As Crime Goes By

Potential employers and criminal histories.

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40

There’s been quite the media furore about rising crime rates in recent years. But now that COVID is behind us and cities are alive again, are the numbers on crime moving in a more positive direction? RAND Corporation criminologist Shawn Bushway is back on the Remnant today to answer this question, and to address a few other points of concern and uncertainty surrounding policing and criminal justice in modern America. What determines rates of recidivism? Are certain crimes becoming more common than in the past? Is there merit to broken windows theory? And have we finally got beyond defunding the police?

Show Notes:

– Dr. Bushway’s webpage

– Dr. Bushway’s previous Remnant appearance

– Dr. Bushway’s research on hiring people with criminal histories

– “Ex-Prisoners Face Headwinds as Job Seekers, Even as Openings Abound”

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Comments (40)
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  1. April

    Thanks Jonah that was terrific. For me a whole new way if looking at these questions.

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  2. Andrew.Wimer

    Really great episode. A big government barrier to former prisoners getting jobs is occupational licensing. Many states categorically bar people with records from getting licenses no matter how old the crime is and no matter whether it is connected to the job they want to do.

    For instance, a Virginia man struggled with drug abuse for years. After he got clean, he got the education he needed to be a drug counselor. He was employed for years and even recognized as "counselor of the year" before his employer realized that he needed a license and that his old crimes permanently prevented him from getting it. He was let go. Today, instead of using his training and experience to help others overcome addiction, he's driving trucks.

    The Institute for Justice looked into these occupational licensing barriers for a report, Barred from Working: https://ij.org/report/barred-from-working/. Fortunately, states like Oklahoma and South Carolina have reformed their licensing requirements to reduce permanent punishments and let ex-offenders make a fresh start.

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    CynthiaW

    That was a really interesting talk.

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    Tele

    If you know you have audio issues please let us know at the start of the podcast. I was driving while listening, and kept thinking someone had put a cat bell in the back seat of my car. I kept rewinding 15 second to see see if the cat bell was in my back seat or on the podcast.

    Dr. Bushway’s explanation of how the stats we’re looking at are useful for the warden but not society is interesting. Unfortunately, listening to it can come across as academic “hand waiving.”

    Could the Dispatch have Dr. Bushway write up an explainer where I can go back and reread passages. (FWIW, I have a “gut belief” that in a century or two, statistics as used by social scientists will have the same stature as alchemy)

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    Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

    I enjoyed Dr. Bushway's appearance in this episode. When he's back next, consider asking him what, if anything, he has to observe, or data he knows to relate, on the general subject of the restoration of the voting franchise to felons, and the current disarray in treatment of felons' voting rights in our 50-unit laboratory of democracy.

    I'm also curious whether there's been any study or consideration of providing legislative "safe harbors" to encourage employers who're concerned about possibly worsening their civil liability exposure for negligent hiring/entrustment of people with criminal records to instead rely on investigations and indicators that Dr. Bushway considers more meaningful. Can we tweak the liability picture to encourage more employers to take smarter risks (and perhaps discourage dumber ones)? Could this be done across-the-board, or would some industries need to be excepted (the "bona fide super-vulnerable-to-recidivism" employer, e.g., a jewelry store)? Could this be combined with something like E-verify? Is there enough data that actuaries can meaningfully underwrite this kind of risk, and/or are their other ways that employers' risks here can be pooled? Doing something like this would arguably be a tort reform issue as much as a civil justice reform issue.

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    1. Kyle Gann

      I mean. Here’s a simpler idea that dealing with the common law of torts in the 50 states through federal legislation. I presume the Judaic tradition of Jubilee is why we have bankruptcy wiped from people’s record 7 years later. My guess is that 7 years is close to the mark of when recidivism risk really starts falling off a cliff. Or if it’s 9, make it 9. Or whatever the break point is. And thereafter, perhaps excepting certain ultra noxious crimes that we don’t feel a lot of sympathy toward, have records automatically sealed for all purposes other than the justice system. But, you offend again? Boom it’s all back on your record. And apply a three strike rule here. i.e., you get two slate wipe opportunities in life but each one requires you to complete seven years between release and the next criminal offense (that ultimately results in conviction). And if, for instance, you are in year 3 of 7…that still counts as a strike. Something along this line imposes substantial cost (time in jail plus 7 years on your record that will really set any career back), you give people an automatic path to redemption and really incentivize staying on the right track (while also demonstrating societal mercy), you give employers information they really need to have to make intelligent decisions (and keep them from obtaining information that isn’t in line with this kind of policy), you impose a real massive cost on recidivism that someone who is trying to get back on track will pay more attention to (because you lose more than just some time in jail, which probably doesn’t matter all that much in your life arc under our current silly system) and you create a further distinction between career criminals and just people with a whoopsies or two. I mean, something along the above lines, with the details driven and formed by data (rather than just off the cuff like my idea). For instance, I could see tweaking it a bit further and giving a little more grace for repeat offenders that wipe out their chances before they get to 25 years old, by giving someone with less than x crimes (or x points, which can be tiered based on felony) one more shot - perhaps with a longer time required to obtain a slate of wipe. (Point being it can’t be a total freeby because then you might as well just extend the juvenile system to 25 yo.) Also totally works to preempt state law under the commerce clause.

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      DougAz

      Awesome questions Bill.

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    Ben Connelly

    Only 23 minutes in but this idea that crime waves are caused by a bunch of systemic factors that human beings have very little control over and can’t predict and can only explain later makes intuitive sense to me. Honestly it’s a deeply conservative point in a constrained-vision/Tom Sowell way (I know I reference that book a lot but it explains so much). In general, it is an idea that appeals to me. Human beings, especially in the collective, have very little control over events and societal trends.

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    1. Kyle Gann

      You want your mind exploded on how complex all the variables can be? Check out this podcast (discussing a book called Made of Honor) that digs into how 1400’s Scottish culture results in things as whacky and unexpected as men from the south releasing fight or flight hormones in response to things that don’t move the neurological needle for a man from the north (and how those hormonal responses show up in bad ways in the data). It’s all so complex and weird. But god it’s fascinating.
      https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-brain/id1028908750?i=1000605070528

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        Ben Connelly

        Interesting. I’m not familiar with that specifically, but I’ve heard of similar phenomena.

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        1. Kyle Gann

          Yeah the podcast was fascinating. I started reading the book but just at the very beginning of it. It does get into the broken windows theory and how/why - in the abstract concept - there is evidence it is “Duh.” Basically consistent with what this guy says that the fundamental theory is that humans take subtle clues from their surroundings / social context and subtle things can elevate or lower rule breaking behavior. But, yeah, the whole idea that Scottish culture from the 1400’s drives dramatic differences in behavior in the north & south blew my mind but made sense as he explained it and the data backing it. e.g., most posthumous medal of honors come from the south, but so do “You talking to me?” Style needless murders and also male suicide (and the nature of the suicide - northern males tend to take the gentle option and southern males choose the big boom violent and painful option that is also dramatic). One of his fundamental points is culture outlasts their context and contextual usefulness so we all need to be more conscious of what we adopt and discard from culture. But, also…Basically…this stuff is so complex…

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  7. Mirabeau

    Maybe the reason arrests in San Francisco declined between 1995 and 2019 is not less crime but different arrest policy. Maybe the reason people with mental disability cannot be confined is not that “we” so decided but that the Supreme Court so decided in O’Conner v. Donaldson. One could go on. A problem with your conversations with lefties is that you are incapable of challenging them. If I want to listen to them go unchallenged I can listen to npr.

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    1. Smartbomb

      I agree. In SF they stopped enforcing a bunch of laws and then turn around and say "look, crime is down. Aren't we great!" In general, I didn't find this guest's arguments very persuasive.

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        Fdterritory

        I kept waiting for this question as well, and it never came. You can't really use crime statistics as a measurement when huge urban portions of the country are trying really hard not to call crimes what they are.

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  8. Mark Warren

    I was excited to see the topic but was unable to listen because the sound quality was way too bad. This is the first time I have ever not been able to listen to a remnant due to sound quality.

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  9. Frenchy the Elder

    Struggling to finish. Sound quality really poor; Jonah seems disinterested; and without a engaged dialog, Bushway presents as a closed minded professor

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  10. Will

    Time Insensitive Podcast Idea: The intersection of pop culture and (good) board games. I'd be interested in hearing Jonah sit down with someone from Ares to discuss War of the Ring, or someone from Gale Force Nine to discuss their remake of the classic Dune game. Seems like the could be an interesting intersection between Jonah's pop culture chops and the economics of board game publishing. When so many licensed games are soulless money grabs, what makes a few turn in to masterpieces?

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