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Comment by syshum | Hacker News Reader

The deterrent effect of punishment has been proven many times to be no where near as strong as law abiding people believe it to be. Now you can say "well you just need harsher punishment" but many systems has disproven this as well.

Jail should be reserved for people who a direct physical threat to other peoples bodies or properties. Continued incarceration should be viewed from that lens as well.

Victim Compensation should be a higher priority instead of punishment, instead we put almost no priority to Victim Compensation instead viewing the crime as a "crime against society" and the person "pays a debt to society" that is the wrong position.

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I don’t think these arguments are the opposite of each other the way you assume. I believe that punishment is important. I also believe that reducing the total cost is important, but not always to the point of reducing punishment where people aren’t punished for their crimes. It’s all relative, but here’s an extreme: you murder someone, it costs $10m to prosecute you and put you in jail for life, OR you are given $5m and told you get to keep it unless you commit another crime. The latter might be more effective, (I have no idea) but that doesn’t make it the right choice in my opinion. Obviously an extreme case that will never happen but it’s all grey is what I am trying to say...

> it costs $10m to prosecute you and put you in jail for life, OR you are given $5m and told you get to keep it unless you commit another crime

I don't think that would work simply because after that person spends the $5M, the government can't claw it back even if that person commits another crime, and if they are in the state where they are considering another crime, the extra $5M debt would probably not deter them too much. This proposal would need to be reworked to align long term incentives of the person with not committing another crime. It would also need to disincentivize people from committing crimes just so they can get this benefit.

In a somewhat related vein, I recall there being a proposal to provide basic housing to the chronically homeless, as certain homeless people cost the taxpayers millions due to arrests and illnesses from being homeless. Although there is no angle of punishment here, there is still the angle of those homeless not deserving free housing. I believe however that there is a strong case for providing such housing, when viewed from a dispassionate point of view, as it is both fiscally prudent as well as humane in reducing suffering.

Pay the $5 million over 50 years. If they commit a crime early, they keep the years they were crime-free and lose the rest.

Your example is so outlandish, it serves no purpose.

In your scenario you are adding an incentive to a single commit murder. You are trying to make the point justice is not about utilitarianism but about morality on some level - but your example is so unmoored from reality that it is useless.

If giving people millions of dollars also lowered crime, then I would be all for it - improve the economy, lower taxes, and reduce crime! What a score!

The only real reason to object to it would be problems unlisted in this analogy - like the obvious incentive to murder. But we're axiomatically handwaving those intuitive signs of a bad choice away due to a "those turn out to not be an issue".

The problem here is your conclusion ("yes this may look good on paper but your gut instinct clearly tells you this is a bad idea regardless") is based on using your gut instinct, in a hypothetical that axiomatically requires you to ignore your gut instinct. In other words, you're breaking your own rules.

I can tell you from personal experience that if the "victim" ends up being a large insurance company that had to cover a claim due to an act of the defendant there is in fact quite some emphasis on Victim Compensation.

This is wrong in practice. This is the theory put forth by Chesa Boudin and it has been an utter failure in SF. Criminals end up continuing to commit crimes because they know there are no consequences. Victims get victimized twice, once by the criminal and another by the “justice” system and the taxpayers end holding the bag in terms of cost with no real benefit because the criminals will continue to commit worse and worse crimes, leaving a trail of victims with no justice.

This idea of restorative justice is an abject failure. It might work for first time offenders, which I’m okay with trying on, but once criminals commit crimes multiple times, we need to protect society from them. Locking them up is the best way to do this.

The tides are turning against the idea that criminals shouldn’t see jails, because of how much of a failure it has been. I used to think maybe we shouldn’t be so hard on crime, but after not only being the victim but seeing what it had done to SF, I’m firmly in the camp of throwing criminals in jail. Mainly moderates like myself feel the exact same way in the last 2-3 years and it will show more and more in voting, especially in SF.

The US already has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and it's also by far the most dangerous and crime-ridden developed country in the world: there are 7x (seven) times more murders than any other OECD country!

https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(15)01030-X/pdf

Yet you're proposing doubling down on a clearly broken approach?

Both Colombia and Mexico are OECD countries and have higher murder rates than the United States. Lithuania's is close. The U.S. is roughly on par with Greenland for murders per capita.

Sorry, my bad, the study above is for high-income OECD countries as opposed to all of them. Mexico and Colombia are both much poorer than the US, and Greenland is both not a country and a bit of a special case since the locals struggle so much with alcohol.

>>This is the theory put forth by Chesa Boudin

no it is not, Chesa Boudin did not in anyway advocate for Victim Compensation, he was advocating diversion programs completely different

>Criminals end up continuing to commit crimes because they know there are no consequences.

Absolutely nothing in my statement is about no consequences. It is saying that we can have difference consequences than mass incarceration, one that actually makes the victims of crime, specifically property crime, whole again. Which are current system does not

You seem to believe I am advocating for SF style policy of just not prosecuting theft crimes at all, there is NOTHING in my statement that aligns with that position. Simply opposing Jail time for those offense, which further burdens society and does nothing for the victims is not a solution to shoplifting and theft, nor is the other extreme of just let shoplifters go

The fact that you have a tribal binary response of "if you do not want harsh prison must mean you want no consequences" show your lack of understanding of this topic, there are lots of other models out there

I'm not arguing for a universal policy. Clearly circumstances must be taken into account for repeat offenders.

Drug addiction and the crimes that spring from it are a different matter. There is a clear cause for the crime: the addiction. Fix that, no more repeat offenses. However most rehab programs for addicts that end up in the criminal justice system aren't that great, so that's another area that needs fixing.

Regardless, my point is just that consequences for criminal acts should never be simple punishment if there are options with a better net benefit for society. That will of course mean there has to be a detergent aspect to things as well, which may take the form of a punishment, but not a punishment for its own sake.

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