andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2010 andrew_gelman_stats-2010-420 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
Source: html
Introduction: My econ dept colleague Joseph Stiglitz suggests that financial fraudsters be sent to prison. He points out that the usual penalty–million-dollar fines–just isn’t enough for crimes whose rewards can be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. That all makes sense, but why do the options have to be: 1. No punishment 2. A fine with little punishment or deterrent value 3. Prison. What’s the point of putting nonviolent criminals in prison? As I’ve said before , I’d prefer if the government just took all these convicted thieves’ assets along with 95% of their salary for several years, made them do community service (sorting bottles and cans at the local dump, perhaps; a financier should be good at this sort of thing, no?), etc. If restriction of personal freedom is judged be part of the sentence, they could be given some sort of electronic tag that would send a message to the police if you are ever more than 3 miles from your home. And a curfew so you have to stay home bet
sentIndex sentText sentNum sentScore
1 My econ dept colleague Joseph Stiglitz suggests that financial fraudsters be sent to prison. [sent-1, score-0.303]
2 He points out that the usual penalty–million-dollar fines–just isn’t enough for crimes whose rewards can be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. [sent-2, score-0.27]
3 A fine with little punishment or deterrent value 3. [sent-5, score-0.286]
4 What’s the point of putting nonviolent criminals in prison? [sent-7, score-0.214]
5 As I’ve said before , I’d prefer if the government just took all these convicted thieves’ assets along with 95% of their salary for several years, made them do community service (sorting bottles and cans at the local dump, perhaps; a financier should be good at this sort of thing, no? [sent-8, score-0.642]
6 If restriction of personal freedom is judged be part of the sentence, they could be given some sort of electronic tag that would send a message to the police if you are ever more than 3 miles from your home. [sent-10, score-0.673]
7 Also take away internet access and require that you live in a 200-square-foot apartment in a grungy neighborhood. [sent-12, score-0.217]
8 But no need to bill the taxpayers for the cost of prison. [sent-14, score-0.107]
9 ” People aren’t sure that we have justice for all. [sent-16, score-0.183]
10 Somebody is caught for a minor drug offense, they are sent to prison for a very long time. [sent-17, score-0.715]
11 And yet, these so-called white-collar crimes, which are not victimless, almost none of these guys, almost none of them, go to prison. [sent-18, score-0.408]
12 Why send minor drug offenders to prison for a very long time? [sent-20, score-0.834]
13 Instead, why not just equip them with some sort of recorder/transmitter that has to be always on. [sent-21, score-0.084]
14 If they can do all their drug deals in silence, then, really, how much trouble are they going to be causing? [sent-22, score-0.301]
15 Readers with more background in criminology than I will be able to poke holes in my proposals, I’m sure. [sent-23, score-0.314]
16 to the impatient readers out there: Yeah, yeah, I have some statistics items on deck. [sent-26, score-0.195]
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Introduction: My econ dept colleague Joseph Stiglitz suggests that financial fraudsters be sent to prison. He points out that the usual penalty–million-dollar fines–just isn’t enough for crimes whose rewards can be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. That all makes sense, but why do the options have to be: 1. No punishment 2. A fine with little punishment or deterrent value 3. Prison. What’s the point of putting nonviolent criminals in prison? As I’ve said before , I’d prefer if the government just took all these convicted thieves’ assets along with 95% of their salary for several years, made them do community service (sorting bottles and cans at the local dump, perhaps; a financier should be good at this sort of thing, no?), etc. If restriction of personal freedom is judged be part of the sentence, they could be given some sort of electronic tag that would send a message to the police if you are ever more than 3 miles from your home. And a curfew so you have to stay home bet
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Introduction: I’m just glad that universities don’t sanction professors for publishing false theorems. If the guy really is nailed by the feds for fraud, I hope they don’t throw him in prison. In general, prison time seems like a brutal, expensive, and inefficient way to punish people. I’d prefer if the government just took 95% of his salary for several years, made him do community service (cleaning equipment at the local sewage treatment plant, perhaps; a lab scientist should be good at this sort of thing, no?), etc. If restriction of this dude’s personal freedom is judged be part of the sentence, he could be given some sort of electronic tag that would send a message to the police if he were ever more than 3 miles from his home. But no need to bill the taxpayers for the cost of keeping him in prison.
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Introduction: Cameron McKenzie writes: I ran into the attached paper [by Dave Marcotte and Sara Markowitz] on the social benefits of prescription of psychotropic drugs, relating a drop in crime rate to an increase in psychiatric drug prescriptions. It’s not my area (which is psychophysics) but I do find this kind of thing interesting. Either people know much more than I think they do, or they are pretending to, and either is interesting. My feeling is that it doesn’t pass the sniff test, but I wondered if you might (i) find the paper interesting and/or (ii) perhaps be interested in commenting on it on the blog. It seems to me that if we cumulated all econometric studies of crime rate we would be able to explain well over 100% of the variation therein, but perhaps my skepticism is unwarranted. My reply: I know what you mean. The story seems plausible but the statistical analysis seems like a stretch. I appreciate that the authors included scatterplots of their data, but the patterns they
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Introduction: Four recent news stories about crime and punishment made me realize, yet again, how little I understand all this. 1. “HSBC to Pay $1.92 Billion to Settle Charges of Money Laundering” : State and federal authorities decided against indicting HSBC in a money-laundering case over concerns that criminal charges could jeopardize one of the world’s largest banks and ultimately destabilize the global financial system. Instead, HSBC announced on Tuesday that it had agreed to a record $1.92 billion settlement with authorities. . . . I don’t understand this idea of punishing the institution. I have the same problem when the NCAA punishes a college football program. These are individual people breaking the law (or the rules), right? So why not punish them directly? Giving 40 lashes to a bunch of HSBC executives and garnisheeing their salaries for life, say, that wouldn’t destabilize the global financial system would it? From the article: “A money-laundering indictment, or a guilt
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Introduction: See below. W. D. Burnham is a former professor of mine, T. Ferguson does important work on money and politics, and J. Stiglitz is a colleague at Columbia (whom I’ve never actually met). Could be interesting. Join the Roosevelt Institute on December 2nd, from 8-11am at NYC’s Harvard Club 27 West 44th St. for a panel discussion of the Bipartisan Deficit Commission Report, the future of the U.S. Economy, and the prospects for policy change in the wake of the midterm elections. The conversation will be framed by the release of three new Roosevelt Institute White Papers: Democracy in Peril: The American Turnout Problem and the Path to Plutocracy (Walter Dean Burnham) A World Upside Down: Deficit Fantasies in the Great Recession (Thomas Ferguson and Robert Johnson) Principles and Guidelines For Deficit Reduction (Joseph Stiglitz) Because space is limited, please RSVP to Madeleine Ehrlich at mehrlich@rooseveltinstitute.org or 212.444.9138.
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Introduction: I haven’t linked to the Baby Name Wizard in awhile. . . . Laura Wattenberg takes a look at the question , “Does a hard-to-pronounce baby name hurt you?” Critical thinking without “debunking”—this is the way to go.
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