Global Events & Politics Überthread

If so, it’d be about the first time it actually worked that way. Criminals don’t think about the statutes when they’re doing crime.

Eh, I’m not sure I buy the idea that criminals are irrational. It seems pretty clear to me that a lot of crimes are committed under the assumption that the person won’t get caught—and even if they are, the consequences won’t matter to them.
 
Eh, I’m not sure I buy the idea that criminals are irrational. It seems pretty clear to me that a lot of crimes are committed under the assumption that the person won’t get caught—and even if they are, the consequences won’t matter to them.

I’m not really sure that the rationality of criminals applies to what I’m saying about ‘tough on crime’ sentencing though. You could make the punishment for the crime an eternity in Hell and it wouldn’t matter if the person thought they wouldn’t get caught. People will consider whether or not they’ll get caught, I don’t think they typically spend much time worrying whether they’ll be in prison for 2 or 20 years if they are, though.

The end result to these bills then is overcrowding our prisons by adding extra years to a punishment they already don’t want. That’s great for people who own private prisons, but kind of a bummer for the rest of society.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Prisons are absolutely too light in the US. I'm listening to podcast about 2 girls killing their friend in WV. The girls in prison have an x box and tv in their cell. A damn x-box
 
I’m not really sure that the rationality of criminals applies to what I’m saying about ‘tough on crime’ sentencing though. You could make the punishment for the crime an eternity in Hell and it wouldn’t matter if the person thought they wouldn’t get caught. People will consider whether or not they’ll get caught, I don’t think they typically spend much time worrying whether they’ll be in prison for 2 or 20 years if they are, though.

The end result to these bills then is overcrowding our prisons by adding extra years to a punishment they already don’t want. That’s great for people who own private prisons, but kind of a bummer for the rest of society.

If the crime for stealing a pack of gum was an eternity in hell, less packs of gum would be stolen.
 
If the crime for stealing a pack of gum was an eternity in hell, less packs of gum would be stolen.

And Hell would get very expensive to run when enough shopkeepers managed to catch the people that stole gum anyway because they wanted the gum and didn’t think anybody would notice.
 
And Hell would get very expensive to run when enough shopkeepers managed to catch the people that stole gum anyway because they wanted the gum and didn’t think anybody would notice.

It’s better for society to have criminals in prison than to have them looting stores and committing violent crimes.
 
It’s better for society to have criminals in prison than to have them looting stores and committing violent crimes.

I think it’s even better for society if we take meaningful steps to reduce recidivism, and our current system isn’t cutting it, even when there are harsh mandatory minimums and overcrowded prisons.
 
And Hell would get very expensive to run when enough shopkeepers managed to catch the people that stole gum anyway because they wanted the gum and didn’t think anybody would notice.

The risk of getting caught must severely outweigh the reward of not.

Today, the risk is almost nothing for most crimes
 
The risk of getting caught must severely outweigh the reward of not.

Today, the risk is almost nothing for most crimes

Yet people regularly commit crimes where the punishment is life in prison or worse. How do you explain this?
 
I think it’s even better for society if we take meaningful steps to reduce recidivism, and our current system isn’t cutting it, even when there are harsh mandatory minimums and overcrowded prisons.

Recidivism is also a problem. Do you think not prosecuting and/or having light sentences reduces true recidivism?
 
Yet people regularly commit crimes where the punishment is life in prison or worse. How do you explain this?

They do. And I am glad they are punished severely for them. Do you think switching life in prison to 3 months probation would not affect murder rates?
 
Recidivism is also a problem. Do you think not prosecuting and/or having light sentences reduces true recidivism?

Not in a vacuum. But the way we specifically do it now does lead to a higher rate of recidivism in my opinion. Even disregarding the times when the system actually puts innocent people in jail, when you take someone who is stealing and imprison them for multiple years, then have laws on the books that allow employers to use that theft as a reason not to hire them or landlords to not let them live in their buildings, you create a pretty toxic negative feedback loop. And when you overstuff the prisons with people who aren’t even greatly harming society and make life inside prison worse through budget cuts, you just turn rehabilitation into crowd control. Until we figure out how to solve those issues, not to mention the horrifying pre-trial process, I think it’s actually plausible that doing nothing to them is roughly as effective at reducing recidivism than the current system.
 
They do. And I am glad they are punished severely for them. Do you think switching life in prison to 3 months probation would not affect murder rates?

It would obviously affect murder rates, but if you go too far in the opposite direction then you do incentivize taking additional steps to hide your crimes, such as murdering the witnesses to theft. I ultimately think prison sentences need to be about public safety, not punishment. We don’t intrinsically do our society favors by locking people up for their crimes. The focus should be on how to give people the skills and opportunities to succeed without returning to crime while keeping the rest of society safe.
 
Yet people regularly commit crimes where the punishment is life in prison or worse. How do you explain this?

There is strong correlation between the belief they will get away with a crime and the willingness to do it. Some people are just retarded and think they are smart enough to get away with it. The way I would handle crime is serious violent crime like robberies and car jacking are automatic life sentences but they can earn early release with good behavior in prison. I would structure the prison system so that those who commit violence in prison get weeded out to higher security prisons. Those with good behavior slowly advance to lower security prisons eventually to the point of being in a work release program. Then when they are released they have a job and enough money to set them up for success if they truly want to be law abiding citizens.
 
Back
Top