[Gunnair]

Curtman Curtman:

Gunnair Gunnair:

This was purely about Curt rolling it, shitting the bed, and then pouting to be called on it.

The two issues are inextricably linked. Prohibition supports gangsterism. The article's topic is that what we are doing to combat growth of gangs isn't working.



Is there some part of this graphic that you disagree with?

What was the methodology used to prepare this graphic?

[OnTheIce]

[ShepherdsDog]

[CanadianJeff]

Curtman Curtman:

CanadianJeff CanadianJeff:

actually if you had bothered to read the very police report your linking to I would follow similar ideas presented in the report.

These kids follow gangs because they often feel or have some disconnect to a healthy social life or have a lack of good family life. Organizing and maintaining new outreach programs that try to get these youth involved in healthier activities like sports or find them non abusive places they feel are home are the best approach.

I think you don't realize or understand that there is a HUGE difference in youth gangs compared to full scale adult organized crime like the Hells Angels.

There is a bit of difference. Street gangs are the retail arm of black market drugs, the convenience store if you like. Kids follow gangs because they have money and power. If it was any other thing the boy scouts would be way more popular than them.

EDIT: As the article states, there is no police report to read yet. It hasn't been released yet. The article is written by someone who has read it though.

Yep way to prove my point. You have no clue how or why kids gangs are dramatically different from organized crime.

Rather then just provoke or laugh at your may I suggest a good book to prove my point. It's an older title from the 1930s but it's considered a must read classic by those who teach sociology. It's called Street Corner Society by William Foote White and it's very very much worth a read.

When your done the book you will understand how and why it's still relevant given the commentary mentioned in the article about the report as it comes to the exact same conclusions and gives real world examples from an on the street insider prospective.

Oh and since I can't resist if your prohibition theory was true gangs would have hit an all time low after prohibition was lifted on booze. Seems they never went away just shifted their focus onto other substances.

There will always be some chemist in some lab that will come up with a new drug to sell on the street. You may want to pay attention to how often history repeats it's an important fact of life.

[andyt]

$1:

The most telling sign of the relationship between serious crime and Prohibition was the dramatic reversal in the rates
for robbery, burglary, murder, and assault when Prohibition was repealed in 1933. That dramatic reversal has Marxist
and business-cycle crime theorists puzzled to this day. For example, sociologist John Pandiani noted that "a major
wave of crime appears to have begun as early as the mid 1920s [and] increased continually until 1933 . . . when it
mysteriously reversed itself."[50] Theodore Ferdinand also found a "mysterious" decline that began in 1933 and lasted
throughout the 1930s.[51] How could they miss the significance of the fact that the crime rate dropped in 1933?...

Repeal of Prohibition dramatically reduced crime, including organized crime, and corruption. Jobs were created, and
new voluntary efforts, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, which was begun in 1934, succeeded in helping alcoholics.

http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/f ... /pa157.pdf

[Curtman]

andyt andyt:

$1:

The most telling sign of the relationship between serious crime and Prohibition was the dramatic reversal in the rates
for robbery, burglary, murder, and assault when Prohibition was repealed in 1933. That dramatic reversal has Marxist
and business-cycle crime theorists puzzled to this day. For example, sociologist John Pandiani noted that "a major
wave of crime appears to have begun as early as the mid 1920s [and] increased continually until 1933 . . . when it
mysteriously reversed itself."[50] Theodore Ferdinand also found a "mysterious" decline that began in 1933 and lasted
throughout the 1930s.[51] How could they miss the significance of the fact that the crime rate dropped in 1933?...

Repeal of Prohibition dramatically reduced crime, including organized crime, and corruption. Jobs were created, and
new voluntary efforts, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, which was begun in 1934, succeeded in helping alcoholics.

http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/f ... /pa157.pdf

[OnTheIce]

[andyt]

$1:

Before Congress passed the National Prohibition Act in 1919, homicide rates in America were relatively low. In the 1910s, about five in 100,000 Americans fell victim to murder. At the height of Prohibition, the murder rate climbed nearly 60%. But after the 21st Amendment repealed Prohibition 16 years later, the rate steadily declined back to pre-Prohibition levels. The war on drugs, from the 1960s to the present, brought the homicide rate back up to about 10 per 100,000 – almost twice the rate before Prohibition and the drug war.

In his research for Drug War Crimes: The Consequences of Prohibition, Dr. Miron found that homicide rates and drug-law enforcement move in tandem in a variety of ways. As the drug war intensifies, the black market in drugs becomes more profitable, and those willing to risk prosecution and heavy prison time often become more willing to flout the law in other ways. Gang warfare becomes the norm, just as it did with alcohol prohibition, and innocent bystanders fall victim to the crossfire spawned by the drug laws. Dealers in the illegal drug trade have no nonviolent recourse in the courts or through legal arbitration to resolve disputes, and arguments over drug transactions or other matters fuel violent score settling within the illicit drug market.

Drug dealers and occasional bystanders are not the only casualties of drug prohibition. Another result is that the police and law enforcement resources are diverted from combating non-drug-related crimes, giving criminals more freedom to terrorize communities. In some cases, police officers themselves have become corrupted by the huge cash flows available to them if they agree to look the other way or even assist in organized crime.

The millions of dollars spent on drug law enforcement has had no proven substantial effect in reducing drug abuse. Drugs are not more difficult to acquire. According to Miron's research, the price of cocaine, adjusting for inflation and purity, fell in real dollars from $450 per pure gram in 1981 to about $100 by 1996.

http://www.alternet.org/story/20578/a_p ... crime_wave

[CanadianJeff]

andyt andyt:

$1:

The most telling sign of the relationship between serious crime and Prohibition was the dramatic reversal in the rates
for robbery, burglary, murder, and assault when Prohibition was repealed in 1933. That dramatic reversal has Marxist
and business-cycle crime theorists puzzled to this day. For example, sociologist John Pandiani noted that "a major
wave of crime appears to have begun as early as the mid 1920s [and] increased continually until 1933 . . . when it
mysteriously reversed itself."[50] Theodore Ferdinand also found a "mysterious" decline that began in 1933 and lasted
throughout the 1930s.[51] How could they miss the significance of the fact that the crime rate dropped in 1933?...

Repeal of Prohibition dramatically reduced crime, including organized crime, and corruption. Jobs were created, and
new voluntary efforts, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, which was begun in 1934, succeeded in helping alcoholics.

http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/f ... /pa157.pdf

First of all correlation does not equal causation. Just because two things happened at the same time does not mean one caused the other.

Also anyone that would seriously try and claim that AA actually succeeded in helping alcholics needs to pull their head out of their arse and look up actual success rates.

[andyt]

All right, let's go your way then. If prohibition worked, we should apply it to alcohol, since alcohol causes more societal ills than all illegal drugs combined. That should really improve society. Except they already ran that experiment, and it didn't work.

[andyt]

$1:

"Not only did the number of serious crimes increase, but crime became organized. Criminal groups organize around the steady source of income provided by laws against victimless crimes such as consuming alcohol or drugs, gambling and prostitution. In the process of providing goods and services those criminal organizations resort to real crimes in defense of sales territories, brand names, and labor contracts. That is true of extensive crime syndicates (the Mafia) as well as street gangs, a criminal element that first surfaced during prohibition."

"The contributing factor to the sudden increase of felonies was the organization of crime, especially in large cities. Because liquor was no longer legally available, the public turned to gangsters who readily took on the bootlegging industry and supplied them with liquor. On account of the industry being so profitable, more gangsters became involved in the money-making business. Crime became so organized because "criminal groups organize around the steady source of income provided by laws against victimless crimes such as consuming alcohol. As a result of the money involved in the bootlegging industry, there was much rival between gangs. The profit motive caused over four hundred gang related murders a year in Chicago alone."

http://www.albany.edu/~wm731882/organiz ... final.html

[OnTheIce]

andyt andyt:

$1:

"Not only did the number of serious crimes increase, but crime became organized. Criminal groups organize around the steady source of income provided by laws against victimless crimes such as consuming alcohol or drugs, gambling and prostitution. In the process of providing goods and services those criminal organizations resort to real crimes in defense of sales territories, brand names, and labor contracts. That is true of extensive crime syndicates (the Mafia) as well as street gangs, a criminal element that first surfaced during prohibition."

"The contributing factor to the sudden increase of felonies was the organization of crime, especially in large cities. Because liquor was no longer legally available, the public turned to gangsters who readily took on the bootlegging industry and supplied them with liquor. On account of the industry being so profitable, more gangsters became involved in the money-making business. Crime became so organized because "criminal groups organize around the steady source of income provided by laws against victimless crimes such as consuming alcohol. As a result of the money involved in the bootlegging industry, there was much rival between gangs. The profit motive caused over four hundred gang related murders a year in Chicago alone."

http://www.albany.edu/~wm731882/organiz ... final.html

Then why are gangs and OC still around?

Do we keep legalizing all things bad with the false pretence that it will rid the World of organized crime when history shows us otherwise?

[andyt]

What the fuck is wrong with you people? Can you not get it thru your head that legalizing pot (or all drugs) won't eliminate crime, but cause a reduction in it. Isnt' half a loaf better than none at all?

Again, if prohibition of drugs works, let's prohibit alcohol and tobacco. They cause far more misery, so let's ban them and the problem will go away. If only it were so.

[andyt]

Legalization is an effort to improve the situation. No 100% guarantee it will work, as belt and suspenders Gunnair likes to point out. But you certainly can't claim that the current situation is working. So what's your suggestion on what to try?

[andyt]

$1:

Speaking to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, King County, Washington, Sheriff John Urquhart laid out what may go down as one of the most compelling pro-law-enforcement arguments for legalizing marijuana to ever make it into the Congressional record.

“During my career I’ve investigated everything from shop lifts to homicides, but I’ve also spent almost 12 years as a narcotics detective,” the lifelong cop explained. “My experience shows me that the war on drugs has been a failure… So the citizens of the state of Washington decided it was time to try something new.”

“Too often the attitude of the police is, ‘We’re the cops and you’re not, don’t tell us how to do our job,’” he continued. “That’s the wrong attitude, and I refuse to fall into that trap. The title of this hearing is the conflict between state and federal marijuana laws. I don’t see a huge conflict.”

“The reality is, we do have complimentary goals and values,” Urquhart said. “We all agree we don’t want our children using marijuana. We all agree we don’t want impaired drivers. We all agree we don’t want to continue enriching criminals.”

“Washington’s law honors those values by separating consumers from gangs and diverting the proceeds from the sale of marijuana toward furthering goals of public safety,” he continued. “Legalizing and regulating the possession and the sale of marijuana, is it a better alternative? I think it is, but I’m willing to be proven wrong.”

“The only way we’ll know, however, is if we are allowed to try.”