Hacker News Reader

Comment by SilverRed | Hacker News Reader

> but it sometimes takes longer than it should.

I'm convinced that the solution to crime is not to increase punishments, but to make the speed and likelihood of being punished fast and almost certain.

If theft had a 100% detection rate and a punishment greater than the value of the item, you would never steal anything because it would be pointless. The problem is we let people get away with it multiple times and then eventually destroy their lives over it.

Airtags and other anti theft tech can help here. Make theft extremely difficult to get away with and people will not bother.

View on HN

> I'm convinced that the solution to crime is not to increase punishments, but to make the speed and likelihood of being punished fast and almost certain.

This is the orthodox view among experts in the subject, so yes

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180514-do-long-prison-s...

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jan/27/prison-exper...

https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/business-law/do-harsher-pu...

What you just described is far costlier on society (assuming these efforts would be covered with taxes) and likely requires severe invasions of privacy, especially considering theft can be both physical and digital/virtual.

All in all, I’d rather not aim for 100% detection + swift punishment as the improvement metrics for deterring theft.

Several technologies like the airtags and account locks on electronics have done much for stopping theft. The iphone can now act as an airtag while turned off.

The thing is, even if you spend more initially on stopping crime, it will eventually drop off as people work out you can no longer get away with it. Spend the extra cash collecting all the security video and know it will teach one person that they can not get away with theft and that person will likely communicate it with their peers.

I would personally rather spend $600 extra in tax for police over having the negative feelings of a $500 item being stolen.

I don't believe much in terms of privacy has to be lost as most of the time we already have the data, we just don't have the human resources to do anything with it.

I'm amazed that whenever there's mention of using data to solve crimes HN thinks it's invasion of privacy, yet majority work in tech companies that collect and sell massive amounts of personal data to sell ads.

>I'm convinced that the solution to crime is not to increase punishments, but to make the speed and likelihood of being punished fast and almost certain.

You apply that to every Karen's favorite pet laws and suddenly we're all living in 1984.

Look at the opinions of HN for example. You've got a subset of people who think speeding should be a shoot on sight offense. And you've got a subset of people who think littering should be a shoot on sight offense. You've got a subset of people who think that anyone who uses power equipment before 10AM is Literally Hitler(TM). I'm being only slightly hyperbolic here. It all adds up. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Which is why a huge swath of laws need to be thrown out. The majority of our governments are tyrannically inhumane. If a law is not going to be enforced, remove it from the books.

People advocate for these "shoot on sight" punishments because they are sick of offenders getting away with things. Light but certain punishments would fix this. If there was a $50 fine for speeding but you have an almost 100% chance of getting caught, this would be more effective (I think) than a $400 fine which takes months of offending to be caught.

Fast feedback loops are the key here.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com