Crime DA

1nc
Mandatory military conscription bolsters crime be skeptical of their evidence best
studies flow neg AND the plan doesnt re-shape individuals. LINDQUIST IN 16
Lindquist 16. Matthew Lindquist Professor Of Labor Economics At The Swedish Institute For Social Research, Stockholm University, 4-1-2016,
"Impact of mandatory military conscription on crime and the labour market," No Publication, http://voxeu.org/article/impact-mandatory-
military-conscription-crime-and-labour-market

There is little consensus in the academic literature about the impact of this potentially life transforming event. Angrists (1990) seminal study found that Vietnam draftees in the US had lower
earnings than non-draftees. Subsequent papers (Angrist and Chen 2011, Angrist et al. 2011) find that this gap closes over time, so that by age 50 draftees are on par with non-draftees.

There is some evidence that conscription causes an increase in violent crimes

among Vietnam veterans in the US (Rohlfs 2010, Lindo and Stoecker 2012), though this is not seen amongst Australian veterans (Siminski et al. 2016). The
effects of peacetime conscription are similarly mixed: no effect on wages in Britain and Germany (Grenet et al. 2011, Bauer et al. 2012), a negative effect in Holland and for high-ability men in
Denmark (Imbens and van der Klaauw 1995, Bingley et al. 2014), and a positive effect for low-educated men in Portugal (Card and Cardoso 2012). Galiani et al. (2011) find that conscription
increases crime in Argentina, while Albaek et al. (forthcoming) find that service reduces property crime among Danish men with previous convictions. What can explain these diverse findings?
First, the effect of conscription may change over the lifecycle. For an outcome like crime which peaks as a young adult, focusing on crime after age 40, as done in some of the previous
studies, may skew the results. Second, the conscription experience varies greatly across studies. While peacetime versus wartime conscription is the most obvious example, other differences
may emerge as countries approach the end of their mandatory conscription regimes. Third, measured differences may be related to differences in how the causal effect is identified. Because
of the selection process involved in military service, one cannot simply compare outcomes for those who do and do not serve. The above mentioned studies use various quasi-experimental
designs to solve this potential omitted variables problem. The most convincing studies rely on random variation in service generated by draft lotteries. But we should also be interested in the
effect of service in countries that do not rely upon a lottery to assign service. Several studies do this by comparing cohorts before and after the abolition of mandatory conscription. This
research design can yield different results than the lottery design for a number of reasons: the conscription experience likely differs when it is about to be abolished; it may include general
equilibrium effects; and the average and marginal individuals treated may not be comparable across studies. If conscription has heterogeneous effects, then it is not surprising if studies with
different identification strategies find different effects. New research Our new paper (Hjalmarsson and Lindquist 2016) contributes to this debate by utilising individual administrative records
and a quasi-experimental research design to identify the causal impact of mandatory military conscription in Sweden on crime (both during and after conscription), legitimate labour market
outcomes, and work-related health outcomes. Our
paper stands out from the previous literature by: Studying modern-day cohorts; Using a
comprehensive set of crime and labour market outcomes; Applying a new identification strategy; and Providing the first clean evidence of an
incapacitation effect using information on the exact dates of service. Mandatory military conscription in Sweden dates back to 1901 and was abolished in 2010, after a
gradual decline that began upon the end of the Cold War. For most of this period, Swedish male citizens underwent an intensive drafting procedure upon turning 18, including tests of physical
and mental ability. Generally speaking, the tested were positively selected for conscription; those with the highest cognitive and non-cognitive test scores were most likely to serve. Given that
such ability measures are also likely correlated with criminality, a nave comparison of post-service crime rates of those who do and do not serve would most certainly yield biased estimates of
the effects of conscription. Though potential Swedish conscripts are not assigned to service on the basis of a lottery, there is some chance involved in service decisions. Namely, each
individuals test results were reviewed by a randomly assigned officiator, with a relatively high or low tendency to assign conscripts to service; we can observe these officiators from 1990 to
1996. It is this exogenous variation in the likelihood of serving that we use to identify the causal effect of conscription on crime and labour market outcomes. Those who serve are 20

Military
percentage points more likely to have been assigned to a high service rate officiator than those who do not serve. New findings Our baseline results are striking:

service significantly increases both the likelihood of crime and the number of
crimes between ages 23 and 30. These effects are seen across all crime
categories, are quite large in magnitude, and are driven by those with a criminal history prior to
service or who come from low socioeconomic status households. Given these findings, it is perhaps surprising that

we also find large and significant incapacitation effects of conscription, especially for drug and alcohol offences and for

traffic crimes. Unfortunately, our analysis suggests that these effects are not large enough to break a cycle of crime that has already begun prior to service. This
heterogeneous impact of service is also seen with respect to labour market outcomes. Individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds have significantly lower income, and are more likely to
receive unemployment and welfare benefits. In contrast, military service significantly increases income and does not impact welfare and unemployment for those at the other end of the
distribution. There is no effect of service on the likelihood of higher education. The only positive effect of service we see, at least for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, is a decrease in

mandatory military
disability benefits and the number of sick days; these effects are in fact seen for all subsamples. Conclusion Our analysis indicates that

conscription significantly impacts the life course of young men; the heterogeneous nature of the effects
reinforces already existing inequalities in the likelihood of future success. Our results contradict the idea that military service may be a way to straighten out troubled youths and build skills
that are marketable in the post-service labour market. These non-monetary costs should be taken into account when deciding whether to reinstate or abolish mandatory conscription or when
devising the system through which conscription occurs (e.g. lottery, testing, etc.). Who are the average and marginal conscripts? How will conscription affect these individuals?

Crime dooms people to cycles of poverty. MCCAULEY IN 14.

McCauley 14. Lauren Mccauley 12-02-2014, "Criminal Records Create Endless Cycle of Poverty, Says Report," Common
Dreams,https://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/12/02/criminal-records-create-endless-cycle-poverty-says-report

The U.S. criminal justice system has kept millions of Americans in an endless cycle of poverty and incarceration, creating barriers for former inmates as well as their families, communities and
national economy, according to a new report published Tuesday. Adding to the body of research that has shown mass incarceration to be a principal driver of inequality in America, particularly
among men of color, the reportOne Strike and Youre Out How We Can Eliminate Barriers to Economic Security and Mobility for People with Criminal Records (pdf)examines the economic

consequences of having a criminal record. "Today, a criminal record serves as both a direct cause and
consequence of poverty," write report authors Rebecca Vallas, associate director of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress,
and Sharon Dietrich, litigation director at Philadelphia's Community Legal Services. Among the causes, they note that a criminal record presents

obstacles to employment, housing, public assistance, education, and family reunification. Moreover, incarceration has
become a growing consequence of poverty "due to the growing criminalization of poverty and homelessness," the authors add. In recent years, these barriers have

been intensified by policy choices such as blanket bans on providing people with
criminal records with necessities such as housing and public assistance. Further, according to the study, due to the ease of
accessing data via the internet, today "4 out of 5 landlords and nearly 9 in 10 employers using criminal background checks to screen out people with criminal records before they even get a
shot." As noted in a piece published Tuesday by Brennan Center for Justice counsels Lauren-Brooke Eisen and Jessica Eaglin, the criminal justice system also imposes countless fees on inmates
causing individuals to emerge from incarceration having paid a "penalty for an offense, and then be incarcerated for failing to pay off the debt incurred as a result of that offense."

"People are treated as criminals long after they pose any significant risk of
committing further crimes making it difficult for many to move on with their
lives and achieve basic economic security, let alone have a shot at upward mobility," Vallas and Dietrich write.
 Cut these
Argentina shows that military conscription in the US would likely increase crime rates.
Giliani et al. '06 (Sebastian - Washington University in St. Louis, and Rossi, Martin - Universidad de San Andres, and Schargrodsky, Ernesto -
Universidad Torcuato Di Tella), Conscription and Crime (October 1, 2006). World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 4037. Available at
SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=938030

Our results suggest that conscription is likely to increase crime rates. In Table 1, using the dataset that
includes all men that went through criminal justice process since 1934, we consistently find a reduction
in crime rates on those ID numbers that were not made eligible for military service by the lottery. In
column (1) we present the regression for the cohorts of 1929 to 1965, where we estimate that military
service significantly increases crime rates of draft eligible individuals by 1.62%.7 In columns (2) and (3)
we separate our sample by the time when military service changed the age of incorporation from 21
years to 18 years. The effect appears larger in the latter period, and it is not significant for the earlier
period. However, this cannot be only attributed to the change in the age of enrollment, as several
conditions could have changed for the cohorts of 1958 to 1965 relative to the cohorts of 1929 to 1955
and these changes would be correlated with the cohorts.8 In Table 2 we run two false experiments to
guarantee that the lottery was truly random and that we are not picking anything else in our estimates.
In model (1) the sample is restricted to those observations with low number. We sort the low numbers
for each cohort and divide them by their median, assigning a false treatment to the upper half of
numbers. We find no difference in crime rates between these groups as one would expect, since none of
them were draft eligible. In model (2) the sample is restricted to cohorts 1956 and 1957 (which fully
skipped military service because of the change in the age of incorporation from 21 years to 18 years),
using Low Numbers corresponding to cohorts 1958 and 1959. Again, since these cohorts were not
drafted, we should not observe any significant crime differences between the two groups. This is indeed
the case. In Table 3, we explore some differential effects. In column (1) we show that the effect of
conscription on crime seems to have been homogenous for draftees providing military service during
democratic and dictatorial governments. In columns (2) and (4) we show that the effect of military
service on crime is larger for those draftees in the cohort that participated in the Malvinas War. Finally,
we find some evidence that the effect of conscription on crime was also larger for those that did the
military service in the Navy, which served for two years instead of the one year served in the Army and
the Air Force. In summary, our results suggest that participation in military service increased the
likelihood of developing a criminal record in adulthood. Perhaps the firearm training received during
military service reduced the entry costs into crime or the natural barriers to committing violent acts. It
may also be the case that military service delayed the insertion of the young into the labor market
affecting future opportunities. This last interpretation is consistent with the additional deleterious effect
observed for those that provided service in the Navy for two years.
Criminalization DA
 1NC--DA
Incarceration rates declining now due to new correctional policies. Wilson 1/3
Reid Wilson, 1-3-2017, "US prison population falling as crime rates stay low," TheHill,
http://thehill.com/homenews/news/312480-us-prison-population-falling-as-crime-
rates-stay-low SP
The number of Americans in jails and prisons across the country continued to fall in 2015, according to new
government statistics, as both violent and property crime rates reach low levels not seen in half a century. Nationwide, just shy of
2.2 million people were serving in local, state and federal prisons at the end of 2015, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The total prison population fell by 51,000 inmates from the year before, the largest drop since
2009. The number of inmates held by the federal Bureau of Prisons declined seven percent over
the last year, while the number of inmates held by state prison systems declined by nearly two percent. Twenty-nine
states showed a drop in prison populations. The long-term trends are even more encouraging:
Between 2010 and 2015, the nations imprisonment rate declined by 8.4 percent, according to an
analysis by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Over the same period, 35 states have seen their prison populations decline, and the rate
of violent and property crime is down nearly 15 percent. In the last five years, the rate of incarceration
has dropped by more than a quarter in California, and by more than 20 percent in Vermont and
Alaska. Thirteen other states, including blue states like Connecticut and Maryland and red states like Texas and South Carolina,
have seen imprisonment rates drop by more than 10 percent. The numbers are showing that we can have less crime and less
incarceration, and that fact is really starting to sink in with voters and elected officials across the political spectrum, said Adam
Gelb, director of Pews Public Safety Performance Project. The
decline comes as violent and property crime rates
hit new record lows. Counter to President-elect Donald Trumps erroneous claims during the campaign, crime rates are down
more than half from peaks hit in 1991, according to the Pew analysis. Crime rates have not been this low since the 1960s. The
National Crime Victimization Survey, conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, showed violent crime rates in 2015 sat at levels
just a quarter of what they were in 1993, while the property crime rate stood at less than half what it was at its peak in 1991. The
crime rate is down in 44 states over the last five years. Vermont leads the way, with a 36 percent decline in the number of violent
and property crimes reported, while eleven other states have recorded declines or more than 20 percent. Analysts point to a handful
of factors that have succeeded in reducing crime rates: The end of the crack cocaine epidemic that wracked the nation in the 1990s,
the increasing proliferation of electronic payments and the corresponding decline in the use of cash, and the rise of anti-theft
devices on automobiles. States have also made strides in reforming the way they handle those who run afoul of the law. States led
by Texas, North Carolina and California have placed new emphasis on preventing recidivism, increasing substance abuse treatment
as well as alternative corrections programs like community-based housing and counseling for low-level offenders. States
that
have made significant reforms in corrections policies have also registered the largest drops in
crime rates. In the ten states where the rate of imprisonment dropped the most, the crime rate
fell by more than 14 percent over the last five years, according to Pews analysis. In the ten states
where the imprisonment rate rose, crime rates declined by just over eight percent. The move to reform criminal justice
and corrections policies has attracted bipartisan support, including from wealthy donors on both sides of the
political spectrum like George Soros and the conservative billionaire Koch brothers. Together, Soros and the Kochs have pushed
criminal justice reforms through a multi-million-dollar program they fund through the American Civil Liberties Union. Still, the
number of Americans under some form of surveillance by state and federal corrections officials
remains high. One in 37 adults, about 2.7 percent of the population, is either in jail or on parole,
according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. It is the lowest rate recorded since 1994, though
well higher than in most other nations

Reinstitution the draft gives the government the green light to incarcerate millions who try to dodge.
Nelson 16
Steven Nelson,US News & World Report, 5-3-2016, "Gender-Neutral Draft Registration
Would Create Millions of Female Felons,"
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-05-03/gender-neutral-draft-
registration-would-create-millions-of-female-felons SP
A key congressional committee voted last week to require young women to register for
potentially compulsory military service, but the gender-equalizing reform threatens to make
felons out of women who refused to participate. Though prosecutions currently appear unlikely,
men jailed for not registering with the Selective Service System and some former authorities who
participated in the cases are concerned about criminalizing a large swath of the population.
Enforcement wasnt always lax, and the law that may be applied to women allows for five-year
prison sentences for "knowing and willful" non-registration with an equally long statute of limitations. It will
inevitably lead to massive resistance, whether visible in the streets or women just blowing it off the way men have," says Edward
Hasbrouck, prosecuted for not registering in the 1980s. "Congress is smoking crack if they think women can be forced to register."
Hasbrouck served more than four months in prison after catching the eye of an ambitious federal prosecutor, Robert Mueller, who
went on to be FBI director. He originally received a suspended sentence, but recalls an unamused judge sending him to prison in late
1984 for doing peace activism to satisfy court-ordered community service. Hasbrouck considers himself an areligious anarcho-
pacifist, but his explanation for refusing to register could come from a run-of-the-mill libertarian: I had no intention of enslaving
myself to the government. Young men were forced to register by President Jimmy Carter, who issued Proclamation 4771 in 1980
requiring all men age 18 to 26 to register within 30 days of their 18th birthday. Carter did so in response to the Soviet Union sending
troops to shore up local communists in Afghanistan, reversing President Gerald Fords earlier proclamation ending
registration.Current registration compliance rates hover around 90 percent among young men nationally, but in
the '80s
authorities hit a road bump trying to re-establish the conscription tool not used since 1973. Just
70 percent of the 1.5 million young men who were supposed to have registered in the first 10
months of 1981 did so. The government was faced with far more people who had initially
refused to register in the start-up period than they had ever imagined -- it was beyond their worst
nightmare -- they were self-deluded in the way people today who think they can just wave their wand and women will sign up for
the draft are self-deluded, Hasbrouck says. They
thought the best way to create the impression they had
scared everyone into registering was to go after a small group and have well publicized
prosecutions of the most vocal non-registrants, he recalls. So they seized upon the people who already wrote them letters
and said they wont register. Dan Rutt, a Christian pacifist raised a Methodist but with Mennonite family history, says he was
targeted after writing letters to officials and giving an interview to a local newspaper. He says he cant recall anyone else in Michigan
self-publicizing their refusal. In my book, I couldnt register under any circumstances. Im just not going to participate in the war
machine, its as simple as that, he says. Im a Christian who believes the example and commandment of Jesus is very specific.
Conscientious objectors and people with physical disabilities still must register with the Selective Service, and if there's a war can
later apply to avoid combat. Rutt ended up being sentenced to a few months in a federal detention facility in Detroit, but says he
was allowed work release and drove 70 miles to work every day. In all, 20 men were prosecuted in the 1980s for
not registering, a diverse and geographically scattered group including ideological advocates of individual rights and members
of the historical peace churches. The last indictment came in 1986 when Terry Kuelper of Arkansas was slapped with the felony
charge. He agreed to register before trial and the charge was dismissed. Court proceedings ended when Gillam Kerley of Wisconsin
was released from a three-year prison sentence after four months, with the case ending in 1988. [SCHOLARS: Obama War Power
Claims 'Quite a Stretch,' 'Particularly Bizarre'] In practice, all of the men prosecuted, with the exception of a Laotian refugee, wrote
officials letters announcing their decision, allowing the Justice Department to pick low hanging fruit from the masses of men who
had not registered. In 1985 the Supreme Court found in Wayte v. U.S. prosecutions did constitute unconstitutional selective
prosecution stemming from the exercise of First Amendment rights. Since I was the one who was testifying I was seen as a real bad
guy, says former Selective Service associate director Edward Frankle, who developed a process for passive enforcement of the
registration law. Men who wrote letters or were informed on by others were entered into a Suspected Violator Inventory System
and were given a chance to reconsider before being referred to the Justice Department if they refused. Frankle says he understands
the impulse to treat women like men, but says its unlikely theres a military need and it may not be worth the drama. What are the
actual chances of that being needed?" he says. "Is
it worth whatever kerfuffle you build up from starting it
and having the potential of turning people into criminals?" Frankle says he believes the Selective Service
System received fewer letters from registration resisters after successful prosecutions, and that he's not sure if he would have done
anything different. We did what we had to to keep at least some level of credibility in the system," he says. "You couldnt just
totally ignore it -- how could you do that and still with a straight face say, Yeah that's the requirement'?" Frankle says he was shown
the door by the Reagan administration, perhaps on the grounds he was too keen on due process for law-breakers. He went on to be
NASAs long-serving general counsel. The compliance rate for draft registration among men born in 1995 is shown as of June 2015.
Young men can register late until they turn 26. The compliance rate for draft registration among men born in 1995 is shown as of
June 2015. Young men can register late until they turn 26. Map and data are from the Selective Service System. SOURCE: THE
SELECTIVE SERVICE SYSTEM In the late '80s the Justice Department discontinued prosecutions. Dick Flahavan, a spokesman for the
Selective Service who was with the agency at the time, recalls the Justice Department decided that since there was no draft and
there was high compliance, there are limited resources and the FBIs time would be better spent chasing white collar crime than
some Mennonite kid through Pennsylvania. We said, Fine, we understand, and thats why it ended in 88, he says. The
agency did agree to what the Justice Department proposed, a suspension of prosecutions
[during peace time]. Since they did the prosecutions we didnt have much leverage anyways. However, its still illegal,
its still a felony if convicted. Flahavan says the Selective Service had hoped for a much stronger approach from federal
prosecutors, but was rebuffed. Compliance had risen above 90 percent and new non-criminal penalties were in place. What we
would have preferred was every year in all 95 judicial districts there be a prosecution to keep the heat on and the publicity going,"
he says. "But they couldnt sustain that. If someone registered just before trial, the prosecution would be dropped, Flahavan notes,
making the pursuit of resisters "really a losing proposition for the feds" and often "a big waste of time." In 1987 a Justice
Department spokesman told The New York Times it was
preparing a policy through which the Selective
Service System would periodically refer 200 names for prosecution. But that never happened. I think they
were happy to walk away from it and we understand why, Flahavan says. It was very labor intensive and very little came of it,
although the government won. Nowadays, he says there are some practical penalties, but theyre civil. They may screw you up if
you want to go to law school, but you wont go to a federal penitentiary. [ANALYSIS: Could One Soldier's Lawsuit Derail ISIS War?] In
1982 the Solomon Amendment tied registration to federal student aid. The 1985 Thurmond Amendment required certification of
registration for federal jobs. Some states passed similar laws, and 27 automatically register young men when they
apply for a driver's license, permit or ID card. But Flahavan points out if you go in there with a halfway credibly
story pleading ignorance about draft registration rules, financial aid officers have discretion to dole out assistance, though he says
acquiring a federal job is more difficult for people who cannot prove they registered before age 26. Wilfred Ebel, acting director of
the Selective Service System in 1987, when further waves of prosecutions were being considered, says he cant recall the precise
discussions that led to abandonment of new cases. Former Attorneys General Ed Meese, who left the department in 1988, and
successor Dick Thornburgh did not respond to requests for comment, nor did Mueller. The office of Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.,
who authored the amendment that passed the House Armed Services Committee, also did not respond to a request for comment.
He voted against the amendment, which he apparently proposed to poke the Obama administration in the eye for expanding the
possible roles of women in the military. Its not yet clear if the amendment will become law. Though it has bipartisan support, some
congressional leaders have expressed doubts, and it may quietly be dropped in a deal standardizing House and Senate versions of
the larger bill before final passage. Its possible it will stir up enough action that Congress might decide to just eliminate the
Selective Service System and forget about having a draft at all in times of peace, Ebel says. Ebels suspicion that the amendment
could kick off the systems undoing is reflected in statements from House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who said we need to take a
comprehensive look at the entire Selective Service process, and we shouldnt just deal with one issue at a time after the
amendments passage. Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, made similar comments. [ALSO:
Whoops? Obama Says He Needs Authority From Congress to Fight ISIS] For the moment, Selective Service spokesman Matthew
Tittmann says, the publicity has been helpful to the agency, which doesnt regularly receive press coverage, resulting in many young
people either not knowing they must register or that they have to notify the agency of all their address changes until they turn 26.
You cant wait until the barns burning down to wish you had a fire department, says Tittmann, who travels the country helping
raise awareness about registration. Forty-five seconds online to register can save you 45 years of hassles, he says, reciting his sales
pitch to teens. He says young immigrants living in the U.S. without legal permission cannot apply for deferred action and a job
permit under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program without registering, and that its worthwhile for young men to
register in case theyre ever interested in a federal job. But Hasbrouck, now a San Francisco-based international travel author,
journalist and activist, says registration helps normalize fighting and creates an improper relationship to the state. Rutt says it trains
young people to be compliant with government demands. Rutt, who worked in public health and now runs his own design company,
says his felony conviction didnt have many downsides. He says its viewed as a badge of honor by some people and if anything its
been helpful to me. He and Hasbrouck say being felons doesnt bring much stigma, in part both say because theyre white and
middle class. The felonious registration resisters say there are many young men are unknowingly doing their part to render any
future draft useless, given required notice to the Selective Service every time they move. Though
hard numbers are
elusive, Hasbrouck says with confidence compliance with the address update requirement is and has
been since 1980 essentially zero. Rutt says with a laugh that millions of people are breaking the
law just like he did. You could say mine was more egregious, but youre either in violation or
you are not, he says.
During the drafts incarceration and mental health issues of disadvantaged groups
significantly increased so they could avoid the draft. Kuziemko 08
Kuziemko, Ilyana. "Dodging Up to College or Dodging Down to Jail: Behavioral
Reponses to the Vietnam Draft by Race and Class." In Law, Economics, and
Organization Workshop, Yale Law School. 2008.
https://law.yale.edu/system/files/area/workshop/leo/document/Kuziemko.pdf SP
In general, the results from Tables 4 6 suggest that for blacks
and low-SES men, a bad lottery number is
strongly associated with not only the frequency of delinquent behavior, but also its severity. The results
lend significant support to the claim that draft risk leads less privileged men react in an apparently reckless
or anti-social manner; however, whether they are deliberately trying to avoid service, rationally
responding to a perception of shortened time horizon, or merely reacting to severe amounts of stress (Camerer,
Lowenstein and Prelec 2005 review psychology studies that suggest strong strong affective states, such as those explored in Tables 4
and 5, may have significant, detrimental effects on decision-making) is unclear. Whether these young men were explicitly
performing the optimization described in Section 2 or merely reacting to the anxiety, confusion, and danger associated with a bad
draft number, they
appeared to take steps that would diminish their human capital and future
socio-economic status. Section 6: Discussion and Conclusion This paper has provided evidence from a variety of sources that
the draftavoidance behavior of men in the Vietnam cohort varied across race and socio-economic status. Engaging in human-capital
intensive activities that would decrease the chance of being drafted (dodging up) appears limited to those with greater
opportunity. In 23 aggregate enrollment data from the CPS, draft-age white men dramatically increase their schooling relative to
white women during the Vietnam era, whereas trends for black men and women move in lock-step. Similarly, bad lottery numbers
increased the probability that a white student would enroll in college the following year, whereas bad numbers had no obvious
effect on low-SES students and even a negative effect on black students. Conversely, engaging
in human-capital
diminishing activities that would diminish the probability of being drafted (dodging down) appears
concentrated among the under-privileged. A bad lottery number increases self-reported delinquent
behavior, negative psychological affect, and even health problems for blacks and low-SES young
men, but not for others. Moreover, men with bad numbers in the 1972 lottery are overrepresented in
prison admissions the following year, providing further support for dodging down hypothesis.
What do these results suggest about the role of the draft in the social transformations of the 1960s and 70s, especially for African
Americans? As useful as the draft lotteries are in terms of econometric identification, the vast majority of the fighting and dying
associated with the War took place before their introduction. Appendix Figure A1 shows the stock and flow of deaths each year of
the conflict. Of the 58,000 service personnel killed in the war, only seven percent died after 1969. 15 Furthermore, men sent to
Vietnam based on the lottery draw arrived during a period of far lower casualty rates and explicit efforts to decrease black casualty
rates. 15 Seven percent represents a very generous upper bound on the share of deaths attributable to lottery-induced selection as
the vast majority of military personnel who died in Vietnam in 1970 had begun their service during the pre-lottery era (my
calculations based on CACCF data). 24 Such evidence suggests that
dodging down motives, especially for blacks,
would have been even stronger in 1965-1968.16 Interestingly, these years represent the peak years of
the 1960s riots. Moreover, social indicators from labor-market attachment to out-of-wedlock birth
all begin to deteriorate around 1965 or 1966 (Murray, 1994). Attributing all of these developments to draft-avoidance
behavior would be unwise; but the draft appears to have significantly lowered the perceived opportunity
cost of engaging in such activities during a formative moment in the development of the urban
underclass.
Incarceration is terrible it causes psychological damage, tears communities apart and destroys job
prospects. Brown and Patterson 16
Tony N. Brown and Evelyn Patterson, 6-28-2016, "6 Long-Term Effects of America's
Mass Incarceration Crisis," New Republic,
https://newrepublic.com/article/134712/wounds-incarceration-never-heal SP
Mass incarceration damages individuals and communities in ways that scholars are just starting
to explore. This finding is troubling because incarceration has increased over the last four decades due to mandatory minimums
and the war on drugs. Specifically, there has been a 500 percent increase in the number of inmates over the last 40 years. Despite
decreasing crime rates, the United States locks up more people than any other nation. Although home to
only 5 percent of the worlds population, the United States has 25 percent of the worlds prison population. Furthermore, our
judicial system is inefficient. Men
and women who have not been convicted of a crime, rot in unsafe,
overcrowded and understaffed jails waiting for their day in court. This is especially true in large urban areas.
For example, inmates in Chicagos jails in 2015 served the equivalent of 218 years more time waiting
for trial than the sentences they would ultimately be given. Housing the inmates for this extra time cost
taxpayers $11 million. The money may be the least of it. Consider the case of Kalief Browder, who was 16 years old
when arrested and who spent three years in Rikers Island including two in solitary
confinement before his case was dismissed. The trauma of those years alone behind bars
lingered. At 22, Browder committed suicide. Racial bias and disparities It gets worse: Lady Justice is
far from colorblind. Michelle Alexander memorably labeled mass incarceration The New Jim Crow in her landmark book of the
same name. African Americans constitute nearly 1 million of the 2.3 million persons incarcerated and are incarcerated at nearly six
times the rate of whites. One in three African American men will experience prison; white mens risk is just 6 percent. Hispanic men
are almost three times as likely to be imprisoned as non-Hispanic white men. The poor are also disproportionately represented
behind bars. Collateral damage and scarring effects The
wives, girlfriends and children of African American
men who go to jail or prison suffer collateral damage. Studies show that the children of inmates do
less well in school and exhibit behavioral problems. In addition, women partnered with inmates
suffer from depression and economic hardship. One might assume that being released from jail or prison would
represent an opportunity to make good on commitments to be a better person and return to normal life. If incarceration actually
rehabilitated inmates, then that assumption would make sense. But alas, it does not, despite what many people believe.
Evidence instead suggests that being locked away scars, stigmatizes and damages inmates. A
history of incarceration has been linked to vulnerability to disease, greater likelihood of cigarette smoking
and even premature death. The psyche of the formerly incarcerated Our new study looked at how having a family
member locked up related to psychological distress

(a measure of mental health) among African American men, some of whom have done time. There is not a lot of data from
respondents about their history of incarceration. The assumption is that no one wants to disclose that they were locked up. And
most scholarly attention focuses on collateral damage, neglecting the experiences of the formerly incarcerated. Using existing survey
data from the National Survey of American Life, we invoked the stress process model to predict psychological distress. We asked if
familial incarceration was a stressor that went above and beyond the typical stress people experience. We controlled for social
determinants that affect mental health, including age, education, marital status, employment and childhood health. We focused on
variables that helped determine the character of familial incarceration including chronic stress, family emotional support and
mastery. Going into the study, we expected that all African American men would be distressed by the imprisonment of an
immediate family member. We also expected that men who had been locked up would experience even higher levels of
psychological distress because they would empathize with their family member who was currently behind bars. We were right on
one count. Men
who had never been incarcerated did experience high levels of distress when a
family member was locked up. But what we found among formerly incarcerated African American men was totally
unexpected. When their immediate family members were in jail or prison, formerly incarcerated black men reported low levels of
psychological distress. How low? Lower than never incarcerated black men without relatives in jail or prison. And even more
surprisingly lower than formerly incarcerated men without imprisoned relatives. How could this be possible? After re-checking the
analyses for errors and finding none, we speculated that formerly incarcerated African American men may feel no empathy for their
immediate family members who were currently in jail or prison. Empathetic inurement Lack of empathy may be a valuable survival
strategy in jail or prison, but our findings imply that this empathetic inurement follows these men back into the community. We
think that formerly incarcerated African American men return home to families and
communities that desperately need them changed in a terrible way. They may be tone-deaf
when it comes to recognizing the suffering of their currently incarcerated family members. Even
more, they may be unable to act as model citizens or good husbands or loving fathers. How
incarceration injures humanity Remember that we aim to punish offenders such that they better respect the rights of others and
follow the norms associated with responsible citizenship. Cesare Beccaria, the father of criminology, taught us that the purpose of
punishment was to prevent future crime. But do we treat former inmates as full members of society? In 34 states, people
who are on parole or probation cannot vote. In 12 states, a felony conviction means never voting
again. In addition, prior incarceration can affect ones ability to secure certain federal benefits or
get a job. These facts indicate failure of the punishment imperative and demonstrate that
reform is overdue. This is especially true given the results of a recent study that showed some
black men will spend almost one third of their lives in prison or marked with a felony
conviction. Prospects for the future The United States spends about $80 billion yearly on corrections. As such, the economic
crisis of 2008 ignited debate about how to decrease incarceration in the United States. Such debate bled into
discussions about access to high-quality education and health care, differential sentencing,
gentrification, joblessness, residential racial segregation, wealth disparities, urban decay and
pollution and lingering social inequalities. Policy makers soon discovered that there was nothing simple about
reducing the incarceration rate. Allowed to continue unreformed, mass incarceration will shape our nation in ways that should
repulse anyone who values the correlated concepts of freedom and redemption. Unless we consider mass incarceration a moral and
policy failure, it will splinter already fragile families and communities. That will ultimately hurt our entire nation.