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Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

Oh, absolutely, and it can be seen for example in suicide rates [1], or the weird state of Japanese criminal justice where prosecutors will only go for nailed-shut cases so that they don't "lose face" (while society as a whole suffers) [2], not to mention the entire issue surrounding "forced confessions".

[1] https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Asia-Insight/Youth-suicide...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Jap...

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By definition, negative side effects that can be cherry-picked are more numerous and pronunced in an Individualist society, as the very point of Collectivism is to steer the crowds away from trouble, while Individualism tolerates a wider range of individual tragedies for the potential upside.

Your examples were not well chosen anyway, as their relation to collectivism seems dubious, and US prosecutors also have high conviction rates without trial through threat of big punishment.

yes of course, the enlightened Americans are so much better at handling crime. pointing at western justice systems to say that western values are superior - this must be satire?

This seems like an uncharitable reading. I don't think there was a comparison made.

Any justice system with a very high conviction rate is either unjust or extremely selective. The American federal government is also extremely selective in prosecution, and for the same reason. Losing makes the prosecutor look bad.

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