Thread by @JohnFPfaff

Intriguing data point of the night.

In 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates, of those serving time for a VIOLENT crime that is NOT homicide or rape:

• 62% claim NO ONE was physically hurt
• 21% admit serious injury (death/rape/stab/shot/broken bones)
• 17% admit minor injury

According to the BJS prisoner count, there are ~350,000 ppl in for violence other than rape or homicide (SPI-16 est is 375K, so... close).

That would be over 200,000 ppl in prison for violence who claim to have hurt no one.

Further complicates "violence" as a category.

Of course, these are self-reports, which are always noisy and messy.

Still, even if we assume some desire to downplay harms, still suggests many in prison for violence didn't cause physical harm (betting a lot are robberies).

(Of course, psych/emotional harm matters too.)

Would add: these numbers imply there are roughly as many people in prison for violence-with-no-phys-injury as there are for all drug crimes (which were ~190K in 2016).

Also implies that the number in for violence-without-phys-injury is 4x number in for possession (~45K).

Also, when it comes to reliability, I don't know which way we should expect any problems to be. Isn't the stereotype that prison demands a certain sort of toxic toughness that would incentivize people to EXAGGERATE the violence that got them there, not undersell it?

After all, the SPI is an anonymized survey. It's not part of an appeals process.

And the categories are broad enough--"break bones" or "stabbed"--that there isn't room to downplay WITHIN the broad options.