Odd that so often here on HN we talk about how prisons don't work, don't deter crime, don't rehabilitate... yet whenever some CEO or high level official is caught in malfeasance, we insist that "sending them to jail" is the only proper response.
I, for one, would never claim that "prisons don't work, don't deter crime, don't rehabilitate" without any qualifiers. Maybe some specific systems have some problems, but that's a very different thing than "prisons" as a concept.
Not all crimes are the same: harsh punishment won’t deter crimes where people think they won’t get caught (e.g. speeding) or where they are not thinking rationally (e.g. drunken fights). In this case, these are lengthily premeditated decisions so deterrence is likely to be effective _if_ they aren’t confident about being able to evade consequences. That’s why it’s so important to have them now because every other white collar criminal is watching and learning.
The other factor is what form the consequences come in. Fines are problematic if they can be treated as a cost of doing business, but even the richest people only have 24 hours in a day. I personally think community service would be better than jail: if nothing else, it’s cheaper and I think these guys would be incredibly motivated to avoid spending their time scraping gum off of park benches.
The only reason for prisons and criminal justice of various to exist throughout history has been to (1) deter crime by threatening punishment and (2) give the rest of the society confidence that "crime doesn't pay" - because a system that has higher intrinsic trust and follows rules invariably outperforms ones that don't economically and often militarily. Yes part of such a successful system is graded treatment for people who have a better chance of rehabilitation as such folks are much more useful in society and tempering of justice contextually.
However trying to add additional tasks to the system, like rehabilitation or empowerment or economic development of a disadvantaged class serves only to compromise the core function and result in societal breakdown. These are all important tasks and they should be delivered through other parts of the government that are focused on these missions. It is perfectly fine for different arms of a government to have seemingly contradictory missions and these need not be aligned like how audit/controls and commercial functions are not necessarily aligned.
Citation needed
Prisons, generally, suck.
Are prisons good schools or preventers of recidivism? Some say yes, some say no. But most agree that they suck.
I cannot speak for the remainder of HN but my read is that prisons are effective at delivering suckage--sometimes more or less than intended, which you can call a miscarriage of justice.
America has weird leadership fetishes. Captains are supposed to go down with the ship but in times of crisis the President abandons us all to run away on his.
That’s… not that weird when you think about it. The ‘Going down with the ship’ cliche exists because the ship and crew are main responsibility of the Captain. His responsibility and power do not extend Nation-wide. In a time of crises the last thing you need is your head of state throwing their life away, because then you also have to worry about matters of succession on top of the pre-existing crisis.
we've never actually tried prosecuting/convicting/incarcerating CEOs or other high level officials, so we don't know what the deterrent on that would actually be. we need to run the experiments through to the end to see.
Every great once in a while, yes, we actually prosecute the hell out of a few executives. But it's hardly commonplace.
I don't know who has argued that, HN is a community of people all with different views. That's a big part of why I am here!
I think the current crime rate in El Salvador, which is now supposedly lower than in the US, is a pretty clear illustration that prisons do work. Of course, there are also a lot of negatives and injustices with mass imprisonment, but it sure looks like it works to reduce crime.
But the people who knowingly did wrong should receive some sort of punishment, even if it is just financial or being barred from their career path.
I prefer to look at it in terms of the harm caused to other people, and how direct that harm is.
* Use illegal drugs? No direct harm to anyone else.
* Deal drugs? Indirect harm to others.
* Put someone in prison for crimes you know they didn't commit? Direct harm to others. (And on top of that, abuse of the trust that the public has put in you, in allowing you to have that power over others.)
The magnitude of harm should also factor in, but I think that's a discussion for another day.
But for some cases, excessive monetary fines may be better (especially if the person who would go to jail is a low level expendable peon but the large fine would come from the company).
People may not be much deterred by punishments but large enough judgements scare the shit out of lawyers.
But I think it's more nuanced than that. I don't think it's hypocritical to believe that some crimes are better handled with mental health care or drug treatment programs than prison, while also believing that people who knowingly send people to jail under false pretenses should themselves spend some time there.
Also consider that sometimes people think that others should be punished. If my neighbor goes to jail because they like cocaine, and just had some around the house (and weren't dealing), I don't think I'm going to sit back and be all like, "wow, that person had it coming, glad they're getting punished for ::gasp:: having some powdery substance at home, the horror". But if my neighbor goes to jail for murdering my other neighbor, I'm probably fine thinking that a murderer deserves some sort of punishment for what they did.
So even prison abolitionists are often rather sanguine about imprisoning people like CEOs and high level officials who, despite being absolutely manifestly not railroaded, who have the structure covering from them at every turn, and end up both committing and being convicted as criminals.
I don't think this is necessarily contradictory: you can be fine with the idea of some kind of prison while also recognizing that the current system is a rather pointless and dysfunctional form of sadism that has no relation to any practical or ethical goal.
Ironically, the threat of prison might be much more effective if white collar types expected to be punished more regularly than they are. Economically, people who wind up incarcerated are often[1] on the low end of the income scale. That is, people who may feel they have little to lose by committing crimes because their standard of living isn't great to begin with. [2]
If these CEOs/HLOs felt there was a good chance they'd end up not only ruining their career but actually going to jail ... they might feel they have too much to lose to commit the crimes in the first place.
[1] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/income.html [2] I'm not suggesting that the standard of living in prison is comparable to being free, even if you are actually dirt poor. But if you've been broke or poor, and you have no expectation of that changing, you might understand why someone might take risks.
First of all - HN is a website where many different people, with different views post comments and have discussions/debates. Declaring that there's one singular view while ignoring the dozens of debates in comment sections all over the front page is kind of absurd. Some people don't think prisons work, some do. The voices calling for prison reform or abolishment may not be the same voices calling for CEO imprisonment.
Second - The idea that the law should be applied to everyone with the same vigor is not at odds with wanting to change bad laws. If the law can send a peon to prison for years, it should just as well send a CEO to prison for years too. Hell, if I think a law is bad and needs to change, having a CEO face consequences for it might cause a rare circumstance where a CEO uses their position and influence to effect the change.
Third - wanting prisons that actually rehabilitate or deter or whatever is often advocating for prison reform, not consequence-free law-breaking. I can want a murderer sent to prison at the same time I want make prisons actually effective, in fact it's pretty consistent no?
Fourth a lot of voices are louder when a CEO or official is suspect of a crime since (as in this case) often they get away with crimes far worse than those committed by people who are severely punished. Even when the ceo/official is blatantly guilty. Even more so when the ceo and officials commit additional crimes and frame innocents for them.
Fifth, in the spirit of "turnabout is fair play" - (again as in this case) the CEOs and officials that wanted to stomp out the bad actors and be tough on the crime should not be hypocritical and accept that the crimes they committed need to be stomped out and have tough consequences.
rich people on the other hand