I found it unclear what this line means. It seems too large a number to mean "a factor of 68,000", but the usage of the word "rate" implies that it's not "68,000 extra people went to prison".
Reading below, it appears that this is the absolute number of additional people sent to prison. In that case it's misleading to call it a "rate", since it's not one. Even if you clarify that this is a number of people, that seems like a rather useless and potentially-misleading metric, since most readers probably have no idea what the overall population of the country is and we have no way to put that number in context. The per capita number is much more important.
A big thing missing from this calculus is the potential long-term benefits. My naive assumption is that over the decades, prison populations will reduce because people are now much less likely to join gangs. This positive benefit does need to be balanced with the long-term risks of having authoritarian norms.
To steelman the argument a bit, I think El Salvador demonstrates that mass incarceration achieves its goals (lower crime, less murder), not that this particular instance passes a cost benefit analysis in terms of collateral damage (innocent people swept up in the crackdown) or harm done to actual criminals (which I think most people care about a lot less than you do, especially advocates of mass incarceration).
For both those harms, I think you could make a strong case that they would be substantially less in a European or Anglo context, as our criminal justice systems are more robust to jailing innocents and our prisons are more humane (emphasis on more; many prisoners in the US especially are kept in abhorrent conditions).
The average salvadorean is 27 years old, and the life expectancy is 71. So we can conservatively estimate the life lost from a murder as 44 years. For this to be off by a factor of five, a year in prison needs to be at most .13 QALY. Do you believe that?
2. When human capital loss, health complications etc. etc. are taken into account, I suspect the QALY value of a year in a Salvadorean prison is well below zero.
The heading says "narrow". It's narrow in the sense of being just about the relatively effects of sending someone to prison and the effects of stopping a murder- it doesn't consider broader social implications of different legal and political structures. I spell out the kinds of costs and benefits I'm talking about in the relevant section:
"First, the benefits. You stop a murder. That’s more life for someone, murder victims are often young, so let’s say 45 years on average. You save the grief of their family and friends. Finally, there is the economic contribution of the person you have saved.
Now the costs. 68 people spend the year in prison. How much would you pay to avoid spending a year in prison? Would you prefer a 1 in 68 chance of dying or a 100% chance of spending a year in prison? I know which I’d take. Now think about the economic costs of having to pay to keep people locked up for a year. Now add in the reduction in economic activity as people can no longer work the jobs they worked before they were imprisoned. Think about the reduction in the welfare of their families- both through familial bonds and poverty."
2. Very possibly yes, but even if not, this is not needed to get the result. If you're going to live thirty more years, spending one year in prison can be much worse than 1/30th the disutility of spending the rest of your life in prison, because of, as mentioned, human capital effects, long term health effects etc.
2a) I think preferences like this are very uncommon in the general population.
b) It will be many of the same people spending that year in prison every year. Combining sentences that last multiple years and reconviction later, the effects of interrupting ones regular life can be discounted by 90% or more even with quiet conservative assumptions.
If we assume the average time these guys is going to spend in there is 7 years (just at a guess) that seems to me likely to be considerably worse than, say, 7/30ths of a 30 year sentence for the reasons mentioned.
I think Agarwal's comment is spot on, in that most of the benefits of the policy is in the long-term trajectory of the country. I suspect most of those benefits do come rather mechanically from segregating "the worst" people from the rest of society, which leaves the remaining population more trustworthy and prosocial. In reading that Matt Lakeman piece, the thing that stands out is how terrible the gang problem really was, and how terrorized the locals were as a result. I don't know the QALYs lost by living in a place that regularly has brutal machete attacks, but it's certainly not zero. That's why when Lakeman talks to the residents about what happened, they are almost all positive on Bukele's actions; he gave them hope that the country would continue to be safe and orderly. I think when the government doesn't even have the appearance of a monopoly on violence, the damage to economic and social good is so high that even extreme actions will easily "pencil out" from a utilitarian perspective. Bukele's astounding approval rating is evidence of that. Anecdotally, I know an El Salvadoran ex-pat who is considering visiting her home country for the first time in decades because "it's finally safe enough to do so." I think any analysis which doesn't factor in such "psychic benefits" is denying the the most important part of people's lived experience.
I don't think it's fair to only consider moral costs in one direction. Like sure there is a cost associated with the fear of being falsely accused, but so there is for the fear of being murdered.
When evaluating the narrow costs as you defined it I think it is best to just compare murder QALYs to prison QALYs and assume family effects etc. scale proportionally
So here is the costs I include in the narrow tabulation:
"Narrow costs and benefits of increasing incarceration by 68,000 and reducing murder by 1000
First, the benefits. You stop a murder. That’s more life for someone, murder victims are often young, so let’s say 45 years on average. You save the grief of their family and friends. Finally, there is the economic contribution of the person you have saved.
Now the costs. 68 people spend the year in prison. How much would you pay to avoid spending a year in prison? Would you prefer a 1 in 68 chance of dying or a 100% chance of spending a year in prison? I know which I’d take. Now think about the economic costs of having to pay to keep people locked up for a year. Now add in the reduction in economic activity as people can no longer work the jobs they worked before they were imprisoned. Think about the reduction in the welfare of their families- both through familial bonds and poverty."
Narrow here is defined as "effects on individuals and people who know them of being murdered or imprisoned, rather than broader impacts on society." Do you think there are any costs I have considered here on one side, that have parallel costs on the other side which I haven't included?
> The incarceration rate jumped by 68,000.
I found it unclear what this line means. It seems too large a number to mean "a factor of 68,000", but the usage of the word "rate" implies that it's not "68,000 extra people went to prison".
Reading below, it appears that this is the absolute number of additional people sent to prison. In that case it's misleading to call it a "rate", since it's not one. Even if you clarify that this is a number of people, that seems like a rather useless and potentially-misleading metric, since most readers probably have no idea what the overall population of the country is and we have no way to put that number in context. The per capita number is much more important.
Fixed
A big thing missing from this calculus is the potential long-term benefits. My naive assumption is that over the decades, prison populations will reduce because people are now much less likely to join gangs. This positive benefit does need to be balanced with the long-term risks of having authoritarian norms.
To steelman the argument a bit, I think El Salvador demonstrates that mass incarceration achieves its goals (lower crime, less murder), not that this particular instance passes a cost benefit analysis in terms of collateral damage (innocent people swept up in the crackdown) or harm done to actual criminals (which I think most people care about a lot less than you do, especially advocates of mass incarceration).
For both those harms, I think you could make a strong case that they would be substantially less in a European or Anglo context, as our criminal justice systems are more robust to jailing innocents and our prisons are more humane (emphasis on more; many prisoners in the US especially are kept in abhorrent conditions).
Perhaps if you ignore intraprison crime and murder.
The average salvadorean is 27 years old, and the life expectancy is 71. So we can conservatively estimate the life lost from a murder as 44 years. For this to be off by a factor of five, a year in prison needs to be at most .13 QALY. Do you believe that?
1. Don't forget family effects.
2. When human capital loss, health complications etc. etc. are taken into account, I suspect the QALY value of a year in a Salvadorean prison is well below zero.
1. I thought this was your strictly first order analysis, because thats the heading it was under.
2. Should you kill yourself rather than go to prison for life?
The heading says "narrow". It's narrow in the sense of being just about the relatively effects of sending someone to prison and the effects of stopping a murder- it doesn't consider broader social implications of different legal and political structures. I spell out the kinds of costs and benefits I'm talking about in the relevant section:
"First, the benefits. You stop a murder. That’s more life for someone, murder victims are often young, so let’s say 45 years on average. You save the grief of their family and friends. Finally, there is the economic contribution of the person you have saved.
Now the costs. 68 people spend the year in prison. How much would you pay to avoid spending a year in prison? Would you prefer a 1 in 68 chance of dying or a 100% chance of spending a year in prison? I know which I’d take. Now think about the economic costs of having to pay to keep people locked up for a year. Now add in the reduction in economic activity as people can no longer work the jobs they worked before they were imprisoned. Think about the reduction in the welfare of their families- both through familial bonds and poverty."
2. Very possibly yes, but even if not, this is not needed to get the result. If you're going to live thirty more years, spending one year in prison can be much worse than 1/30th the disutility of spending the rest of your life in prison, because of, as mentioned, human capital effects, long term health effects etc.
2a) I think preferences like this are very uncommon in the general population.
b) It will be many of the same people spending that year in prison every year. Combining sentences that last multiple years and reconviction later, the effects of interrupting ones regular life can be discounted by 90% or more even with quiet conservative assumptions.
If we assume the average time these guys is going to spend in there is 7 years (just at a guess) that seems to me likely to be considerably worse than, say, 7/30ths of a 30 year sentence for the reasons mentioned.
I think Agarwal's comment is spot on, in that most of the benefits of the policy is in the long-term trajectory of the country. I suspect most of those benefits do come rather mechanically from segregating "the worst" people from the rest of society, which leaves the remaining population more trustworthy and prosocial. In reading that Matt Lakeman piece, the thing that stands out is how terrible the gang problem really was, and how terrorized the locals were as a result. I don't know the QALYs lost by living in a place that regularly has brutal machete attacks, but it's certainly not zero. That's why when Lakeman talks to the residents about what happened, they are almost all positive on Bukele's actions; he gave them hope that the country would continue to be safe and orderly. I think when the government doesn't even have the appearance of a monopoly on violence, the damage to economic and social good is so high that even extreme actions will easily "pencil out" from a utilitarian perspective. Bukele's astounding approval rating is evidence of that. Anecdotally, I know an El Salvadoran ex-pat who is considering visiting her home country for the first time in decades because "it's finally safe enough to do so." I think any analysis which doesn't factor in such "psychic benefits" is denying the the most important part of people's lived experience.
I don't think it's fair to only consider moral costs in one direction. Like sure there is a cost associated with the fear of being falsely accused, but so there is for the fear of being murdered.
When evaluating the narrow costs as you defined it I think it is best to just compare murder QALYs to prison QALYs and assume family effects etc. scale proportionally
So here is the costs I include in the narrow tabulation:
"Narrow costs and benefits of increasing incarceration by 68,000 and reducing murder by 1000
First, the benefits. You stop a murder. That’s more life for someone, murder victims are often young, so let’s say 45 years on average. You save the grief of their family and friends. Finally, there is the economic contribution of the person you have saved.
Now the costs. 68 people spend the year in prison. How much would you pay to avoid spending a year in prison? Would you prefer a 1 in 68 chance of dying or a 100% chance of spending a year in prison? I know which I’d take. Now think about the economic costs of having to pay to keep people locked up for a year. Now add in the reduction in economic activity as people can no longer work the jobs they worked before they were imprisoned. Think about the reduction in the welfare of their families- both through familial bonds and poverty."
Narrow here is defined as "effects on individuals and people who know them of being murdered or imprisoned, rather than broader impacts on society." Do you think there are any costs I have considered here on one side, that have parallel costs on the other side which I haven't included?