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Comment by buro9 | Hacker News Reader

It is bigger and deeper than just that.

I've even seen comments on here regarding immigration that simply said if someone has ever been arrested then they shouldn't be allowed into the USA. (No qualifying statements on recency or severity, or even acquittal.)

With regards to crime (including the mere accusation of sexual things) the sentiment of the USA runs counter to the aspiration and promise of social mobility of the USA.

Yes others profit from maintaining the status quo, but worse is that people are judged for life, based on a single incident in their past. And as the article points out, the zero tolerance amplifies the destructive nature of a society that judges.

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I've heard it said that much of it goes back to the Calvinists roots of American culture. The idea that there are good people and bad people, that you are one or the other.

Bad people deserve to go to prison, and therefore people in prison are all bad people. Why should any mercy by shown to bad people? Why should good people have to pay to help bad people? That sounds immoral.

By the same set of rules, good people deserve to be rich, so therefore rich people must be good.

It may not be correct, but it sure does seem to accurately describe how American culture works.

I think that argument can be countered by the prison culture from post WW1 up until the mid 70s. Until the "tough on crime" mantra was paraded around ad nauseum, prisons were largely focused on rehabilitation, not punishment.

Perhaps it was that calvanism somehow seeping back in, but the fact that we got rid of that for at least 40 years means that it's possible we can get back there.

The ironic, depressing thing is this - strong support for the registry and openly making jokes about prison sexual assaults (in movies, real life etc). How can someone support both at the same time, is beyond my understanding.

Because the goal is for bad things to happen to 'bad' people. Both of those things are pushing that agenda.

Because we are carnivores, secretly cheering at the misery of others, projecting injustices who happened to us - upon some poor fool who has to suffer for our stomach feelings to be satisfied. That whole - very animal process, is then written down and followed through rigidly- and the redecorated primal lashing out is called justice.

I'll take your Calvinism and sprinkle on a bit of Social Darwinism, i.e. American society uses crime, among other tools, to destroy internal competition.

Not punish, destroy.

For immigration, it could make sense, at least in a utilitarian sense. You are trying to eliminate false-negatives, and checking criminal background (in other countries) is one way to do that. Now, many countries (esp. developing ones) people get imprisoned for expressing their thoughts (which is a shame), but whether USA would/should care about this or not is a different question. USA has a quota on how many immigrants it will allow, and it wants the best people. There are many people that can satisfy that requirement.

In the case cited in the article, of a child who as a pre-teenager ended up on a sexual register, does it make sense?

Would it make sense if a homeless child had been caught shoplifting for food in their teenage years and 30 years later had turned their life around and become a professional... does it still make sense?

And of refugees, does it make sense to offer foreign governments a mechanism to prevent emigration simply by arresting those who are likely to leave?

The lack of rehabilitation as a fundamental concept that underpins the treatment of people, is a life sentence to those people.

I totally agree with you, but my point is, why would US?

To deprive a foreign power of influence in the decision making process.

To enshrine in the process one of the myths of the American Dream in the form of potential for social mobility.

To judge based on the virtues of the individual, rather than to judge based on the legal domain from which the individual originates (you should know that different countries have different standards, is the USA an enforcer of every standard?).

Those are a few that spring to mind.

This is where my "utilitarian" comment comes in, for the lack of better word. There are thousands if not millions of people willing to emigrate, with many decorated ones.

I see this similar to "tech interviews" where an individual is asked for arbitrary algorithm questions (that are deemed hard). The idea is to eliminate false positives, even if it comes at the expense of false negatives.

I disagree with the current US view on "criminal history", for the reasons you say, it also makes me scared because of false convictions, for example. I also don't trust the legal system of another country, and i agree each case to its own. something that's illegal in a country could be considered a human right / freedom in the US. But i think i see the point.

This assumes the 'best' people are least likely to get arrested. I reject that idea as pushing boundaries is very common among the most intellectually gifted.

In the same vein, you could say that the intellectually gifted wouldn't have gotten arrested in the first place, but pushed the boundaries to just before the tipping point.

It could be a sign of recklessness and an inability to mesh with society.

But, arguing over this is useless. The majority of the people who've been arrested are not the "best" people. They are usually from low socioeconomic backgrounds[0], i.e usually not as educated.

We can also ignore this point entirely. A large part of the American population sees criminals as life-criminals, i.e do it once and you'll do it every chance you get. It doesn't matter what the minority thinks on this issue. As long as the majority believes this is "right" it will prevail. As will the democratic process, for better or worse.

The topic that should be discussed, is how would one go about educating the public on this issue. Is it possible to go the route of the Scandinavian system?

[0]https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/income.html

Criminal behavior is very wide spread, arrests are most common at the bottom. EX: How many top bankers have we arrested after the banking crisis?

Nothing is black and white.

We might be talking about 5 gifted people for every 1000 people with criminal history. But US might be optimizing for 20 gifted people outside of that group, even if it means losing 5.

Except we are looking for the extreme outliers. Bill Gates was arrested, Steve Jobs and Wozniak made blue boxes and they went on to be the 'model' Americans. Feynman is famous for breaking a host of security rules. So, you may be rejecting 50% of the top 1% of 1% of 1% in favor of those less talented.

we will never know what the real numbers are. Same argument goes other way: Elon Musk was never arrested, Einstein when he came to USA didn't have any convictions (AFAIK). What this says is there is no shortage of people with smarts.

ED: Not sure on the credibility of a quick google search, but Einstein may have been arrested which was the original benchmark used.

didn't know - wikipedia didn't have this, can you point me to a source?

Why said anything about intellectually gifted? He said best.

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