> “non-violent” criminals can do much more widespread damage individually than violent criminals are likely to
How did you come to that conclusion? It seems like a difficult argument to support.
In terms of human life, probably not, right? I mean hypothetically the investors could have gone on to spend their money on lifesaving ventures and charities but that seems like a roll of the dice.
> Please explain to me how two criminals who have some sort of dispute -- like say how to disburse the proceeds from a robbery -- have any recourse through the courts.
They don't, but that's their own fault. If your life of crime has forced you into such a predicament that murder-for-hire is a more viable option than dealing with the authorities, you only have yourself to blame. The reason that crime pays so well is because criminals take advantage of opportunities that the rest of society agrees to abstain from for the sake of maintaining order and mutual security; if you decide to exploit those opportunities for the sake of enriching yourself, you shouldn't expect society to feel any sympathy for the fact that you one day felt forced to employ violence in order to protect your criminal investments.
> I think it is an arbitrary comparison. Possibly 10,000+ years in jail and who knows how many shankings vs maybe 50 of no existence for one person. You are right that, in a basic scenario, killing is a disproportionate response to a lesser crime, but this is an active threat versus a past event and who knows what jail would bring for these hundreds of people who could be convicted.
If you are simply arguing the most utilitarian point of view for the sum of the actors involved, surely paying him off is the most moral thing to do. $300K to prevent 10,000+ years of jail and shankings versus killing someone. $300k is much less than the life of one person.
> neither judges nor prosecutors wish to send non-violent offenders to prison
I find that hard to believe. See Bernie Madoff. Sure he's an extreme example, but he's not a danger to anyone. Surely there's something else that can be done to deter people like him.
I've often thought just set up a camp for non-violent offenders. The security would be basically none, just that if they leave then they go to a real prison.
>The same for other crimes where people do not hurt or threaten to hurt other people.
Isn't that the thing though? Don't these bankers actually hurt more people, and hurt them worse, than any violent criminal could? So the person who hurts one family gets jail but the one that hurts thousands "doesn't get to work in the industry" anymore? That sounds like hogwash to me.
Has everyone just forgotten about the principle of equality under the law?
> they simply don't get punished, except with a small fine, so they keep doing it. It's disgraceful.
Violent thieves (robbers) get punished. Non-violent theft is treated more lightly unless is done on a big scale. This gives criminals a high incentive to not be violent.
I have heard that the theory is that if you hard punish any thief, then thieves are going to be more violent to not get caught. If you focus the police force on violent crime, then violent crime goes down.
Most criminals know that if they give themselves in when caught, they will get a more favourable sentence that if they resist.
The goal is to keep people safe first, then property. To punish criminals is a means to that goal, but just that. I think that in the USA there is a moral component where punishing criminals is a moral imperative, even if this causes worse crime or if people get wrongly punished. Or, at least, that is what I interpret from the news.
That's incalculable. You can't reduce the effects of crime to basic capitalist mechanics. Crime doesn't only impact the fair market economy - there's a wealth of second order effects both on people and at a macro level.
You're right that there's other levers we can use to reduce crime that don't involve simply bolting a door shut on them, but it seems an odd way to argue the point to me.
> There are situations in which it is right to send people to prison without them posing an active and dangerous threat
Do these situations exist only when we consider punishment a valid reason for imprisonment? Don't get me wrong; Bernie Madoff being free and enjoying life wouldn't sit right with me, but you have to wonder if locking people away as retribution really benefits tax-paying, law-abiding citizens.
> I’ll make another ill guided attempt at an analogy. If J&J was a criminal gang, and decided to venture into a new smuggling scheme. Then got caught, but as a punishment, they only had to pay a portion of their annual profits in a fine, but people would consider it huge because it was way bigger than what this smuggling scheme would have given them. Additionally no bosses were imprisoned.
I can’t tell what you’re trying to say. If people consider it huge, that means it’s a good punishment, no?
> I think this is ignoring the criminal part of criminal negligence. A crime was committed, innocent people got hurt. Justice isn’t served by merely nullifying the venture in a capital sense. No, a true justice punishes the responsible by stripping away their freedom. In a corporate sense this means taking away all your corporate profits way beyond what your little venture would have given you, imprisoning the people responsible (including CEOs), and even disbanding the whole company if the crime is severe enough.
Putting thousands of people out work because a small segment of a business did a bad thing isn’t wise
> A crime free world is also possible. Just make sure it does not pay.
Even fictional post-scarcity utopias have crimes of passion. You cannot get anywhere near crime free without one of the following options: a) absolute coercion and perfect preemptive law enforcement, b) no laws to speak off (including no prohibitions against murder), c) radical departures from human nature as we know it.
That said, I agree with your broader point: sometimes it is worth it to be able to detect and stop crime based on its financial footprint, even if you don't gain economically from doing so.
> However, it's shocking that you only get 18 months in jail for attempted murder, while people in the past got over 5 years in jail for trivial crimes like copyright infringement
There are crimes, and there are crimes. Hypothetical profits are more valuable than human life.
> 12+ years of incarceration in the federal system. His crime was armed robbery, first offense, no one was injured, and he profited a grand total of $35,000.
No one was harmed. But the crime involved threat of death. So threatening to kill at least one person is a pretty serious crime. It’s good that no one was killed, but definitely the intent to kill for personal gain was part of the reason for such a lengthy sentence.
There are many flaws with the prison system but I wanted to point out the logical flaw of “no one was killed in this game of Russian roulette so it’s not that bad of a thing” kind of thinking. Threatening someone’s life for $35k is a big deal, I think.
> I'm no fan of Holmes, but what good does it serve to lock up non violent criminals for decades?
“non-violent” criminals can do much more widespread damage individually than violent criminals are likely to, but are also more likely to be rationally deterrable with a sufficient consequences (which anything you'd willing gamble against the potential upside of the massive crime is not.)
> Not everybody survives muggings, carjackings or home invasions, even when they comply. It's a choice between paying $20 to play Russian Roulette with a twitchy felon on the side of the road, or being scammed out of $300k and walking away. If you only look at the financial outcomes, of course it's an easy choice to make.
That is pretty obvious and condescending to say. Obviously everyone has a different risk preference. I was responding to a question (which was attempting to be rhetorical), not trying to tell you what your risk preference should be.
> The basis for these disparities has more to do with criminal intent...
If the basis for the disparities is criminal intent, then we wouldn't have seen the 2 year sentence for stealing 10 million dollars that is under discussion.
A mugging for $20 has less criminal intent than a $10MM white collar crime and muggings kill far fewer people every year than drunk drivers.
Disparities in punishments are highly driven by political fear mongering, classism and racism. (though this has somewhat lessened in recent years)
> Is this damage more then the cost of prosecuting and punishing the thieves? If not, it's not worth it.
It's not a question of whether this damage is more, it's a question of whether the prosecution would reduce the total amount of future-damage that occurs as well. People who are in a jail are not stealing. People who expect significant risk of significant jail time are also not stealing, while those who expect minimal risk might be.
These factors easily outweigh the cost of any single theft.
> Have severe jail sentences rid the world of illicit drugs users, murderers, cutpurses, burglars, vandals, fraudsters, rapists or anything else?
No, but you have to put things into context. Prison is a lot worse for a 50+ year old with a few million in assets than someone who's only other alternative is working at a fast food restaurant for minimum wage. When the choice is deal drugs or simply not make enough to survive there really isn't much of a choice.
How did you come to that conclusion? It seems like a difficult argument to support.
In terms of human life, probably not, right? I mean hypothetically the investors could have gone on to spend their money on lifesaving ventures and charities but that seems like a roll of the dice.
reply