Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

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You are underselling how long 30 years is. In my honest opinion, you just can't punish someone for that long because the person you have after 20 years isn't going to be the same person who committed the crime. Sure the crime deserves worse; but I don't believe we can deliver on that, and holding someone is very expensive.

I'm still under 30, so I am literally forced to imagine what it is like. 30 years is currently outside the scope of my experience. It is beyond my gut conception of forever.

Once I get old enough to have a practical idea of what 30 years is (say, 40), a 30 years sentence might as well be a life sentence as it would easily consume the remainder of my productive life.

Punishment (retribution) is only one of a number of reasons to incarcerate someone (the three others normally cited are deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation). I wish we had better metrics for the probability of recidivism. If we knew with a high degree of certainty that a given murder was a one time thing, we could let the perpetrator out very early. On the other hand, if we know that the perpetrator is likely to reoffend, or if we could show that light punishments had less of a deterrent effect, or if society just wouldn't stand for a lesser punishment, we could keep them locked up for longer. Unfortunately we just don't have that level of introspection into the human psyche.

In my honest opinion, you just can't punish someone for that long because the person you have after 20 years isn't going to be the same person who committed the crime.

Can confirm. Brother committed murder at 16. Was tried and sentenced to 70 years (as an adult, thanks Texas). He’s 34 now. Totally different person. He was a kid then.

I seem to recall an article where a guy had spent 30 years locked up for a crime he didn't do.

When he went in, there were few to any mobile phones and virtually nobody talked about the internet.

So when he got out he had to learn how to use all that tech we take for granted in our daily lives.

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