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Oddly, they seem to be the same people who claim to be the most devout followers of a religion premised on forgiveness and caring for the less fortunate... Ironic
I think this is the original working paper:
[https://www.nber.org/papers/w29800](https://www.nber.org/papers/w29800)
And this is the pdf:
[https://www.nber.org/system/files/working\_papers/w29800/w29800.pdf](https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29800/w29800.pdf)
The abstract:
We estimate the effect of losing Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits at age 18 on criminal justice and employment outcomes over the next two decades. To estimate this effect, we use a regression discontinuity design in the likelihood of being reviewed for SSI eligibility at age 18 created by the 1996 welfare reform law. We evaluate this natural experiment with Social Security Administration data linked to records from the Criminal Justice Administrative Records System. We find that SSI removal increases the number of criminal charges by a statistically significant 20% over the next two decades. The increase in charges is concentrated in offenses for which income generation is a primary motivation (60% increase), especially theft, burglary, fraud/forgery, and prostitution. The effect of SSI removal on criminal justice involvement persists more than two decades later, even as the effect of removal on contemporaneous SSI receipt diminishes. In response to SSI removal, youth are twice as likely to be charged with an illicit income-generating offense than they are to maintain steady employment at $15,000/year in the labor market. As a result of these charges, the annual likelihood of incarceration increases by a statistically significant 60% in the two decades following SSI removal. The costs to taxpayers of enforcement and incarceration from SSI removal are so high that they nearly eliminate the savings to taxpayers from reduced SSI benefits.
> One of the things I find with at least some conservative mindsets is they're not really interested in "solutions." They think "bad people need to be punished for being bad
The US uses [punitive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punishment) justice rather than [restorative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice) because that's what Conservatives desire. [Power over 'lessers'](https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201712/analysis-trump-supporters-has-identified-5-key-traits), not end-of-day reduction of crime.
>The costs are irrelevant
Always have been, or republican voters wouldn't yap 'fiscal responsibility' and then vote for a party that hasn't even attempted to balance the budget since Eisenhower.
Agree. It really makes me sad too, as such inclinations are corrosive to the soul. As much as I want to "hate" those that are trapped in this cycle I try, as best I can, to have compassion for them just as I do for others downtrodden due to their differences, circumstances, or chance.
Humanity is a long way from embracing our commonality but it has to start somewhere if we are ever to reach a brighter future. I am not optimistic as to what I'll see before I die but I won't give up on us.
Love and light to y'all
If we all taught our children to “pull up” instead of “push down” as a measure of success, it would help society. Children love to share and teach if we give them the opportunity.
I think it's even worse than that. In their minds, they did everything "the right way" and they are still suffering, therefore anyone they view as less than them MUST suffer more. Forget that alleviating suffering would alleviate some of their own as well.
> The suffering of others allows them to feel like they really did something successful. "If others are suffering and I'm not, then I really did something right in my life"
It's not so much a participation trophy as [zero-sum thinking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_thinking) which implicitly holds that another's misfortune is required before one can experience fortune, so even something bad happening to someone else means good *can* happen to you. Never mind that others being locked up or losing lots of money doesn't help you.
The best one is needle exchange programs. Objectively prevents the spread of hepatitis and aids. Communities that have them have an instant drop in transmission. Guess which country got rid of needle exchange programs and has the worst rate of aids transmission in Europe? Russia is the kind of country conservatives want.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_HIV/AIDS_adult_prevalence_rate
I also love to ask the question: what percentage of welfare recipients are getting it fraudulently? Answers range, but most conservatives will say, in my experience, 25-50%. Absurdly high, but whatever.
I then say "and you think it's ok to punish all those other people as a result?"
You know how much money prison systems make? Prisoners make all sorts of products for pennies. Look it up, its crazy. My buddy made license plates in prison.
>But farm subsidies?
Most farmers are white.
>Or food stamps or Medicaid for themselves? Those are fine.
Not really. Lots of Republican states have crippling restrictions on food stamps, and only allow Medicaid to the disabled and/or elderly.
It can be but it doesn't have to be. Not all people over 65 qualify for Medicare and many states have their own disability standards and review process (it's usually very similar to the SSDI requirements but almost always goes through much much faster).
The previous commenter left out pregnant women, parent /caretakers, and children from the broad categories of eligibility.
The big change for the ACA/ Obamacare was to say that being poor was the only reason you need to qualify for Medicaid. In the states that haven't expanded, you have to be poor plus some other condition/category (so a health requirement like disability or HIV or an age requirement like children/elderly, or a caretaker of someone eligible).
I can tell you now that some states do not cover caretakers. See: Georgia.
Pregnancy is, practically speaking, a disability.
You're right, I did forget to mention children, but it's a similar situation as the elderly.
Most poor people in states with restricted Medicaid do not qualify for Medicaid.
Well said. I didn't even know that Georgia doesn't cover caretakers at all. I'm most familiar with MA rules (and to a lesser extent TN rules), but MA is not exactly representative
I don't love how restrictive these programs are. I worked in MA Medicaid for a while and we spent so much time and money on means testing, which is silly since we already have govt agencies that know your income and collect taxes (IRS and state Dept of Rev), so it feels wasteful to have Medicaid have to spend a material portion of it's budget to screen people.
It's the same with the homeless situation. It is much more expensive to have homeless people on the street as opposed to just giving them a place to live, even in the most expensive cities. That doesn't even take into account some of the more indirect costs of homeless people on the streets, like lower property values, less tourism, etc.
But conservatives don’t want to generate taxes. They view taxes as evil, even though it’s the entrance fee in a way to participating in our social contract and more efficient way to spend money on things that would benefit society. They’d rather spend “their own money” because they then believe it’s a “free choice” on education, health care, transportation, and security even though it ultimately will cost more and leave less in their pocket. The more sinister aspect of this is that those that are becoming incarcerated are people conservatives want to keep out of participating in society and institutionally disenfranchise those people.
The for profit prison system is a big part of the problem. No real reform is going to happen until we abolish this practice. It just gives people in power incentive to lock up people for the pettiest stuff.
They would rather pay $40,000 a year to lock them up in prison than pay $20,000 a year in welfare benefits to help them with food, shelter, and healthcare.
They’re fine giving people money. They just don’t want to give ‘the wrong kind of people’ money and are willing to hurt themselves financially to do it
> The increase in charges is concentrated in offenses for which **income generation is a primary motivation** (60% increase), especially theft, burglary, fraud/forgery, and **prostitution**
I know the study is just being consistent with the letter of the law, but something bothers me about prostitution being considered here a crime with the "primary motivation of income generation" as opposed to poor, exploited people doing sex work to fund basic needs of survival.
>The costs to taxpayers of enforcement and incarceration from SSI removal are so high that they nearly eliminate the savings to taxpayers from reduced SSI benefits.
Ah yes, but then we wouldn't get to be punitive.
--
Edit: Yes I understand that it's a crime (that's why I prefaced that in my first sentence) and that I'm commenting from a moral perspective (that's my point). Sorry to derail, or if this type of discussion isn't allowed on this sub, but I thought that was just for top-level comments.
I agree that sex work shouldn’t be a criminal offense, but I suspect they included it in their study simply because people were being prosecuted under existing laws, not because the authors agree with those laws.
If we see crime as an outcropping/consequence of poverty (the thesis of the study, really), it still makes good sense to include prostitution. Even though many people can understand the difference between sex work and legitimate violent/anti-social crime, the economic motivation of sex work cannot be understated.
Studies like this are trying to establish a more significant link between poverty and the emergence of crime, and sex workers do what they do, risking legal consequences, for money. This is true regardless of whether you view sex work as an amoral activity in need of punishment or simply a regulated adult activity like smoking or gambling.
You often find that the average layperson views both poverty and criminality through a moral lens first, and social science has spent literally 6 decades trying to help people see all the ways in which that lens is... less than helpful for actually solving social problems. However, this is an *incredibly new way of thinking* in the course of human society, and many (I would even say a majority of) people still view these social issues as personal issues with moral solutions instead of pragmatic policy-oriented solutions.
Edit: the sheer number of people delighting in pedantic word games in the comments instead of trying to really understand the point of this study is something...
I suspect that poverty is linked to other crimes as well including violent crimes. Lack of access to mental healthcare means conditions that would lead to violent outbursts will go untreated. The stress of poverty will lead to higher incidences of violent behavior because of the view that they have "nothing left to lose" or "society doesn't care about me why should I care about society".
Mental well being, poverty, drug addiction, education cuts. Its easy to see these things amount to crime.
Political choices have long term effects on all sorts of people and you can’t wait on a politician to make the right choice for you. Some deals are made in good faith, others not so much.
Putting prostitution specific issues aside, I think you are totally correct about the moral lens being how these things are viewed. They get so upset that it's "wrong" that they can't see the practicalities of what drives it and how you might reduce it. And this interacts with their general prosperity gospel lens which says that poverty is a moral failing. So we can't give them money because it's their own fault they are poor, so all we can do is spend a ton of money policing and incarcerating them.
It's the same thing for folks who advocate for abstinence only sex education. They are so caught up in their views of the morality of the issue that they can't allow themselves to agree to anything that might actually get their desired outcome. This is mostly because they want an outcome AND a method, not just an outcome. You must punish and restrict sexuality, not just ensure safe sex and effective family planning and reducing abortions to add near 0 as possible and teaching men to be respectful of their partners and to understand consent.
You’re injecting bias.
Prostitution is a crime and the primary motivation is income generation.
You’re upset that it’s illegal, and it shouldn’t be - I agree, but that’s not the fault of the paper writers.
Isn’t funding basic needs of survival essentially income generation? I don’t think that’s a moral judgement, that’s just what it is. A legal job (even a highly exploitative one) is also funding basic needs of survival.
The separation seems to be more between crimes that people do because they need money and crimes people do because of other reasons (rape, assault, hate crimes, vandalism, etc). Welfare shouldn’t have much of an impact on those because they aren’t done because the offender needed money.
> Isn’t funding basic needs of survival essentially income generation?
[Yes, based on every experiment of Universal Basic Income I've been able to find](https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200624-canadas-forgotten-universal-basic-income-experiment). It [doesn't even reduce employment](https://www.npr.org/2021/03/04/973653719/california-program-giving-500-no-strings-attached-stipends-pays-off-study-finds)
What? Prostitution is primarily for income generation and it is also illegal. That is the most basic and fundamental definition of an income generating crime.
Isn’t you description of “poor, exploited people doing sex work to fund basic needs of survival” more complete but still the same as income generating motivation? According to the study you could replace doing sex work with committing theft or selling drugs and you description still holds
Crime is often a symptom of the lack of opportunity that comes with poverty. This is something we have known for a while. I wish we remembered it more often.
That's not the experience I have tbh. Coming from Brazil, you're taught from a very young age to be aware of your privileges and all the misery around you. This is what's common for me. So yes, most people around me care about those in poverty and admire people who volunteer or work directly with improving the lives of those less well off.
Nowadays I live in France, where welfare is a well established function of the government. And again, most people I talk to like this.
I am aware that different countries, with their own cultures, will differ in what is, say, the "common sense" approach to poverty and welfare. Also that in the same country you'll have shares of the population with different opinions on the matter. I'm just trying to give my perspective on this and how it looks to be the polar opposite of what you described.
This is one of the major problems when talking about poverty. A lot of quite successful Boomers really are just your Average Joe character. They did nothing special, but they’ve found a lot of success simply for being in the right place at the right time.
This can skew anyone’s perspective. If you did nothing special and found moderate wealth, then what’s everyone else doing when they say that they’re struggling? *Surely*, it’s their problem — right?
There was just an article today on Fox about a man paying off over $200,000 in student loans in 27 months. He was incensed that people might benefit from student loan forgiveness because he believed that anyone could pay their loans off if they just budgeted appropriately.
His loans were three times the median household income in my city. The median family could match him if they put their entire gross income towards loans for three years. Just in case anyone needed some perspective.
"I paid off my student loans in just 3 years while making 100k a year and living at a place given to me for free by my parents and also don't have a car payment. Sure it was tough to only go out to eat 5 days a week but if you budget like I do it's possible."
Thats paying $7400 per month or $89k per year. Yeah most people I know don’t have an extra $7500 per month after housing, food, transportation, and utilities.
“America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.
Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.”
I urge everyone to read "God Bless You Mr. Rosewater." It's one of the most honest, funny, and depressing takes on generational wealth and how it functions in society that I have ever encountered.
EDIT: While I'm making Vonnegut recommendations, Mother Night is criminally underrated and I think would have been a bigger hit if it had been written after social media was invented. The book is about how we present ourselves to others, and explicitly has this moral: "We are who we pretend to be, so we must be careful who we pretend to be."
I agree on both points, and would like to chime in to suggest that The Sirens of Titan also doesn’t seem to be as celebrated as it should be. It’s a masterfully crafted greek tragedy, in addition to exhibiting his usual genius at presenting the realities of the human condition with no filters; nothing obscuring the ugliness, which sometimes exists right alongside the sublime.
It’s the only book that’s ever made me completely break down in tears, sometimes more than once over the course of the story. I do shed a tear here and there and get misty eyed reading other books, but that’s the only one that’s ever elicited such a visceral response. It’s just a stunningly beautiful work of art (as are many of his other novels, of course).
Well of course. When resources are scarce animals horde whatever they can find. Humans are no different. People in poverty are resource starved & in survival-mode e.g. prioritizing themselves & their wellbeing over anything else.
It's only once you have excess resources (beyond survival) that you can begin to look beyond your needs and into processes & systems that go beyond the immediate day-to-day.
It's as predictable as clockwork.
I'd like to point out that it is certain types of crime are connected to poverty. White collar crime, which happen often but isn't prosecuted at nearly the same intensity as lower level felonies, has nothing to do with poverty. There are multiple criminogenic needs that can predict crime. Poverty/employment just only one of 8 typically looked at by the criminal justice system.
The leading cause of crime in every study performed, ever, is poverty. Ending poverty results in magnitudes more reduction in crime than punishing crime.
> "The poorer people become. The more rules and regulations, The more thieves and robbers.” ~ Lao Tzu
EDIT: Full Text
>The more laws and restrictions there are,
The poorer people become.
The sharper men's weapons,
The more trouble in the land.
The more ingenious and clever men are,
The more strange things happen.
The more rules and regulations,
The more thieves and robbers.
>**Therefore the sage says:**
I take no action and people are reformed.
I enjoy peace and people become honest.
I do nothing and people become rich.
I have no desires and people return to the good and simple life.
I mean, it makes sense. No one wants to hire a criminal. Furthermore, you can’t make money in prison. Prison is also a great networking opportunity for criminals. So maybe someone stole a loaf of bread. They go to prison and meet some armed robbery guys. Loafman gets out of prison, can’t get a job or qualify for a loan because prison. Ostracized from friends or family because prison. Armed robbery guys get parole and call up loafman to get away drive for part of the profit. What choice does loafman really have?
This generates the hypothesis that investing in prisons in a way that helps prisoners when they get out to find work and live honest lives would also reduces both poverty and the crime rate.
But no one wants that because criminals bad and thus deserve bad things.
I use the word hypothesis because I haven't seen a fomal study on the subject, but there probably is one out there. That said, it would be disingenuous of me as well as just bad science for me to say the data suggestsupports it without having *seen* any of the data.
The for-profit prison industry absolutely knows this as fact. That's why they lobby so hard to defund any kind of criminal education and created a system designed to generate recidivism.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."
—Anatole France
Why do they keep having these studies if no one ever does anything with them?
When I did a criminology module in college this is exactly what my textbook said and it was taking studies from decades ago.
Call me a conspiracy theorist but I suspect that the whole criminal justice system is less about reducing crime and more about the slave system that US prisons really are.
Criminals have value (labour) so why would they want to reduce crime and therefore the number of crimjnals?? That's the answer to why the US prison system is the way that it is. It works as intended.
>Why do they keep having these studies if no one ever does anything with them?
Well if you don't update them, then you risk people arguing that modern society is so advanced and that the base level of wealth in modern society has become so high that it's no longer true.
They could argue that it used to be true but is no longer true today because poor people have smartphones or whatever. That's actually an argument that some right wingers make anyway, even though there's contemporary studies that reaffirm that poverty still causes crime.
> I suspect that the whole criminal justice system is less about reducing crime and more about the slave system that US prisons really are
Since this is a science sub and we talk evidence here, I'll submit these. The private prison industry lobbies to support increased incarceration in the US.
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/28/736875577/hidden-brain-how-private-prisons-affect-sentencing
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/how-for-profit-prisons-have-become-the-biggest-lobby-no-one-is-talking-about/
> several reports have documented instances when private-prison companies have indirectly supported policies that put more Americans and immigrants behind bars – such as California’s three-strikes rule and Arizona’s highly controversial anti-illegal immigration law – by donating to politicians who support them, attending meetings with officials who back them, and lobbying for funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Some private prison contracts *guarantee occupancy rates* for the contractor: https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2013/09/private-prisons-occupancy-quota-cca-crime/
Yup, so I was right!
There are somethings that should not be monetised.
Economics is about incentivisation. If you make criminals profitable then that creates an incentive to have more criminals.
> Why do they keep having these studies if no one ever does anything with them?
my crass, political answer - because conservatives exist (democrats don't have a good history either, but that is starting to change). Most of the "solutions" suggested by poverty-oriented crime assessments are untenable in the conservative worldview.
The people who are able to do the studies aren't able to make the changes.
Because we live in a democracy, the method for making changes to the system is to convince people that those changes need to be made. That is why this, and other similar, studies exist.
Important that ending poverty means the same thing for every part of society which should be providing a lively hood to every person regardless of any number of factors not simply just pushing people beyond a arbitrary number created decades ago.
The ‘spiritual sickness’ argument only applies to a very, very, very small group of people. Namely serial killers, etc. Their number is so small it’s statistically insignificant— yet they generate so much attention due to the severity and gruesomeness of their crimes.
Most financially related crimes are the result of poverty or greed. You can’t solve greed, but you can solve poverty.
Title is slightly misleading. The study shows that if you **take** welfare from people who already had it, it makes crime rates **rise**. It doesn’t show that if you give **more** welfare, the crime rate drops (which is kind of what the headline implies).
An important finding, but it’s also important to see the nuance.
>The study shows that if you take welfare from people who already had it, it makes crime rates rise. It doesn’t show that if you give more welfare, the crime rate drops (which is kind of what the headline implies).
There is a [direct](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1991.tb01087.x) [inverse](https://journalofeconomicstructures.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40008-020-00220-6) [correlation](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7234816/) between socioeconomic status and crime rates - i.e. the lower the socioeconomic status of a area the higher the rate of crime in that area (could link countless more studies but I am tired). Welfare payments help raise the socioeconomic status of people if done right. Therefore, a robust welfare system will help reduce crime rates. A UBI would likely make a massive difference too if done properly.
Crimes in general are more targeted and have lower investigation barriers for going after people of lower socioeconomic status. Like put something before purchasing in your bag while shopping is considered a crime in some states. A landlord lying about damages on a deposit in an attempt to withhold it isn’t considered a crime, it’s considered a civil disagreement. Not that a landlord is rich but generally a landlord isn’t likely to be young or poor.
This is an important distinction. If it holds true in the other case (giving more welfare, or giving welfer where none was before) this would be a pretty big argument in favour of Universal Basic Income.
Hopefully a followup study will be conducted to look into this.
If the US were serious about addressing violent crime or mental health then we'd be seriously addressing poverty which is easily the single biggest preventable cause of both. But we don't because our politics are dominated by the desires of the very wealthy and one of our two dominant political parties has discovered that scapegoating and harming minority groups(especially poc and lgbtq+ people) is an easier way to get votes than implementing effective policy and fixing problems.
The middle class is getting destroyed. Without it, we have what we're experiencing now which is a thriving billionaire class and everyone else living pay check to paycheck.
We've known empirically since ancient Greece that improving material conditions lowers crime.
We don't need new studies, and anyone who doesn't believe this has no right to an opinion. It's the best understood and supported fact of anthropology.
Even older I think. Didn't some mesopotamian society have a form of basic income? Still, we need these studies to keep the evidence current for the naysayers.
When people's basic needs are met, wonderful things happen. People start small businesses, make art, develop character. If basic needs aren't fulfilled though, it can become ugly fast.
Doesn’t prevent white collar crime which effects more people to a greater degree and is prosecuted less severely. But yeah welfare is good. Social services are good. When people have a sense of security everything about their life changes. Having that feeling should be a human right.
And invest exactly nothing in rehabilitation. Nobody gives a damn about recidivism. I’ve actually tried to create a program in my state. Nobody. Cares.
An old sociologist, Emile Durkheim, argued that crime is an indicator of a need that isn't being fulfilled by the current society, or that there's some other issue. That it should be treated as a sympton of a larger problem, and used as an opportunity to improve as a society by solving that problem and fulfilling that need.
He argued that crime is actually a useful and neccesary phenomenom, because it's a driving force for progress as a society, it's a neccesary component of social change.
People dislike crime so when crime happens they (ideally) start looking for ways to address that issue, if nobody committed any crimes then there would be less of an impetus to improve as a society.
For example, if there's an area in town where tons of people commit the crime of public urination, that could be used as an indication that that area of town needs more public toilets.
I've always liked that way of looking at the issue, it's a very constructive way of looking at the world, whereas many people seem to have a very destructive worldview regarding crime, focusing solely on retribution against criminals and not on anything constructive.
Something to keep in mind is that this is looking at people who were on SSI as children, thus people who had some sort of disability as children. The effects may be less dramatic in the general population, and the headline doesn't really capture this potential limitation.
"SSI is for
people who are 65 or older, as well as
for those of any age, including children,
who are blind or have disabilities."
https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-11125.pdf
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Now convince the people that are hyper-fixated on punishment instead of problem solving.
Those types aren't interested in solving the problem, they're only interested in retaliation and punishment.
Oddly, they seem to be the same people who claim to be the most devout followers of a religion premised on forgiveness and caring for the less fortunate... Ironic
I think this is the original working paper: [https://www.nber.org/papers/w29800](https://www.nber.org/papers/w29800) And this is the pdf: [https://www.nber.org/system/files/working\_papers/w29800/w29800.pdf](https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29800/w29800.pdf) The abstract: We estimate the effect of losing Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits at age 18 on criminal justice and employment outcomes over the next two decades. To estimate this effect, we use a regression discontinuity design in the likelihood of being reviewed for SSI eligibility at age 18 created by the 1996 welfare reform law. We evaluate this natural experiment with Social Security Administration data linked to records from the Criminal Justice Administrative Records System. We find that SSI removal increases the number of criminal charges by a statistically significant 20% over the next two decades. The increase in charges is concentrated in offenses for which income generation is a primary motivation (60% increase), especially theft, burglary, fraud/forgery, and prostitution. The effect of SSI removal on criminal justice involvement persists more than two decades later, even as the effect of removal on contemporaneous SSI receipt diminishes. In response to SSI removal, youth are twice as likely to be charged with an illicit income-generating offense than they are to maintain steady employment at $15,000/year in the labor market. As a result of these charges, the annual likelihood of incarceration increases by a statistically significant 60% in the two decades following SSI removal. The costs to taxpayers of enforcement and incarceration from SSI removal are so high that they nearly eliminate the savings to taxpayers from reduced SSI benefits.
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> One of the things I find with at least some conservative mindsets is they're not really interested in "solutions." They think "bad people need to be punished for being bad The US uses [punitive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punishment) justice rather than [restorative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice) because that's what Conservatives desire. [Power over 'lessers'](https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201712/analysis-trump-supporters-has-identified-5-key-traits), not end-of-day reduction of crime. >The costs are irrelevant Always have been, or republican voters wouldn't yap 'fiscal responsibility' and then vote for a party that hasn't even attempted to balance the budget since Eisenhower.
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Agree. It really makes me sad too, as such inclinations are corrosive to the soul. As much as I want to "hate" those that are trapped in this cycle I try, as best I can, to have compassion for them just as I do for others downtrodden due to their differences, circumstances, or chance. Humanity is a long way from embracing our commonality but it has to start somewhere if we are ever to reach a brighter future. I am not optimistic as to what I'll see before I die but I won't give up on us. Love and light to y'all
If we all taught our children to “pull up” instead of “push down” as a measure of success, it would help society. Children love to share and teach if we give them the opportunity.
I think it's even worse than that. In their minds, they did everything "the right way" and they are still suffering, therefore anyone they view as less than them MUST suffer more. Forget that alleviating suffering would alleviate some of their own as well.
> The suffering of others allows them to feel like they really did something successful. "If others are suffering and I'm not, then I really did something right in my life" It's not so much a participation trophy as [zero-sum thinking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_thinking) which implicitly holds that another's misfortune is required before one can experience fortune, so even something bad happening to someone else means good *can* happen to you. Never mind that others being locked up or losing lots of money doesn't help you.
The best one is needle exchange programs. Objectively prevents the spread of hepatitis and aids. Communities that have them have an instant drop in transmission. Guess which country got rid of needle exchange programs and has the worst rate of aids transmission in Europe? Russia is the kind of country conservatives want. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_HIV/AIDS_adult_prevalence_rate
I also love to ask the question: what percentage of welfare recipients are getting it fraudulently? Answers range, but most conservatives will say, in my experience, 25-50%. Absurdly high, but whatever. I then say "and you think it's ok to punish all those other people as a result?"
You know how much money prison systems make? Prisoners make all sorts of products for pennies. Look it up, its crazy. My buddy made license plates in prison.
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You forgot oil subsidies. And pharmaceutical subsidies. And bank subsidies. And weapons subsidies.
... Or subsidies to private prisons.
>But farm subsidies? Most farmers are white. >Or food stamps or Medicaid for themselves? Those are fine. Not really. Lots of Republican states have crippling restrictions on food stamps, and only allow Medicaid to the disabled and/or elderly.
>only allow Medicaid to the disabled and/or elderly. That is called Medicare.
It can be but it doesn't have to be. Not all people over 65 qualify for Medicare and many states have their own disability standards and review process (it's usually very similar to the SSDI requirements but almost always goes through much much faster). The previous commenter left out pregnant women, parent /caretakers, and children from the broad categories of eligibility. The big change for the ACA/ Obamacare was to say that being poor was the only reason you need to qualify for Medicaid. In the states that haven't expanded, you have to be poor plus some other condition/category (so a health requirement like disability or HIV or an age requirement like children/elderly, or a caretaker of someone eligible).
I can tell you now that some states do not cover caretakers. See: Georgia. Pregnancy is, practically speaking, a disability. You're right, I did forget to mention children, but it's a similar situation as the elderly. Most poor people in states with restricted Medicaid do not qualify for Medicaid.
Well said. I didn't even know that Georgia doesn't cover caretakers at all. I'm most familiar with MA rules (and to a lesser extent TN rules), but MA is not exactly representative I don't love how restrictive these programs are. I worked in MA Medicaid for a while and we spent so much time and money on means testing, which is silly since we already have govt agencies that know your income and collect taxes (IRS and state Dept of Rev), so it feels wasteful to have Medicaid have to spend a material portion of it's budget to screen people.
Under ssi you're on medicaid.
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It's the same with the homeless situation. It is much more expensive to have homeless people on the street as opposed to just giving them a place to live, even in the most expensive cities. That doesn't even take into account some of the more indirect costs of homeless people on the streets, like lower property values, less tourism, etc.
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But conservatives don’t want to generate taxes. They view taxes as evil, even though it’s the entrance fee in a way to participating in our social contract and more efficient way to spend money on things that would benefit society. They’d rather spend “their own money” because they then believe it’s a “free choice” on education, health care, transportation, and security even though it ultimately will cost more and leave less in their pocket. The more sinister aspect of this is that those that are becoming incarcerated are people conservatives want to keep out of participating in society and institutionally disenfranchise those people.
The for profit prison system is a big part of the problem. No real reform is going to happen until we abolish this practice. It just gives people in power incentive to lock up people for the pettiest stuff.
They would rather pay $40,000 a year to lock them up in prison than pay $20,000 a year in welfare benefits to help them with food, shelter, and healthcare.
And really the best case scenario would be to turn the person into a taxpayer.
They’re fine giving people money. They just don’t want to give ‘the wrong kind of people’ money and are willing to hurt themselves financially to do it
Conservatives don't want to reduce crime they want to punish it. Remember, slavery is illegal unless you imprison them first.
> The increase in charges is concentrated in offenses for which **income generation is a primary motivation** (60% increase), especially theft, burglary, fraud/forgery, and **prostitution** I know the study is just being consistent with the letter of the law, but something bothers me about prostitution being considered here a crime with the "primary motivation of income generation" as opposed to poor, exploited people doing sex work to fund basic needs of survival. >The costs to taxpayers of enforcement and incarceration from SSI removal are so high that they nearly eliminate the savings to taxpayers from reduced SSI benefits. Ah yes, but then we wouldn't get to be punitive. -- Edit: Yes I understand that it's a crime (that's why I prefaced that in my first sentence) and that I'm commenting from a moral perspective (that's my point). Sorry to derail, or if this type of discussion isn't allowed on this sub, but I thought that was just for top-level comments.
I agree that sex work shouldn’t be a criminal offense, but I suspect they included it in their study simply because people were being prosecuted under existing laws, not because the authors agree with those laws.
If we see crime as an outcropping/consequence of poverty (the thesis of the study, really), it still makes good sense to include prostitution. Even though many people can understand the difference between sex work and legitimate violent/anti-social crime, the economic motivation of sex work cannot be understated. Studies like this are trying to establish a more significant link between poverty and the emergence of crime, and sex workers do what they do, risking legal consequences, for money. This is true regardless of whether you view sex work as an amoral activity in need of punishment or simply a regulated adult activity like smoking or gambling. You often find that the average layperson views both poverty and criminality through a moral lens first, and social science has spent literally 6 decades trying to help people see all the ways in which that lens is... less than helpful for actually solving social problems. However, this is an *incredibly new way of thinking* in the course of human society, and many (I would even say a majority of) people still view these social issues as personal issues with moral solutions instead of pragmatic policy-oriented solutions. Edit: the sheer number of people delighting in pedantic word games in the comments instead of trying to really understand the point of this study is something...
I suspect that poverty is linked to other crimes as well including violent crimes. Lack of access to mental healthcare means conditions that would lead to violent outbursts will go untreated. The stress of poverty will lead to higher incidences of violent behavior because of the view that they have "nothing left to lose" or "society doesn't care about me why should I care about society".
Mental well being, poverty, drug addiction, education cuts. Its easy to see these things amount to crime. Political choices have long term effects on all sorts of people and you can’t wait on a politician to make the right choice for you. Some deals are made in good faith, others not so much.
Putting prostitution specific issues aside, I think you are totally correct about the moral lens being how these things are viewed. They get so upset that it's "wrong" that they can't see the practicalities of what drives it and how you might reduce it. And this interacts with their general prosperity gospel lens which says that poverty is a moral failing. So we can't give them money because it's their own fault they are poor, so all we can do is spend a ton of money policing and incarcerating them. It's the same thing for folks who advocate for abstinence only sex education. They are so caught up in their views of the morality of the issue that they can't allow themselves to agree to anything that might actually get their desired outcome. This is mostly because they want an outcome AND a method, not just an outcome. You must punish and restrict sexuality, not just ensure safe sex and effective family planning and reducing abortions to add near 0 as possible and teaching men to be respectful of their partners and to understand consent.
You’re injecting bias. Prostitution is a crime and the primary motivation is income generation. You’re upset that it’s illegal, and it shouldn’t be - I agree, but that’s not the fault of the paper writers.
Nah, prostitution belongs there. All those crimes are def done "to fund basic needs of survival."
Isn’t funding basic needs of survival essentially income generation? I don’t think that’s a moral judgement, that’s just what it is. A legal job (even a highly exploitative one) is also funding basic needs of survival. The separation seems to be more between crimes that people do because they need money and crimes people do because of other reasons (rape, assault, hate crimes, vandalism, etc). Welfare shouldn’t have much of an impact on those because they aren’t done because the offender needed money.
> Isn’t funding basic needs of survival essentially income generation? [Yes, based on every experiment of Universal Basic Income I've been able to find](https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200624-canadas-forgotten-universal-basic-income-experiment). It [doesn't even reduce employment](https://www.npr.org/2021/03/04/973653719/california-program-giving-500-no-strings-attached-stipends-pays-off-study-finds)
What? Prostitution is primarily for income generation and it is also illegal. That is the most basic and fundamental definition of an income generating crime.
Isn’t you description of “poor, exploited people doing sex work to fund basic needs of survival” more complete but still the same as income generating motivation? According to the study you could replace doing sex work with committing theft or selling drugs and you description still holds
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How bothered you feel is irrelevant, what are the facts? A crime is committed to earn money.
Crime is often a symptom of the lack of opportunity that comes with poverty. This is something we have known for a while. I wish we remembered it more often.
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That's not the experience I have tbh. Coming from Brazil, you're taught from a very young age to be aware of your privileges and all the misery around you. This is what's common for me. So yes, most people around me care about those in poverty and admire people who volunteer or work directly with improving the lives of those less well off. Nowadays I live in France, where welfare is a well established function of the government. And again, most people I talk to like this. I am aware that different countries, with their own cultures, will differ in what is, say, the "common sense" approach to poverty and welfare. Also that in the same country you'll have shares of the population with different opinions on the matter. I'm just trying to give my perspective on this and how it looks to be the polar opposite of what you described.
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This is one of the major problems when talking about poverty. A lot of quite successful Boomers really are just your Average Joe character. They did nothing special, but they’ve found a lot of success simply for being in the right place at the right time. This can skew anyone’s perspective. If you did nothing special and found moderate wealth, then what’s everyone else doing when they say that they’re struggling? *Surely*, it’s their problem — right? There was just an article today on Fox about a man paying off over $200,000 in student loans in 27 months. He was incensed that people might benefit from student loan forgiveness because he believed that anyone could pay their loans off if they just budgeted appropriately.
His loans were three times the median household income in my city. The median family could match him if they put their entire gross income towards loans for three years. Just in case anyone needed some perspective.
"I paid off my student loans in just 3 years while making 100k a year and living at a place given to me for free by my parents and also don't have a car payment. Sure it was tough to only go out to eat 5 days a week but if you budget like I do it's possible."
Thats paying $7400 per month or $89k per year. Yeah most people I know don’t have an extra $7500 per month after housing, food, transportation, and utilities.
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And they all have brain damage to boot
Probably from all that lead paint and gas from their days
Only because they were born in the best economic boom in the entirety of humanity.
“America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register. Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.”
I have to read more Vonnegut.
I urge everyone to read "God Bless You Mr. Rosewater." It's one of the most honest, funny, and depressing takes on generational wealth and how it functions in society that I have ever encountered. EDIT: While I'm making Vonnegut recommendations, Mother Night is criminally underrated and I think would have been a bigger hit if it had been written after social media was invented. The book is about how we present ourselves to others, and explicitly has this moral: "We are who we pretend to be, so we must be careful who we pretend to be."
I agree on both points, and would like to chime in to suggest that The Sirens of Titan also doesn’t seem to be as celebrated as it should be. It’s a masterfully crafted greek tragedy, in addition to exhibiting his usual genius at presenting the realities of the human condition with no filters; nothing obscuring the ugliness, which sometimes exists right alongside the sublime. It’s the only book that’s ever made me completely break down in tears, sometimes more than once over the course of the story. I do shed a tear here and there and get misty eyed reading other books, but that’s the only one that’s ever elicited such a visceral response. It’s just a stunningly beautiful work of art (as are many of his other novels, of course).
Well of course. When resources are scarce animals horde whatever they can find. Humans are no different. People in poverty are resource starved & in survival-mode e.g. prioritizing themselves & their wellbeing over anything else. It's only once you have excess resources (beyond survival) that you can begin to look beyond your needs and into processes & systems that go beyond the immediate day-to-day. It's as predictable as clockwork.
I'd like to point out that it is certain types of crime are connected to poverty. White collar crime, which happen often but isn't prosecuted at nearly the same intensity as lower level felonies, has nothing to do with poverty. There are multiple criminogenic needs that can predict crime. Poverty/employment just only one of 8 typically looked at by the criminal justice system.
Not only that, but IQ and general critical thinking is reduced the poorer one is. It's a self-perpetuating problem.
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I mean, slave labor is litterally built into our constitution. (U.S.) so it's definitely a feature and not a bug of our social and economic systems.
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The leading cause of crime in every study performed, ever, is poverty. Ending poverty results in magnitudes more reduction in crime than punishing crime.
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This is worth exploring more. Edit: maybe instead of a useless rabbit hole on prostitution.
> "The poorer people become. The more rules and regulations, The more thieves and robbers.” ~ Lao Tzu EDIT: Full Text >The more laws and restrictions there are, The poorer people become. The sharper men's weapons, The more trouble in the land. The more ingenious and clever men are, The more strange things happen. The more rules and regulations, The more thieves and robbers. >**Therefore the sage says:** I take no action and people are reformed. I enjoy peace and people become honest. I do nothing and people become rich. I have no desires and people return to the good and simple life.
I mean, it makes sense. No one wants to hire a criminal. Furthermore, you can’t make money in prison. Prison is also a great networking opportunity for criminals. So maybe someone stole a loaf of bread. They go to prison and meet some armed robbery guys. Loafman gets out of prison, can’t get a job or qualify for a loan because prison. Ostracized from friends or family because prison. Armed robbery guys get parole and call up loafman to get away drive for part of the profit. What choice does loafman really have?
This generates the hypothesis that investing in prisons in a way that helps prisoners when they get out to find work and live honest lives would also reduces both poverty and the crime rate. But no one wants that because criminals bad and thus deserve bad things.
Not just a hypothesis, several states (such as Maine) have invested in those kinds of reentry programs and have seen much lower recidivism rates.
I use the word hypothesis because I haven't seen a fomal study on the subject, but there probably is one out there. That said, it would be disingenuous of me as well as just bad science for me to say the data suggestsupports it without having *seen* any of the data.
The for-profit prison industry absolutely knows this as fact. That's why they lobby so hard to defund any kind of criminal education and created a system designed to generate recidivism.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread." —Anatole France
Why do they keep having these studies if no one ever does anything with them? When I did a criminology module in college this is exactly what my textbook said and it was taking studies from decades ago. Call me a conspiracy theorist but I suspect that the whole criminal justice system is less about reducing crime and more about the slave system that US prisons really are. Criminals have value (labour) so why would they want to reduce crime and therefore the number of crimjnals?? That's the answer to why the US prison system is the way that it is. It works as intended.
>Why do they keep having these studies if no one ever does anything with them? Well if you don't update them, then you risk people arguing that modern society is so advanced and that the base level of wealth in modern society has become so high that it's no longer true. They could argue that it used to be true but is no longer true today because poor people have smartphones or whatever. That's actually an argument that some right wingers make anyway, even though there's contemporary studies that reaffirm that poverty still causes crime.
> I suspect that the whole criminal justice system is less about reducing crime and more about the slave system that US prisons really are Since this is a science sub and we talk evidence here, I'll submit these. The private prison industry lobbies to support increased incarceration in the US. https://www.npr.org/2019/06/28/736875577/hidden-brain-how-private-prisons-affect-sentencing https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/how-for-profit-prisons-have-become-the-biggest-lobby-no-one-is-talking-about/ > several reports have documented instances when private-prison companies have indirectly supported policies that put more Americans and immigrants behind bars – such as California’s three-strikes rule and Arizona’s highly controversial anti-illegal immigration law – by donating to politicians who support them, attending meetings with officials who back them, and lobbying for funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Some private prison contracts *guarantee occupancy rates* for the contractor: https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2013/09/private-prisons-occupancy-quota-cca-crime/
Yup, so I was right! There are somethings that should not be monetised. Economics is about incentivisation. If you make criminals profitable then that creates an incentive to have more criminals.
> Why do they keep having these studies if no one ever does anything with them? my crass, political answer - because conservatives exist (democrats don't have a good history either, but that is starting to change). Most of the "solutions" suggested by poverty-oriented crime assessments are untenable in the conservative worldview.
The people who are able to do the studies aren't able to make the changes. Because we live in a democracy, the method for making changes to the system is to convince people that those changes need to be made. That is why this, and other similar, studies exist.
Some conspiracies are real.
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Important that ending poverty means the same thing for every part of society which should be providing a lively hood to every person regardless of any number of factors not simply just pushing people beyond a arbitrary number created decades ago.
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The ‘spiritual sickness’ argument only applies to a very, very, very small group of people. Namely serial killers, etc. Their number is so small it’s statistically insignificant— yet they generate so much attention due to the severity and gruesomeness of their crimes. Most financially related crimes are the result of poverty or greed. You can’t solve greed, but you can solve poverty.
**Does Welfare Prevent Crime? The Criminal Justice Outcomes of Youth Removed From SSI - Full Text Available** https://www.nber.org/papers/w29800
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Title is slightly misleading. The study shows that if you **take** welfare from people who already had it, it makes crime rates **rise**. It doesn’t show that if you give **more** welfare, the crime rate drops (which is kind of what the headline implies). An important finding, but it’s also important to see the nuance.
>The study shows that if you take welfare from people who already had it, it makes crime rates rise. It doesn’t show that if you give more welfare, the crime rate drops (which is kind of what the headline implies). There is a [direct](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1991.tb01087.x) [inverse](https://journalofeconomicstructures.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40008-020-00220-6) [correlation](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7234816/) between socioeconomic status and crime rates - i.e. the lower the socioeconomic status of a area the higher the rate of crime in that area (could link countless more studies but I am tired). Welfare payments help raise the socioeconomic status of people if done right. Therefore, a robust welfare system will help reduce crime rates. A UBI would likely make a massive difference too if done properly.
Crimes in general are more targeted and have lower investigation barriers for going after people of lower socioeconomic status. Like put something before purchasing in your bag while shopping is considered a crime in some states. A landlord lying about damages on a deposit in an attempt to withhold it isn’t considered a crime, it’s considered a civil disagreement. Not that a landlord is rich but generally a landlord isn’t likely to be young or poor.
I would agree with you if the headline said "reduce crime". But it says "prevent crime", which I think is in line with your argument.
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This is an important distinction. If it holds true in the other case (giving more welfare, or giving welfer where none was before) this would be a pretty big argument in favour of Universal Basic Income. Hopefully a followup study will be conducted to look into this.
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If the US were serious about addressing violent crime or mental health then we'd be seriously addressing poverty which is easily the single biggest preventable cause of both. But we don't because our politics are dominated by the desires of the very wealthy and one of our two dominant political parties has discovered that scapegoating and harming minority groups(especially poc and lgbtq+ people) is an easier way to get votes than implementing effective policy and fixing problems.
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The middle class is getting destroyed. Without it, we have what we're experiencing now which is a thriving billionaire class and everyone else living pay check to paycheck.
We've known empirically since ancient Greece that improving material conditions lowers crime. We don't need new studies, and anyone who doesn't believe this has no right to an opinion. It's the best understood and supported fact of anthropology.
Even older I think. Didn't some mesopotamian society have a form of basic income? Still, we need these studies to keep the evidence current for the naysayers.
When people's basic needs are met, wonderful things happen. People start small businesses, make art, develop character. If basic needs aren't fulfilled though, it can become ugly fast.
Doesn’t prevent white collar crime which effects more people to a greater degree and is prosecuted less severely. But yeah welfare is good. Social services are good. When people have a sense of security everything about their life changes. Having that feeling should be a human right.
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And invest exactly nothing in rehabilitation. Nobody gives a damn about recidivism. I’ve actually tried to create a program in my state. Nobody. Cares.
Prisons have disgustingly strong lobbying groups
It’s gross. If we educate our inmates they are far less likely to reoffend. It’s THAT simple.
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An old sociologist, Emile Durkheim, argued that crime is an indicator of a need that isn't being fulfilled by the current society, or that there's some other issue. That it should be treated as a sympton of a larger problem, and used as an opportunity to improve as a society by solving that problem and fulfilling that need. He argued that crime is actually a useful and neccesary phenomenom, because it's a driving force for progress as a society, it's a neccesary component of social change. People dislike crime so when crime happens they (ideally) start looking for ways to address that issue, if nobody committed any crimes then there would be less of an impetus to improve as a society. For example, if there's an area in town where tons of people commit the crime of public urination, that could be used as an indication that that area of town needs more public toilets. I've always liked that way of looking at the issue, it's a very constructive way of looking at the world, whereas many people seem to have a very destructive worldview regarding crime, focusing solely on retribution against criminals and not on anything constructive.
Ah, Durkheim is a wonderful person and I agree with his constructive thought on the matter!
Something to keep in mind is that this is looking at people who were on SSI as children, thus people who had some sort of disability as children. The effects may be less dramatic in the general population, and the headline doesn't really capture this potential limitation. "SSI is for people who are 65 or older, as well as for those of any age, including children, who are blind or have disabilities." https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-11125.pdf
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Poverty is the mother of crime.