Texas has among the highest crime rates in the country, 17th for violent crime, even worse for property crime. Given the wealth of Texas, having such high crime rates is even more embarrassing (crime and poverty go hand in hand, but Texas doesn't have that excuse). In short, you're talking out of your ass.

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tough 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

wealth and inequality (and so poverty) also go hand in hand.

For a few to be very wealthy, the many may remain impoverished.

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SwellJoe 15 hours ago | parent [-]

That's also true. But one of the arguments of the "law and order" types is always that more police, and more aggressive police with more power to imprison people, reduces crime.

A wealthy state like Texas has a lot of cops and a lot of prisons. And, those cops are given incredible leeway in how they do their job.

Texas is a case study in whether "law and order" Republican policies work, and the evidence indicates it doesn't. We're just killing people in capital punishment cases for the joy of killing, not because it reduces crime. We're spending half our cities funds on militarized police because we want our private prisons full, not because it keeps people safer.

Most extremely Republican states with lax gun laws and capital punishment are poor states, with less money for cops (though they still imprison people at a high rate, they often fund it with slave labor).

There are ways for states to spend money that reduces crime, but Texas chooses to spend it on violence, instead.

	▲	tough 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		sadly private prisons means there's money to be made on imprisoning innocent people. Making a business out of everything creates perverse incentives. Also AFAIK unsure about US, but for example in Brazil there's a shadow work force with tax break incentives from the government for prisoners to be able to earn to pay for their needs, and its more akin to modern slavery than any kind of "Correctional" theories might imply. Similarly cops many times get incentivized to fill in quotas, and end up making up stuff to get paid more. Also all the companies around making money around these problems, have 0 incentives to make the problems go away, quite the contrary are incentivized to make these problems visible and acute enough that their services remain warranted to be required. Lobbying being legal, means Capital owns Democracy. Big money can buy out and make careers of any politican morally-lacking enough to sell their constituents wellbeing to some shameless Corp that will set him up for life and give him the money needed to get the votes, etc etc

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mlrtime 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Try researching rural vs urban, most of this crime happens in urban areas, Houston, Dallas etc. Texas rural rates of crime are significantly less than Texas urban and the US overall.

	▲	SwellJoe 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		There are people with guns both in the rural areas and the urban areas, and capital punishment is not restricted to cases in rural areas (in fact, it's much more likely to be sought against black or brown defendents for crimes in urban areas). If guns and capital punishment reduces crime, it doesn't matter whether the crime happens in rural or urban areas. If it works, Texas, the whole damned state, should have remarkably low crime, but that's not the case at all. You're having a different conversation than the one I'm having.