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Comment by masukomi | Hacker News Reader

> I don't consider myself a bleeding heart lib but I think that a decade in prison is excessive for most non-violent crimes.

you miss the point. prisons are a massive industry with serious lobbying clout. Putting lots of people in prison for a long time isn't a punishment to the prisoner, it's a gift to the prison system. The "punishment" is just a side effect, and the longer it lasts, the richer the people in power get.

the harm inflicted by a crime has been detached from the relative prison sentence for a long time. Classic example is getting more time in jail (and loosing your house) for having a marajuana joint than if you raped someone. Fortunately this is changing in the case of marajuana but there are many other drugs for which a single personal dose will still get you more time than rape.

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10 years of prison time for a single non-violent crime is extremely rare in America.

What can happen in certain states, is that repeat offenders are hit with escalating prison terms each time they are convicted (the classic example are the three-strikes-your-out laws), whereby someone can be sentenced to a life term.

In those cases, sentences don't translate to actual prison terms since non-violent offenders are routinely paroled.

There's still a lot of heavy handedness, and I question the justice of escalating sentencing, but the comments above create a false impression of the US justice system.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-strikes_law

>10 years of prison time for a single non-violent crime is extremely rare in America.

Ross Ulbricht got double life imprisonment + 40 years for a non violent crime.

I mean, paying to have someone murdered is, kinda sorta violent.

He wasn’t charged with it.

That's true. Wikipedia has this to say:

> Federal prosecutors alleged that Ulbricht had paid $730,000 in murder-for-hire deals targeting at least five people,[29] allegedly because they threatened to reveal Ulbricht's Silk Road enterprise.[37][38] Prosecutors believe no contracted killing actually occurred.[29] Ulbricht was not charged in his trial in New York federal court with any murder-for-hire,[29][39] but evidence was introduced at trial supporting the allegations.[29][38] The evidence that Ulbricht had commissioned murders was considered by the judge in sentencing Ulbricht to life, and was a factor in the Second Circuit's decision to affirm the life sentence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht#Silk_Road,_arres...

Didn't he try to hire a hitman to murder some associate of his?

He wasn't charged with that, although all reports indicate he did do it. All sorts of conspiracy theories as to why he wasn't charged, most likely boils down to LE or prosecutorial incompetence.

> He wasn't charged with that

It was, in fact, pay of the allegations of the crimes he was charged with, and it explicitly was a sentencing factor. He wasn't charged with, say, attempted murder or conspiracy to commit murder for the alleged murder-for-hire scheme, though.

Right, he wasn't charged with it. As I said.

It was used as an aggravation factor (if that's the right word) at sentencing, that's true. But he wasn't charged with it.

Are you making a semantic argument about his attempted murder?

Does that really sound logical to you?

Some sentences are no doubt inflated in order to make an example of someone.

I think it is fair to say that whether for violent crimes or non-violent crimes, sentencing in the US is considerably harsher than in many other countries.

I've rarely seen a prison term issued by a US court which I have not found to be excessive relative to my experience with sentences in Germany.

The statistic of the total number of prisoners in the US per capita is well-known and gives us a strong indication that sentencing must be a factor. Still, I'd love to see some official data on this.

The reality of crime rates in America are also harsher in America than in other countries.

It's not as if these laws arise in a vacuum.

Can those 'three strikes' happen as part of the same crime complex?

Not a perfect example, but let's say an addict robs someone on the street, buys a big score of her favorite drug and then sells some of that to an addict friend. Would that be considered three strikes?

No, that wouldn't work that way.

Not rare in New York https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Drug_Laws

They did admit to hack scada system in a "clinc" - a some what serious offence that can have lethal side effects.

I don't have a strong position on this but I am interested in some opinions on whether it makes more sense for the punishment to be commensurate with the actual effects or the potential effects?

eg. If you punch someone in an altercation, they might fall and hit their head and die - and people have been jailed for doing so - but if the same punch happens to not cause a fall, it will likely result in minimal bruising and perhaps a concussion that will heal in a few weeks.

Do these crimes deserve the same sentence or does outcome matter?

I think this usually falls under two considerations - intention and "careless as to consequences"

If you shoot at me with intention to kill, and miss, attempted murder almost always carries the same weight as murder so outcome does not matter.

If you punch me in the face on top of a cliff, and I stumbke and fall to my death, your intention may only have been tissue damage, but you were careless as to (reasonable potential) consequences.

And yes the falling and hitting ones head is iirc seen as a reasonably predictable consequence.

Most computer crimes fall under federal jurisdiction, and the convicted must serve at least 85% of the sentenced time in prison to be eligible for parole. The penalties are very steep for computer crimes compared to their physical crime counterparts that cause similar amounts of damage.

Yes definitely is more about making money than actually helping in reforming the inmates.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/08/11/139536686...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal

It's also about "punishing" (as opposed to reforming) the individual. I'd say "reform" comes last on this list.

Don't forget that a lot of companies, even "liberal" ones, make use of prison labor.

> Classic example is getting more time in jail (and loosing your house) for having a marajuana joint than if you raped someone.

Do you have a source for this ever actually happening?

Yes. Brock Turner got six months for rape.

Here's a selection of decade+ prison sentences for marijuana: https://www.boulderdefenseattorney.com/top-10-non-violent-ma...

The Brock Turner case, while horrendous, is not representative of how rapes are prosecuted or sentenced.

Skimming through your link, I don’t see anything involving someone with a single joint being incarcerated for anywhere near a rape charge.

Some of those sentences may be out of line on their own, but you also don’t have people being put away for 20 years for being caught smoking a joint.

> The Brock Turner case, while horrendous, is not representative of how rapes are prosecuted or sentenced.

Do you have evidence that it is not commonly how rape cases against affluent white men are prosecuted or sentenced?

Well, sure, it's an outlier in such cases because it was prosecuted at all. But that's probably the opposite direction that the claim upthread meant to imply.

> The Brock Turner case, while horrendous, is not representative of how rapes are prosecuted or sentenced.

Indeed, my understanding is that rape is typically not prosecuted at all. :-/

Only 33% of the cases even result in an arrest [1] and 6 in 1000 cases actually result in jail time. That only 384/1000 are even reported to police shows what people think their options are in getting justice. (US is not an exception by any means.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_the_United_States#Pros...

I understand there is some truth to that claim, but how real is it?

Sentences are delivered by judges. There have been prominent examples of judges bribed by prison systems to deliver harsh sentences, but that doesn't seem to be the norm.

Am I naive thinking that most judges deliver the sentence they believe is just, and that if something needs to be reformed, it's their perception of justice and not just the prison system?

Sentences are basically tightly constrained within some guidelines. The judge has leeway for leniency, but not much. Otherwise there's a preset range for each crime (i.e. 6-12 months) based on offender's history (i.e. first offender's get less time, etc) and population risk, judge can lower that by up to some maximum amount.

So then it really needs legislative reform to adjust those minimum sentences.

Mandatory minimums are what primarily dictate a lot of sentences anymore; and, those can be very arbitrary, especially with 3-strike laws.

Often, legislature decides the sentence length due to mandatory minimums.

In the US judges tend to be elected. That's not the norm around the world. US judges must to a certain extent be politicans, and "being tough on crime" plays well to the electorate. Many probably do feel their sentences are appropriate, but if they are collectively anchored towards harsh sentences the end result is the same.

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