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Comment by p3llin0r3 | Hacker News Reader

This is a feature, not a bug. The prison system is designed to drag you in and keep you in.

Just disgusting.

The US criminal system isn't meant to rehabilitate, and a corrections officer told me that directly once (after I asked for a Bible and he said no).

It's only meant to provide the public with a false sense of security. "Another scumbag has been locked up, key's been thrown away, you're all safe once again. Enjoy the rest of your evening."

But it's okay because people are easily forgettable. If you have 100 people on a block, and 1 is taken away unjustly, you still have 99 who can quickly forget about that 1, provided they're distracted with enough beer, books, movies and memes.

I don’t think it was intentionally designed, but I believe the criminal justice system is best described as handing out draconian sentences to the unlucky few actually caught committing crimes. I’m convinced there are better approaches ( https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-09-26/plea-barg... ).

I think Americans by and large see prison as this dungeon where we store people we don’t like for as long as possible rather than as a place where people who have made mistakes go to get the training and help they need in order to get back on track. That’s the simplest way to explain things like ultra long sentences compared to the rest of the civilized world, mistreating people after they’ve done their time (felon status for life and offender lists), and the extreme racial disparity among the prison population. It’s a system designed to permanently bifurcate the population into “normals” and “criminals”, often along racial lines, and to by any means keep the second group segregated for as long as possible, as often as possible.

If I murdered someone out of curiosity and in doing so realized it was not fun at all should I be allowed to go free immediately since I will not murder again?

In other words the rehabilitation occurred during and as a result of the criminal act.

There's also 'fairness' in law - so you have to serve a sentence similar to others guilty of the same offense. And yes in this strawman case your sentence should perhaps not be a long one.

Except the sociopath angle - a person who commits crime for fun is quite likely to find another fun crime to commit.

Retribution is inherent to punishment and by extension justice. It simply makes no sense to claim otherwise. Mercy makes no sense unless we accept that. A judge cannot show leniency or mercy unless it is, first, acknowledged that the criminal deserves something commensurate with the crime, and second, there is a real, deserved possibility (at least in principle, even if never realized) of receiving one's just deserts. Premeditated murder deserves the death penalty as a matter of principle, though we can decide legally never to manifest that as punishment.

Punishment has three purposes: retribution, rehabilitation, and deterrence. We seem to be suffering from a contemporary bias against retribution [0]. However, these three purposes are intimately connected. When a punishment fits the crime, we communicate the severity of the crime to the criminal. In that way, we help facilitate rehabilitation by making it clear how grave his offense has been. Deterrence is facilitated by the same token. Obviously, these are not absolute measures. For example, a criminal may be unrepentant, but then rehabilitation is not possible. In any case, adequate remorse does not remove the possibility of retribution (though a sincerely remorseful criminal would accept that he deserves commensurate punishment), but it does allow for mercy.

[0] A common confusion here is that retribution entails hatred of the punished. It does not.

Yes, but in America, a hatred of the punished is common regardless of whether you tie that to "retribution", and likely one of the many reasons rehabilitation is not a focus and/or strong outcome of our prison system.

And even if they do rehabilitate, our society is not properly set up to help them come back, so the retribution often outweighs the crime. They do their time in prison- but essentially they do time the rest of their life, because when they come back, they aren't treated as if their retribution is complete.

in your description, what is the actual distinction between "retribution" and "deterrence"?

Calling crimes "mistakes" is a terrible euphemism.

It may be accurate in some cases. But many criminals commit their crimes knowing full well what they are doing, and with no regard for those who are hurt by their actions, and show little or no remorse (unless they think pretending can reduce their sentence).

Now, many are in prison due to unjust laws, selective enforcement, or a flawed prosecution incarcerating the wrong person. But let's not lump those problems together with those who intentionally harm others without remorse.

OK, while I get the sentiment, this story is about a crime that was a mistake.

I think many of us are aware that felons loose their right to vote. I guess I assumed you would be blocked from voting. So I never thought about what the penalty should be. Now that I’ve seen the penalty, I’m appalled.

Frankly, I think we should quit criminalizing everything. The governments responsible for jailing criminals, no-fly lists and a lot of other things. Why not take responsibility for blocking felons from voting?

I posted about my situation and difficulty finding a job on another social media website, and a commenter wrote "Those lists exist for a reason. You made your bed now sleep in it." That's literally what the public thinks they're for, as a permanent form of discrimination and condemnation to prevent people like me from having a job or a good life. It's meant to keep us down all our lives.

If that's what the voting public thinks it's for, then for all practical purposes, that's sure as hell what it's actually for.

I think the law she is guilty of far pre-dates the corruption of the system. I do agree that parts of are prison system have very corrupt parts, but this is a much older law.

5 years seems too long though.

> 5 years seems too long though

Are you being sarcastic? 5 years for voting while on probation is "too long"?? How about:

1. Not preventing people who are in prison from voting

2. Not even having a "probation" time after people have been released from prison; they did their time, they are free again

> Not even having a "probation" time after people have been released from prison; they did their time, they are free again

I think you're mistaken about what probation is.

Probation is part of your time. You're sentenced for a given period of time, and at some point you may be released to serve the rest of that time in the community, on probation.

Their sentence isn't over, and they aren't 'free' while they are on probation. It's part of the original sentence still.

Probation allows people to serve part of their sentences back in the community when they are safe to do so. If you're arguing against having probation you're arguing for longer time spent in prison.

If you're arguing against having probation you're arguing for longer time spent in prison.

Not necessarily.

edit: It's entirely possible to oppose halfway programs and also advocate for shorter sentencing...

Many people feel that probation is inherently unethical. X years of probation seems less harsh than X years in prison but often amount to the same thing.

Without the option of probation prison time is not going to increase 1:1 and depending on the ratio total time in prison may actually decrease.

Who are these people? How many of them are ex-convicts?

When you're on reporting probation you essentially lose all of your rights. The rules are incredibly strict and your probation officer can come find you any time of day. If they call you and you don't answer the phone that can be considered a violation of your probation. Straight to jail. They can come in your house and search 24/7. They can send you to jail indefinitely for any reason or no reason at all. Body cavity search any time they want. Speeding ticket? Straight to jail. Late to work? Straight to jail. Outside of your house after 10pm? Straight to jail. Didn't go to enough AA meetings this week? Straight to jail. Not able to pay court fines? Jail. Left city limits without permission? Guess what. Attempt to vote? Five fucking years!

I think you're mistaken about how probation is used in practice.

Many small offenses will get you put on probation for ten years. Parole and work release are more often used as alternatives to incarceration.

The main issue here is whether or not people on probation should be allowed to vote. I don't see why they shouldn't and I can't see any justification for putting them in jail if they do. It's absolutely absurd.

The US frames prison as primarily revenge, it's about taking things away from "bad" people. Take away their nice things, destroy their family, make sure they'll never get a decent job and so on.

The EU (and most modern actual thinking on the issue) says prison primarily lets us force convicts to reform, we can impose structure in their lives, show them how to be good - and in the worst case we keep them there if they refuse to reform.

The British government fought and lost a legal battle to retain the status where prisoners can't legally vote (and many people who are in jail but aren't convicted of any crime don't end up being able to vote even though it's legal). The EU said that's not OK. You can target criminals who e.g. are in prison for vote tampering, but you can't take away people's vote just because they're in prison since they're still citizens.

> Probation is part of your time.

Yes, but it's a part that is substantially different from imprisonment: you are given a chance to prove yourself (Latin probo, probatio, French prover) to society. It should be as close to the life of a virtuos citizen as possible - and exerting a right to vote, far from being a personal gain, is exactly the type of pro-social behavior we should encourage.

I can understand why she should be reprimanded for violating her probation, but it's revolting that voting during probation could be considered a violation. Something is seriously wrong in a society that does that.

I think you meant parole.

Probation is a "probationary" period that prevents you from going to prison, by substituting it with a period of time where you do classes, have a job, go to school, and/or community service also.

Parole is a period of time after you are released from prison where you are still technically a "prisoner" but you are being let loose to see if you do well in society for a little while, but with extremely high restrictions that can put you back if you sneeze wrong. The federal prison system no longer supports federal parolees.

In my state, Arizona, if you wait 2 years after you are "off paper" (completed parole/probation) you can have your rights restored so you can vote (this is for state felonies, not for federal felonies as far as I know). You can also have your record "sealed" where it still shows you are a felon, but as long as you didn't do anything dangerous(violent) or sexual in nature you can have the court hide what you did. This works out for people that performed financial crimes and are having a hard time getting a job as a cashier or anything to do with money. Or a person who stole a car and is trying to get hired as a driver.

Is corruption really a new phenomenon? Or, are we romanticizing history?

I’m not an expert and I wasn’t there so I don’t know what the actual answer is. With just a cursory knowledge of history though, I don’t think the corruption of this or any system of control is very new at all.

Yep, that's exactly what a private prison system leads to. You can see the system working as intended here. 5 years is... just ridiculous. There's no words for this kind of injustice.

Private prisons have basically nothing to do with this. They house very little of the prison population (less than 10% IIRC)

Private prisons lead to lobbying for harsher convictions to improve the bottom line of those prisons, that is why they often come up.

So do police and prison guards' unions, and they're much larger: https://reason.com/blog/2015/06/02/are-for-profit-prisons-or....

Prison guard unions and private prisons are effectively the same thing. They are both groups that directly benefit by increasing the prison population.

>>Private prisons have basically nothing to do with this.

Incorrect. Private prisons have lobbyists that contaminate the system further upstream to ensure a steady supply of inmates. They do this by lobbying legislators for harsher prison sentences on trivial crimes.

While I am completely opposed to the quasi not really private prisons (they should not be called Private, a Private company has competition, these corporations are Government Contractors)

The idea their lobbying efforts have had any effect on punishment guidelines is laughable.

1. The Public in General Votes for "Tough on Crime" politicians, the Public wants "criminal" to pay, they are just to ignorant to understand who "criminals" are as they picture the person is a ski mask robbing and raping them, not some person filling out a government form incorrectly

2. The Police Unions, Guard unions, and various other Non-Profit Groups lobby far far far more effectively than any of the For-profit Government Contractors for very very harsh punishments, and for the creation of new laws and regulations to make even more criminals every year.

I find five years a bit surprising, but what do you think the proper penalty would be for a felon committing voter fraud should be?

Edit: I'm utterly amazed that this comment has been downvoted to silence. Disenfranchising felons — i.e., those who have committed extremely serious crimes — is while somewhat controversial a long-standing practice. The woman in question committed voter fraud by voting without being legally permitted to. This raises some questions. Are felons seriously not told they may not vote? Why not? Is five years a reasonable sentence (I don't really think so in this case, but for someone who commits large-scale voter fraud it might be)? Certainly the woman seems hard-done-by. At the end of the day, though, she did commit a crime under the laws of the state, and while the sentence seems harsh some sentence is necessary.

If you come from a country (like most European countries) where people are allowed to vote both on probation, and also in prison, then the whole act of voting wouldn't even be a fraud in your home country. But different countries have different practices on what is a crime.

You would also be required to present photo ID in order to vote.

I would prefer 0 days in prison because I don't think voting while a felon should be a crime. But, if we still want to call this situation voter fraud, how about we sentence them to community service? This person is not a danger to society, so I see no reason to put them in prison. More prion just messes up their life further and costs everybody a lot of precious tax dollars.

While I agree that what this woman did shouldn't be voter fraud, community service isn't sufficient deterrent for actual voter fraud. People put in lots of volunteer hours to help get their preferred candidate elected, so they'd probably be willing to risk community service too. Voter fraud is very dangerous to society, as society depends on our trust in institutions.

It's not nearly as dangerous as privatised corporate justice, or jailing people for five years for essentially trivial offences.

Those are also things that we as a society should try to prevent.

An isolated case of voter fraud isn't dangerous. The danger is what would happen if fraud became widespread.

What's widespread mean? I bet more people drive drunk than are tempted to vote illegally. The penalty for first time intoxicated driving is often just a fine.

The max jail time in Texas for first time DWI is 180 days (or as little as 3 days).

In-person voter fraud is vanishingly rare (0.0003 percent to 0.0025 percent, according to a recent meta-analysis[1]). A severe penalty in this sort of case serves no meaningful deterrent function.

[1] https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/debunking-voter-fraud...

Are you saying that the rarity of voter fraud is evidence that current deterrent measures don't work?

I'm saying that rarity of voter fraud means deterrent measures like this are unnecessary. It's a solution in search of a problem.

I agree that we don't need any new measures against voter fraud, but I don't see how it follows that existing voter fraud laws need to be removed or not enforced. Do you have any evidence of what the effect would be if the punishment for voter fraud were community service?

You are begging the question.

She voted in a way that was contrary to the law, but it was (likely) a mistake rather than fraud.

In any case, the penalty should be something like losing the right to vote in a single future election, especially lacking any evidence of an organized scheme to corrupt an election.

I think it's undemocratic to take away felons' right to vote.

How is this voter fraud? The issue is with them not being allowed to vote in the first place.

> How is this voter fraud?

Because she wasn't legally allowed to vote, and she did. That's voter fraud.

I'm fine with forbidding felons to vote, and of course any law forbidding something has to have penalties. I'm very surprised that the penalty in this case was so high and that it appears to have been a strict-liability crime. Honestly, six months or even less for a first offense would seem reasonable to me — but I'm not a judge.

I'm not convinced with the basic premise that a felon shouldn't be able to vote, so why any penalty at all?

It's also believable she didn't know this law existed.

Looking at the statute, it's not illegal unless you know you aren't eligible to vote (Sec. 64.012. ILLEGAL VOTING):

http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/EL/htm/EL.64.htm

Maybe some other law applies?

Amongst all the crazy comments in this thread, this may have been the only one we should all be discussing.

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