![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
In the US, most victims of rape are men.
Feb. 4th, 2012 09:50 amFor 2008, for example, the government had previously tallied 935 confirmed instances of sexual abuse. After asking around, and performing some calculations, the Justice Department came up with a new number: 216,000. That’s 216,000 victims, not instances. These victims are often assaulted multiple times over the course of the year. The Justice Department now seems to be saying that prison rape accounted for the majority of all rapes committed in the US in 2008, likely making the United States the first country in the history of the world to count more rapes for men than for women.
From a very interesting article here, which attacks both left- and right-wing perspectives on crime. Conservatives tend to dismiss the dramatic drop in recorded crime rates because it doesn't support their fear-based agenda of social control. Liberals tend to dismiss the dramatic drop in recorded crime rates because it gives support to the "lock-em-up" approach while ignoring the fate of millions of people subject to crime while incarcerated. Glazek's article is great because it manages to alienate nearly everyone while confronting one of the great moral failings of American society, which probably means he's on the right track. His comments on gun control are particularly pointed:
Gun control is another area where progressive energies have been wasteful and counterproductive... Even on its own terms, gun control is not a straightforwardly progressive matter. The war on guns bears important similarities to the war on drugs—both are used as pretexts for searching, arresting, and imprisoning ethnic minorities. Gun control, like drug control, doesn’t do much to restrict supply—instead, it creates a black market for the product regulated through violence. In many states, obtaining a gun license is expensive and complex: we’ve essentially made it legal to own a gun if you’re wealthy and white, and illegal to own a gun if you’re poor and black.
IMHO, gun control is one issue I also think the American left needs to give up on. It's interesting to see how panicked the NRA crowd has become about Obama's conspicuous lack of gun control initiatives; without threats to rally their supporters, they have to more or less make them up, as they're doing with elaborate, nearly incomprehensible conspiracy theories surrounding the "Fast and Furious" scandal. It is helpful - if even more confusing - to remember that intrusive gun control laws were largely the invention of conservatives in the 60s and 70s, such as Reagan, who wanted to make sure that only white people had guns.
There is also another article in the New Yorker on the subject of mass incarceration which is very worth reading, albeit depressing. What a mess. I have no idea how it's all going to end.
From a very interesting article here, which attacks both left- and right-wing perspectives on crime. Conservatives tend to dismiss the dramatic drop in recorded crime rates because it doesn't support their fear-based agenda of social control. Liberals tend to dismiss the dramatic drop in recorded crime rates because it gives support to the "lock-em-up" approach while ignoring the fate of millions of people subject to crime while incarcerated. Glazek's article is great because it manages to alienate nearly everyone while confronting one of the great moral failings of American society, which probably means he's on the right track. His comments on gun control are particularly pointed:
Gun control is another area where progressive energies have been wasteful and counterproductive... Even on its own terms, gun control is not a straightforwardly progressive matter. The war on guns bears important similarities to the war on drugs—both are used as pretexts for searching, arresting, and imprisoning ethnic minorities. Gun control, like drug control, doesn’t do much to restrict supply—instead, it creates a black market for the product regulated through violence. In many states, obtaining a gun license is expensive and complex: we’ve essentially made it legal to own a gun if you’re wealthy and white, and illegal to own a gun if you’re poor and black.
IMHO, gun control is one issue I also think the American left needs to give up on. It's interesting to see how panicked the NRA crowd has become about Obama's conspicuous lack of gun control initiatives; without threats to rally their supporters, they have to more or less make them up, as they're doing with elaborate, nearly incomprehensible conspiracy theories surrounding the "Fast and Furious" scandal. It is helpful - if even more confusing - to remember that intrusive gun control laws were largely the invention of conservatives in the 60s and 70s, such as Reagan, who wanted to make sure that only white people had guns.
There is also another article in the New Yorker on the subject of mass incarceration which is very worth reading, albeit depressing. What a mess. I have no idea how it's all going to end.
