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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

>It’s going to have to be a part of our climate changed future to deter criminals.

How's that strategy working out for deterring murderers and drug dealers?

It will probably work as well as it does for murderers. There's not really a demand for murder so there's not continually new people filling their shoes when they get arrested.

Drug dealers on the other hand will never go away no matter how many you arrest. There will always be more people willing to buy drugs and a new dealer ready to step up and make a profit.

> Drug dealers on the other hand will never go away no matter how many you arrest. There will always be more people willing to buy drugs and a new dealer ready to step up and make a profit.

Singapore and Saudi Arabia might object. Punishments always have some marginal effect; the question is how severe they need to be to achieve the desired effect magnitude, and whether the direct and indirect costs are acceptable.

Of course you also assumed "draconian punishments" equates to "lack of due process". As if punishing murderers is inherently wrong and goes against your very finely tuned civil liberties instincts.

When murderers and drug dealers make centuries long and very undesirable changes in the global climate, let me know.

To be fair, if you execute a murderer they're not going to do it anymore.

And, if you execute somebody who is, in fact, not one, you become one.

We don't have data to say that it's not working.

It's still happening... is that data?

Not really. Rates exist between 0% and 100%.

How many deterred murderers do you think need to exist for it to be worth prosecuting and harshly punishing murder?

Though even after knowing your answer to that question... I'm not eager to live in your experiment's "murder is fine" group...

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