Lethal Injection Under Fire Again

[Occhidiangela]

Personally, I am not a fan of the World Bank, although it has started to clean up its act. 

By hiring Paul Wolfowitz? Your "liberal" credentials just took a hit. :lol:

However, most of those articles are not their own publications, but are from reputable academic sources.

*restrains self from commenting on edifices made from elephant protuberances*

If you consider only the articles that deal with developed western contexts, you'll find a common theme: under conditions of inequality, impoverishment in particular sectors of society leads to increased rates of violent crime.

Ultimately, your contention seems to be that this correlation is the result of "behavioural" factors.  I find the conclusion that such a belief entails to be beyond repugnant - I refuse to believe that the poor (who are, it must once again be noted, disproportionately made up of disadvantaged racial minorities) are not, as a group, inherently lacking in the capacity for "moral fibre".
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Not all poor are homogenously violent, criminally inclined, et cetera. That is what Drasca has been trying, with apparent lack of success, to get across.

Within the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder are poor but proud, the sort who simply don't commit crime, along with the poor, desparate, and irresponsible.

Your apparent presumption that bias creates criminal activity strikes me as bizarre. The missing behavioral checks, internal and external combined, on criminal or lawless behavior, are, to once again capture Draca's sound point, is not driven by economic status, nor by "minority status," as the hard working Viet Namese of the Gulf Coast demonstrated, in spades, after the boat people hit our shores in the mid 1970's. "Disadvantaged" is an appeal to "victim status" and I say go fish. Not buying that.

Poor but proud is how my Dad grew up. He lost his father when he was 10. Funny, he didn't turn into a criminal, even though he was a child of a poor, non English speaking, minority, single mother where he grew up. His mother and older sister provided the moral discipline he needed to do well in school, to learn English, to work his butt off, and improve his lot in life. He had chances to stray, I don't doubt, but he didn't. Cultural and behavioral discipline, not license, and not a mind set seeking apology for being "disadvantaged."

He did have a mentor, a godfather, whose presence was a norm in a community that did not discard religion, but embraced it. My dad became an Agnostic as a young man, and still is. He spent no time excoriating or condemming Christians, or Jews, or Athiests for their beliefs -- unlike the trendy sneers one sees so often these days -- he just got on with his life and made the best of each situation he encountered.

There was an old saying that a ghetto isn't a place, it is a state of mind. Well, I'll add to that: lawful behavior is a matter of attitude, as is unlawful and criminal behavior. Make whatever excuse you want, we all choose the actions we take. We are not destined to be more unlawful by our ethnic make up.

Occhi