POL SCI 109Z Lecture Notes - Lecture 22: Burglary
16 Dec 2018
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Document Summary
People who are likely to choose criminal activity have a poor understanding of the actual penalties they might face. Violence is often defensive, so many people risk incarceration for their own safety. Many crimes are committed when people are intoxicated. Percentage difference in sentence length for black men over white men: 2011-2016 19. 1% Incarceration should work by putting violent people behind bars! Violent crimes are largely committed by young men. This has always been the case, all of the time, all over the place. Inmate age - 31-41 is the peak age. Disconnect between crimes committed and those incarcerated. Half of all inmates are released in one to two years. Prisons do little to improve the lot of those offenders sent to them for punishment and might actually increase crime - increasing the likelihood of future offending upon release. But punishing through long sentences probably doesn"t. People don"t know about the punishments or are too intoxicated.
