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Comment by rhn_mk1 | Hacker News Reader

Why can vandalism result in a prison term? I'd expect paying damages is a sufficient punishment for stupidity. Genuinely curious why the consequences are structured this way.

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Deterrence. To some, the damages are pocket change.

When we (Dutch) ask in school why our sentences are so low, it is explained that if the punishment does not fit the crime, you will be incentivized to add more crime because you are already facing prison time, so why would you care about a few years more or less. Aka if the crime for rape is almost the same as murder you might as well kill the victim to have less chance of being caught. We have not a lot of crime and people who commit crimes like this come out of it as long term productive citizens: if you go to jail, what exactly are you doing/deterring? He will never have a normal life because of some stupid thing he did? Do like (i think) scandinavia and swiss; make fines fit the economical status of the perpetrator.

Edit; me and my friends did dumb things when young, not quite this dumb, but enough, if tried as adult, for prison time in the US possibly and caning+prison in for instance Singapore ; what exactly would that have done? We are all highly successful tax payers and it was foolishness that occured once or twice, 30 years ago.

here's an example that disputes your assumption: Japan has much less criminality than NL, and has one of the harshest prison systems in the world. you can leave your expensive bicycle unlocked on a crowded tokyo street and no-one's going to touch it. you can leave your expensive apartment completely unsecured and no-one's going to get it. they even still have the baggage lockers all across their subway. a lot of this is due to how scared people are of their police/imprisonment, and the subsequent social downgrade.

> Japan has much less criminality than NL

Seems that depends on where you look but it's at least on par or below, so point taken.

In Singapore it seems to work well as well. But I always assumed because it is so tiny they will always get you and you will get punished.

It is interesting to learn more and it is a difficult issue which probably is partly unsolvable, I show one perspective, but that might not work elsewhere. I just do not see the damaging a young person from taking part in society forever is a good plan, at all, for small infractions without bodily harm.

> and the subsequent social downgrade.

By no means I claim to know much about Japan but from what I know from reading/watching a lot about it I would wager it's more this than the punishment... But it would need research I guess to figure out why the differences.

I'm not sure Japan is a good comparison, it is so different culturally that you can't read much into the differences.

Can you elaborate more about how the culture would compensate for lower crime?

Apart from being one of the most ethnically and culturally homogeneous countries in the developed world, Japan is the only country in the world to have suffered a nuclear attack (twice!). This fact makes Japan an essentially unique society, not entirely comparable to others. The mindset of Japanese people today is completely different from that of the Japanese for centuries prior to the Second World War.

Actually there is theft, for example, I watched a TV program about shoplifting and they caught several people, like a company of school girls or an old woman.

The bicyles must be registered in Tokyo if I remember correctly.

Also, they have unmanned selling stalls, usually in the countryside, where farmers sell fruits and vegetables [1]

[1] http://abritishprofinjapan.blogspot.com/2017/07/unmanned-veg...

There's an interesting reason for old people getting caught shoplifting in Japan. One of the many articles covering that:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47197417

Perverse incentives at work. If the jail cells in Japan were anything like Rikers, this wouldn't be a thing. Conversely, societal institutions for the elderly could also work.

Even England has unmanned selling stalls.

Just a box of fruit/eggs/unwanted gifts and a box for cash and a sign saying '£1 per item'. At the end of the day the owner takes the cash.

Only happens in the country though, and even there sometimes people take goods while 'forgetting' to pay.

I see the point, but the amounts described in the article are going to deter 99% of society already, so I find focusing on the 1% implausible. Is there anything I can read about such deterrence?

Question is; does it deter well? What are the crime stats on vandalism/destroying propery crimes in the US vs other countries. If it is like other crimes, the over the top punishments do not seem to deter vs the lightweight punishments in some other countries.

I’ll add that deterrence breaks down into two different prongs: (1) deterring this particular guy from doing the same thing again and (2) deterring others from copying what this guy did. It might seem unfair to punish this guy harshly when a lesser punishment would deter him from ever trying the same thing again, but that is ignoring prong (2), the value of punishing him as a warning to others.

The deterrence is probably mostly for the group in (2) but because that group already knows what the punishment is because of the deterrence in said region, but find themselves (by whatever peer pressure, stupidity, drugs&alcohol) find themselves in this position, they may find the deterrent a guideline to add on more crimes because it does not matter. In this case, if he knew about the punishment, he probably would have fled the country the next day. Making a crime go unpunished; if he just is flagged and cannot leave the country and has to pay 100k in fines, he might be a good citizen and pay taxes in the US the rest of his life. I cannot see these harsh punishments work well (and seems they do not as people keep doing crime more than elsewhere) but it is probably needed to get elected (soft on crime!!!).

> if he just is flagged and cannot leave the country and has to pay 100k in fines, he might be a good citizen and pay taxes in the US the rest of his life

Yes, he might; or he might go through life wantonly destroying other people's property whenever he feels he has a grievance, as there don't seem to be any serious consequences for doing so.

It's a hard question, and individuals vary so much (circumstances, motivations, character, ...) that generalised answers will often be wrong. But a justice system needs rules and standards of some kind.

> But a justice system needs rules and standards of some kind.

Sure, but having to get a job (he has an MBA so he was planning to) and having the tax office take 70% of his wages until paid off (or allow him to pay off faster if he can) is not a light punishment while it does bring back some productivity. Jail time or over the top crazy punishments doesn't seem to help either and only costs society money. And then more money because the individual will most likely never recover after having spent some of his most productive years behind bars.

The sore point here is ofcourse that he is on a student Visa in which case I think the punishment of giving him a criminal record and sending him back to India is harsh punishment in itself.

Most foreigners who can afford to come to the US for a post graduate education come from a relatively comfortable situation at home.

The problem with this is that law is not written exclusively for foreign postgrads.

That is not really a problem because there is usually a lot of flexibility given to the judge in sentencing. The judge can determine an appropriate sentence within the maximums (and sometimes minimums) set by the law.

FTFY: Revenge.

Prison certainly didn't seem to deter this guy, nor does the death penalty deter murderers.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/files/DeterrenceStudy2009.pd...

The damages are simply too small.

If the damages included the cost of the investigation, the impact of being without computers for months, etc. then the school wouldn't mind the incident happening again and again.

Is prison going to make this person better?

"According to the Vera Institute of Justice, incarceration costs an average of more than $31,000 per inmate, per year"

  damages: 60k
  fine: 250k
  price to incarcerate him for 10 years : 310K
  ...
  ... profit?

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