (and I'm sorry, Michael, this shows no respect whatsoever). He claims that my "solution to recidivism" is to, as he says, "INCREASE CRIMINALS' OPPORTUNITIES TO COMMIT NEW CRIMES." His caps, not mine.

He then appeals to authority, citing himself as something of an expert in the field, having worked as a "criminal defense attorney, including stints in public defenders offices." He claims to know whereof he speaks from personal experience whereas I am "spouting theory divorced from facts and experience."

Hmm, again.

Well, I could point out that even a thirty percent rate of reconviction (getting away from the term "recidivism" which isn't specific enough) could be considered failure, and no source I've found gives a figure that low. Sure, people convicted of some crime may not be able to victimize others outside the prison while they are incarcerated, but after they get out, well, there we go again. It's true that I don't believe that simple incarceration is the answer, so to that narrow extent Michael was right when he put words in my mouth. However, he failed to consider that I might have a couple of other ideas. Also, Michael's ad hominem attack notwithstanding, I'm also not wholly without knowledge in this area. While he may have been a defense attorney, I suspect that he has devoted little, if any, time to the study of psychology or psychopathology. I'm not a professional in the field, but I do have a strong lay knowledge of it. At least I know enough to know when something isn't working well and to have some idea of how to go about fixing it. One start might be to read about studies like this one to find more effective methods of preventing recidivism (in the general sense). As long as we as a society view crime from the Puritanical perspective of something that should be simply punished, rather than from the more pragmatic view of it as a symptom of a treatable problem, we will continue to propagate it. We become an accessory to crime; rather than preventing it, we ensure that it continues even in cases in which it need not.

But that is really beside the point. My annoyance is with the fact that both of these people, Matt and Michael, are arguing with things I didn't say and positions I don't hold. I do have to admit, though, that Matt, the factory worker, seems to be a lot more willing to accept being mistaken and to admit his assumptions than does Michael, the former criminal defense attorney. And that is ironic.