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notch656a | 3 years ago

Exactly. If black people disproportionately are in prison, maybe that's just justice.

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lvass|3 years ago

It's not justice, but the same phenomenon. If certain group has a larger tendency to commit crimes, and you have limited time and resource to look for crimes, it's overall more effective (arrest more people and perhaps prevent more crime) to disproportionately target that certain group. Men and blacks do in fact proportionally commit more crime than women and other races, but less so than the rate of incarceration suggests. There are only two ways to prevent this: being super effective and checking everything (police state), or being less effective and arrest less criminals for taking extra steps to arrest in just proportion (there are legit reasons to want this, e.g. it'd be terrible for society if for example white women had the sensation they could commit any crime without punishment. But to what degree is that extra effort worth it?).

vkou|3 years ago

Or maybe it's not? It completely depends on your prior. I, for one, am not entirely convinced that racism disappeared without a trace in 1964.

woodruffw|3 years ago

This is called "affirming the consequent."

notch656a|3 years ago

Exactly. If men are disproportionately in prison, maybe that isn't justice.

Why is it ok for 'spaulding to just shut down the argument as "nothing about justice requires that punishment be meted out in strict accordance with demographic breakdown" but suddenly a fallacy when I insert an actual demographic? I knew it would make people upset because well if we're talking about men then no defense is necessary, no woodruffw to the rescue with "affirming the consequent", but if black people cue up the folks with the torches.