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Comment by JohnStrangeII | Hacker News Reader

To be 'fair', this merely reflects a known major difference between the US and Europe.

Just about any felony is associated with a maximum sentence that is roughly 10 times higher in the US than in Europe. The US justice system is all about retribution, this is so ingrained in the US psyche that ssemingly normal people who think they are humane and have good moral compass will make "don't drop the soap jokes" and basically accept prison rape as normal way of dealing with felons, provided they dislike the crime enough. Even US judges occasionally state in public that they hope that the defendant will die in prison.

People in Europe tend to be more civil in such matters.

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> People in Europe tend to be more civil in such matters.

I would be careful to generalize here. It's often not the people that are reluctant to demand retribution, but criminal justice systems that are insulated against populism. For example, there's currently a pretty sickening case of serial gang rape being reported on in Germany and there's plenty of popular outrage [1], including some people wishing for the death penalty and for body parts getting hacked off (and the suspects appear to be ethnic Germans, so it's not anti-migrant hysteria). But in the end, the criminal justice system is unlikely to be affected by that outrage, largely because of Germany's career judiciary (both prosecutors and judges).

[1] The outrage is understandable; the crimes make me feel ill, too. But the desire for retribution is still way outside what the penal code or the constitution would permit.

Plus, I find the idea of "sentence stacking" absolutely absurd. It just encourages prosecutors to throw the book at you and scare you into taking a "shorter" sentence with a plea deal.

I find the idea of plea deals absurd. They seem to encourage results before justice

The costs of the US justice system are already exorbitant, with plea deals being the norm. Public defense offices are overworked and understaffed, judge calendars are overbooked, quality representation costs millions... I forgot which justice said it, but basically the justice system relies on plea deals as it stands. I don't know what kind of sweeping reform would be required to change that.

Edit: "That is what plea bargaining is. It is not some adjunct to the criminal justice system; it is the criminal justice system." Scott & Stuntz, Plea Bargaining as Contract, 101 Yale L. J. 1909, 1912 (1992). " Quoted in Missouri v Frye before the Supreme Court(https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=169296831339244...)

Whereas lots of other countries don't have them. Could it be that the US are prosecuting too many people? Too many things are illegal perhaps? The war on drugs maybe?

Perhaps, when so many people are doing something illegal that your criminal justice system can't take the strain it is time to consider what is illegal? Plea bargains on the other hand seem to be working around justice.

Maybe we're prosecuting too many people because too much otherwise unremarkable behavior is illegal.

Is it just that we don’t have enough public defenders? It sounds like there’s a good opportunity here to convince the government that 10x-ing the number of lawyers they hire would make for a good jobs program.

The US also use pleabargains extensively. Insane prison sentences in the US is essentially used to blackmail the accused into giving up their right to a trial. Hence over 70% of US inmates never went to trial.

The real difference is that the jail system is privatized in the US, so that it has become a profiting system not that different from hotels and resorts. Hotels and resorts need to get a constant influx of customers to be kept in business, so do private prisons, and harsh punitive laws help to get that goal. Make prisons public and the sudden need to save taxpayers money will force them to keep only real criminals behind bars.

Private prisons are a small percentage of all jails. That's not the reason for long sentences.

I used to say that for a long time too, and its still technically correct, but so much in the prison system is part of a business (like phone calls and "work" and other necessities).

A small introduction: https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-uni...

It's not just the prison system either, it's the whole justice system.

Make the penalties for everything unreasonably harsh you escalate what criminals are willing to do to avoid their people going to jail. They're more likely to carry weapons and murder witnesses and the whole works. Which allows the police to justify more SWAT teams and military hardware and surveillance gear that all come from private for-profit corporations.

Arms dealers love an arms race.

Prison guard unions have exactly the same incentives, whether in the EU, Canada or the US.

Prison guards are completely different kinds of people in these countries. In the US a prison guard is a guy that gets a week training on how to hit people with a stick. In Norway it is a 2-3 year college education with exams. It is a completely different kind of people who join this profession. You don’t spend 2-3 years getting this education unles you really believe in chaning people. It is not just some job to make a buck.

Hysteria whipped up by media/politicians, private prison industry etc all contribute to the problem, but the attitude of the general public towards crime/punishment is very different here. This is true even after someone gets released from prison - it is so hard to find jobs, apartments etc once you've been to prison.

I don't know of any other country that has elections for judges!

That’s a safeguard to prevent the executive branch (president, governor, mayor) from installing judges. I vote them out every election. They should have term limits.

Is blinding voting to remove not counter-productive? I feel like it would incentivise judges to act even more in line with popular opinion to swing the needle back the other way.

I'm curious as to why you think elections for judges is a bad thing? I'm not advocating for that system (I'm the first to say the US system is completely fucked), but the only other way I know of is by getting appointed, which also seems like a terribly corrupt system to me.

Do you think we should elect doctors?

Surely doctors should be experts in medicene, and judges should be experts on law. If you're elected you are an expert in being elected.

Yes but if a doctor sucks, nobody will consult him anymore after a while but with judges you don't get to pick one ...

Next time I get taken to hospital having been in a car crash I'll be sure to review the doctor's ratings on yelp before he stems the catastrophic internal bleeding

IMO the primary problem is with retention elections - if a serving judge must face the electorate to remain in his position, then he is encouraged to make populist decisions in court, rather than decisions in the interest of justice/public policy.

Judicial elections in general also bring in unwelcome outside influences to the process (monetary campaign backing, campaigning along party lines despite the fact judges are supposed to be politically independent) and the best judges may not be the best politicians/campaigners.

Given that jails don't charge the inmates to stay there, your analogy is quite broken.

Taxpayers foot the bill either way.

But where does the money come from then? Or better, where the incentive to put minor offenders in jail comes from? Especially taking into account how this makes much harder for them to have a normal life (job, friends, familiy etc.) afterwards. It seems things are arranged to get more people behind bars and make easier for them to return there; that way people who enter a jail for something trivial are more likely to become real criminals. Some other users corrected me about the number of private jails so I'm genuinely interested to know. There are businesses involved with procuring guards, firearms, clothing, meals etc, but that would not change much in state owned prisons; in many countries it's perfectly normal to have public entities subcontracting services to the private sector.

Ummm, in many places in the US, absolutely does the jail charge inmates to stay there.

Find yourself locked up in Macomb Co, MI? You will receive a bill for $60/day for your incarceration as you are released.

Florida State Prison? Be prepared for a "cost of incarceration lien" to be levied by the state at the rate of $50/day for often multi-year sentences.

Such fees are authorized (though not always enforced) in 43 states.

So the analogy is not at all broken.

1. http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/18/news/economy/prison-fees-inm...

2. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34705968

3. https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/paying-your-time-how-...

Wait

Really?

Cruel and unusual?

I think the US had this 'retribution' aspect of imprisonment already. Even before the prison-industrial complex, which admittedly is doing its best to perpetrate long sentences to maintain profits...

...not to mention death penalty, including states where the family of a victim were allowed to watch the execution and even cheer.

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