You Suck at Data

Welcome to You Suck at Data, what will likely be a multi-part companion series to Today in Moronic Memes, pointing out flawed, misused, and logically inconsistent data usage.

Today's installment brought to us by the New York Times' columnist David Brooks.  Brooks takes on the issue of mass-incarceration and determines that the War on Drugs is not the problem:

The drug war is not even close to being the primary driver behind the sharp rise in incarceration. About 90 percent of America’s prisoners are held in state institutions. Only 17 percent of these inmates are in for a drug-related offense, or less than one in five.

Moreover, the share of people imprisoned for drug offenses is dropping sharply, down by 22 percent between 2006 and 2011. Writing in Slate, Leon Neyfakh emphasized that if you released every drug offender from state prison today, you’d reduce the population only to 1.2 million from 1.5 million.

While I don't dispute the number and I do believe people emphasize non-violent drug offenders too much, Brooks might be surprised to learn that drug possession and drug sales is just one part of the legal problems created by the War on Drugs.  A good rule for drawing conclusions from data, should be that the data needs to matter. 

This is a completely unregulated market with no legal recourse if someone robs you.  Associated crimes are in my estimation, the biggest problem with the War on Drugs.  Murder and assault to collect debts, protect turf, discourage theft, and silence witnesses.  Money laundering and tax evasion to hide money. Theft and fraud to pay for addictions.  These are the big legal problems with the drug war.  Letting non-violent drug offenders out is a no-brainer, the next part is what's hard.

Former Baltimore police officer and professor Peter Moskos over at Cop in Hood sums in up well:

The War on Drugs doesn't just create "drug" prisoners. Prohibition creates unregulated public drug markets. That's where the violence is. Prohibition doesn't lessen addiction. And that's where you find the property crimes. We need to end the drug war not to release a bunch of pot-heads from prison but to change the violent culture of the streets.

The main problem with the War on Drugs -- and it's not locking up too many non-violent drug users -- is the violence inherent in an illegal public drug market. Pacifists don't last long slinging on the corner. Arresting a drug dealer creates a job opening for another potentially violent street-corner dealer. Lawyers and economists should be able to understand that.

In fairness to Brooks, he did mention overly aggressive prosecutors as an issue and acknowledged that social problems are complicated.  No kidding.  All that being said, without actually tackling the problem of prohibition, you'll have a cycle of criminality that seeps into the rest of society.