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Comment by duncan_bayne | Hacker News Reader

No jail time for non violent crime? I presume you've never been defrauded, burgled, etc.

I've been defrauded and burgled for substantial amounts. I've also been mugged at gunpoint. Only for the latter violent crime would I suggest jail time.

Why do you draw a distinction between the two?

(To be clear, I'm not trying to defend victimless 'crimes' here; rather, I don't understand why you would distinguish between someone stealing from you at gunpoint vs. raiding your home while you're out).

Edited: With the obvious exception that the mugger is endangering your life by pointing a loaded weapon at you. Is that the only difference?

I think someone pointing a gun at you and threatening your life is a big difference. Don't you?

I think it makes it worse, because of the physical endangerment involved.

But in both cases the theft of property is morally equivalent to the thief enslaving me to produce the stolen items for him.

If it took me a day to work to earn the money to buy my phone, and you steal it, you've just stolen a day of my life.

Consider that if this hypothetical thief were to be put under house arrest instead of in prison, the state could save enough money to buy you a new phone.

Except that the taxpayers would then be forced to pay reparations for the criminal behaviour of another. A.k.a. moral hazard.

Why not do both? Put him under house arrest, and compel him to buy me a new phone.

How about we start with no jail time for victimless crimes? If you don't endanger anyone but yourself, we don't pursue criminal charges. I'm thinking drug users and people who drink unpasteurized milk.

I'm 100% in agreement with you there. The entire idea of a 'victimless crime' is without merit.

We can then extend the logic to ridiculous cases where the law is clearly "wrong".

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/thanks-to-the-mus...

What would you suggest then as a punishment?

Just a thought, but picking up trash along the highway is one option.

What about reparations for the victim of the theft?

What if the person can't pay the reparations?

That's actually an excellent question.

Bankrupt him? Poor odds for rehabilitation then.

Enslave him? Tempting, but as others have pointed out there's a world of corruption and market distortion awaiting you.

I'm really not sure what the answer is.

I used to believe that we should put people to useful work instead of warehousing them in jails to rot. Then people on HN explained to me how it was tried in the US and it created perverse incentives, giving jail wardens tremendous powers of blackmailing locals into doing their bidding at the threat of deploying free work force in their industry (e.g. cutting down trees) and driving the locals out of business.

This stuff is hard to get right.

Burglary is absolutely a violent crime. Busting into someone's home is a violation and crosses a serious line.

As I said in item?id=10595078, I am not happy about the situation but considering we already let go the largest of the criminals, I don't see why we should send people to jail for failing to be big/important enough.

I do think false representation, fraud, malpractice are serious crimes. If someone sells you a copy of Debian Linux or Microsoft Windows and they sell you a compromised copy, they deserve to have their pants sued off of them. To me that is the same level of crime as a pharmacist selling placebos as real medicine. I imagine there has to be a balance somewhere between discouraging fraud and abuse while not coming as too heavy handed.

I certainly won't claim to have the answers. Perhaps I am kicking my position further to the extreme than what I believe is a reasonable compromise. Sorry if I come off as silly or self-contradictory. Part of me writing is to discover and learn what my positions are.

Look at it from the other way around - if you were to enter someone else's property and steal, would you expect to be sent to prison for being caught? If yes, would that seem fair? I would say yes.

Would you expect to serve time for being caught riding a bicycle on a pavement? No. Otherwise would not seem fair, particularly if there were no warning signs...

The law is a system with predictable penalties if you a) don't live somewhere with utterly absurd laws and b) can put yourself in the shoes of the person doing such a crime and think about the expected outcome of getting caught.

For anything more than traffic tickets, predictable is not what I'd call it.

I've seen someone charged with kidnapping get it lowered to a misdemeanor (in that particular case it was appropriate).

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