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Comment by autoexec | Hacker News Reader

> his hands were tied. there were three, assault with a firearm, great bodily injury, and domestic violence. because a gun had been involved. minimum mandatory sentencing. no concurrent, must be consecutive.

Situations like yours are what people who get off on "tough on crime" policies and push for harsher punishments for "bad guys" never stop to think about. We need judges to be able to consider an individual's unique circumstances in order to get justice, and the same is true for HR departments. Blanket polices that simply send every resume to the bin when the applicant has been arrested and/or convicted with no regard to the situation are just stupid.

You never should have been behind bars, but having served your time, you should have left with a clean record and the opportunity to rebuild your life.

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You're not wrong.

What a lot of people don't consider is just how much time it is. We've become kind of used to seeing such long sentences, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. It's a lot of time, but there's something in herently bad about giving so much time-- people who are in the middle of committing violent crimes, if they think they're going to prison forever, they tend to escalate and go out in a hail of bullets.

that is not a good situation for anyone involved. not bystanders, not cops, not the criminal. it comes from pushing them to the point of no return. super harsh penalties will do that.

to be clear though, I accept full responsibility of what I did. I know what decisions lead up to the drugs. I know a dozen times that I could have chosen waaaaaay better, and I knew. I absolutely knew, even if I didn't, that I was fucking up. I knew, and it's why it won't happen again. I won't be that stupid next time.

100% agree but you have to remember that the mandatory minimums are a reaction to other types of judges that go very soft on violent offenders that end up reoffending and causing more violence and more victims and there are clear evidence that this person was going to reoffend again oftentimes having already offended multiple times and committed multiple crimes against multiple victims and are given fourth fifth sixth seventh eighth 10th chances.... so the reaction to by the politicians is to create laws to hamstring the judges

In reality just like with policing we need better judges we need better officers we need better judges in the system the problem is how to get that nobody has solved that problem and it's easier to just write rules to make things worse for everybody instead of trying to fix the system with better people

it all boils down to this: does more time make people offend less? does simply adding more time reduce recidivism rates? no, it does not.

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/society/2022/re...

"In 2015, for example, an analysis by Swiss researchers looked at 14 studies that compared what happened when criminals were put behind bars to what happened when they were given some other sentence, such as probation or electronic monitoring, that allowed them to stay out of jail or prison. The researchers found that crime rates were just as high for people who’d spent time behind bars as for those who hadn’t."

>>it all boils down to this:does more time make people offend less? does simply adding more time reduce recidivism rates? no, it does not.

No that is not what is boils down to, i dont even agree that prison should be viewed as a punishment at all

Prison should be for separating a person that is a danger to others until such time they are no longer a danger to others. Judges often have a bad record at picking who will be a danger and who will not thus by default for public safety the public demands people convicted of crimes be sent away for a long time to maximize the possible safety of the public at the expense of the individuals that get caught up in the system

I'd agree that prison should be reserved for people who have proven themselves to be dangerous and a risk to others, but I think a few days/weeks in a jail cell as a "time out" can still be a valid form of punishment and that it may be needed to keep people behind bars in other instances as well (flight risks for example).

We know that past a certain point harsher punishments in general are not a deterrent to people committing crimes so we need the public to grow a spine and reject the idea of excessive sentences since while it makes them feel safe, it's just putting them at further risk. Some facts are a hard sell to people though, especially when they're afraid.

We have a huge problem with mass incarceration in the US and the treatment of people we lock up and the conditions of those facilities need major reform, but I don't think we should abandon the idea of locking people up as a punishment entirely.

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