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Comment by offtop5 | Hacker News Reader

Society needs to have something between jaywalking and attempted murder.

Right now if you fish without a permit in the wrong place you're a felon and you will never be able to get a decent job for the rest of your life. The entire reason the American criminal justice system is like this, at its core is to punish minority groups.

I don't ever see this changing, and it's a big part of why I want to make an exit by 40. I imagine if I do decide to have a family it would be in a more civilized country

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> Society needs to have something between jaywalking and attempted murder.

there is already a lot of gradation in the spectrum of consequences: fines, probation, house arrest, weekend sentence (free to work during the week, but need check into jail each weekend), different security levels for different offenses. not much "rehabilitation" occurs anywhere along the spectrum, but it's not like you go straight from a small fine to 25 years in supermax.

Almost all of those come with an arrest record which can stop you from getting a decent job.

Just because you can get 3 months for a felony charge, doesn't mean you'll ever be able to work again. We need a system to get rid of most criminal records after a certain amount of time

True, but where there’s less of a spectrum is in the stigma that follows you after the punishment. For many companies and landlords, anyone without a squeaky clean record is lumped together. Even for crimes that a significant portion of the population has probably committed at some point and were just never caught.

Jaywalking doesn’t even need to be a crime at all. In a lot of parts of the world it isn’t and we do just fine.

> fish without a permit in the wrong place

Are these ecological concerns, ie. protected species or preventing over fishing, or trespassing concerns? I tried searching 'fishing' + 'felon' and I couldn't whip up any laws.

Yes, these situations are usually but not always tied to taking of species that are protected. This can be tied to poaching or recreational take.

Taking fish or invertebrates which are undersized is often a misdemeanor. Repeat offense can turn into a felony and jail time. First time harassment or take of marine mammals can also be a felony.

Source: I had a run-in where I was charged with a misdemeanor which was dropped after hiring a lawyer and making a substantial donation to a charity of the Judge's choice, which was a condition of the plea. Really informed my view on the subject.

It is called misdemeanor and several classes of it exist. And no, fishing without a permit isn’t a felony anywhere in the US.

>And no, fishing without a permit isn’t a felony anywhere in the US.

Your 19 and you run, you get caught and the local DA adds a few charges.

Life ruined.

This of course depends on how rich your parents are. If your parents can bail you out next day, and get a good lawyer it's just a bad memory.

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