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Comment by ryan93 | Hacker News Reader

First of all, conceding that 5% of people in jail could be wrongfully imprisoned should be MORE than enough reason to want to tear the entire system down.

Second, many of these "crimes" had no victim, so maybe it's not the people living their lives who are at fault, but rather an overzealous government who imprisons otherwise free people for doing no harm other than some abstract "moral" rule-breaking.

Thats one of the worst things about these criminals. If there were dramatically fewer crimes it'd be easier to find out who is innocent. Or devote more resources to it.

Imagine if we decriminalized every "crime" that didn't have a victim. We might actually be able to prevent more real crime, like violent crime and sexual assault and large-scale theft and fraud!

A majority of prisoners are in for violent crime; or committed a violent crime and pled down. IF more resources were devoted to fighting heinous crimes prison populations would increase since many murders and to a much larger extent rape go unsolved. Not to mention fraud and child abuse.

A lot of that violence is the obvious and inevitable side effect of the government pretending it can ban certain marketplaces. Much of that violence disappears if you stop forcing people to conduct business as outlaws.

I believe it’s reasonable to assume that far more than 5% of people behind bars are actually innocent.

I was raised by two career long LEOs and if even a small fraction of other LEOs were as bad as my folks, it would be safe to assume that there are a lot of innocent people behind bars.

I'd be surprised if it was more than 1%. But getting actual data is impossible of course.

You’d be surprised if more than 1% of the US’s prison population is innocent?

Given what I keep hearing about laws in general, I assume almost everyone is guilty of enough stuff that if you could prove it and the sentences were consecutive, they'd die in prison.

But at the same time, I'd be surprised if less than 5% of convicts had done the specific crime they were sentenced for even under the assumption of the entire law and justice system being fair, impartial, and skilled.

(I don't have a word for what I am: I don't believe in anarchy, but I would radically liberalise as much as possible. I would also wildly reduce the punishments for most of the remaining laws are enforced so that perfect enforcement wasn't completely bonkers, and then make enforcement perfect. Normally I see people aiming for one or the other, perfect enforcement or liberalisation, not both).

Hmm... The USA has a six times higher incarceration rate than Canada or the UK. Are violent crime rates really six times higher there?

Actually almost... E.g. the murder rate in the US is about 5x higher than in the UK, in Canada it’s “only” 2.5x lower, though.

Probably yes.

The reality is that there are so many crimes in the United States that the set itself is uncountable. There have been a number of attempts to count. I guarantee you that you have, today alone, accrued enough legal liability to put you away for the rest of your life.

Part of what makes this difficult to even count in the first place are bills like the Lacey act which makes it a felony for you to violate any other countries fish and wildlife laws - if you ever came into possession of a dead lobster less than 6 inches long for any reason - felony.

What happens is the folks who end up in prison haven't accrued any more of less liability - instead they drew attention.

If you'd like to learn more I recommend Three Felonies a Day. [1]

I guess the question I have for you is why aren't you in prison now? Why did you choose to commit all those crimes, and what makes you exempt?

Further if your argument is then 'well I shouldn't be in prison because I didn't get caught' - now you're no longer arguing that these people shouldn't have 'done crimes' your argument is they should have been better at it?

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp...

I haven't committed any violent crimes nor have most people. A substantial number of prisoners have. In fact countless murderous and rapist criminals go free.

Countless murderous(sic)...go free.

Of course that's just your opinion, with no link to back it up. I tend to follow the information where I see police abuse, the abuse of rights by the courts/prosecutors, etc etc. You want to blow your mind? Follow a guy named Greg Doucette on the bird app. He routinely lists the violations of civil rights by authorities. It might open your mind.

Well with murders there are bodies. It’s the easiest crime to see the gap between incarceration and the injustice of freely roaming murderers. Much harder to convict on rape so you can imagine how many more are out there free!

>What happens is the folks who end up in prison haven't accrued any more of less liability - instead they drew attention.

>If you'd like to learn more I recommend Three Felonies a Day. [1]

It's hard to take that book seriously when the book fails to state how the average person actually commits felonies a day. According to the top critical review[1], it doesn't seem like most of the people in prisons are because of the reasons listed in the book.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R29XT1DSN5VBWK

I'm sorry but I'm not going to take the word of one randomly-selected Amazon reviewer at face value just because they're a verified purchaser.

Fair point, but I'm also not going to read a 392 page book just because a hacker news commenter recommended it. The title of "three felonies a day" certainly seems provocative and unexpected. It seems at least somewhat fair for someone making such an outrageous claim to be responsible for substantiating it. Why don't you furnish some sort of review/summary that lists what the three felonies are?

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