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> particularly for white collar crimes like this

This is why it's a hard pill to swallow. In the worst case, unprecedented matter, this white-collar crime gets 2 years.

People, particularly poor and often black Americans, have gotten 20+ years for possession.

It stings. We're trying to go back and remedy some of those absurd punishments but still, there is a stark and obvious unfairness here. And that sucks. All we can hope is that, going forward, we treat our more vulnerable groups with more dignity. But I agree, she shouldn't face harsher punishment.

> particularly poor and often black Americans, have gotten 20+ years for possession.

Just wanted to point out how insincere/misleading of a statement that is. People in those "locked up for 20 years for drugs" circumstances universally all have decade long felonious records, have committed umpteen crimes, time after time after time, are on probation with strict requirements to not be involved in illegal activities, get yet another drug charge, and are finally given a harsh sentence after being given light sentences the last dozen times in a row.

You present it as "this normal, law abiding citizen, was caught with some drugs and just thrown in jail for 20 years". Which is demonstrably not the case and is intentionally leaving out all the other details, which is really manipulative.

You also leave out that the vast, vast, majority of that group that are caught with drugs are NOT thrown in jail for 20 years.

> People in those "locked up for 20 years for drugs" circumstances universally all have decade long felonious records, have committed umpteen crimes, time after time after time, are on probation with strict requirements to not be involved in illegal activities, get yet another drug charge, and are finally given a harsh sentence after being given light sentences the last dozen times in a row.

That's... not accurate. Yes, there are those people.

And then there's Florida, and its two strike law. Which within hours of being enacted, caused a woman who was arrested for stealing a package of undershirts from Walmart to 15 years in prison - she had a couple of misdemeanor arrests prior.

But if stealing underwear (and Walmart underwear, not La Perla) twice can get you 15 years jail, that's a long way from your "they all have decades of felonies, all have violated probation" absolutism.

Another example was someone who was arrested for LSD possession after a Grateful Dead concert, released. Was arrested 3 years later for marijuana possession, put on probation. Several years later arrested for LSD possession, and federally sentenced to life in prison without parole at the age of 24, only being released after President Obama granted clemency just before his 50th birthday.

> universally all have decade long felonious records

Not true at all, it depends on the state. In the south with a history of unfair justice for black Americans and "tough on crime" standards, you have two strike or three strike systems. And not just for felonies! And this doesn't even touch on perpetual imprisonment laws, which have a long history dating back to Jim Crow post-reconstruction south.

> are NOT thrown in jail for 20 years

The best way to not be thrown in jail for drug charges is to be white, lol. These laws are thinly veiled discrimination machines. It's not a coincidence that the drugs with the most iron hammer happen to be the drugs black Americans frequent.

Again, this is changing now. We don't do this anymore. But go back to the 80s, the 90s, the early 2000s and this was very prolific, particularly in the south.

> This is why it's a hard pill to swallow. In the worst case, unprecedented matter, this white-collar crime gets 2 years.

> People, particularly poor and often black Americans, have gotten 20+ years for possession.

But why does Ellison need to get extra time because poor/black Americans have been treated unfairly? Fix the injustice at the root rather than "fixing" it by treating everybody equally unfairly.

I never said she did, I said that's why this is a hard pill to swallow. Unfairness sucks, and it's unreasonable to expect people to not get upset at unfairness. Obviously, the fix needs to come from the other direction.

I wonder if that's precisely the sentiment that has been part of the reason the USA has become the country with the highest % of incarcerated people.

You wonder? You could have done a little research and found that prisons in the US aren't filled with people that stole 11 billion dollars and got more than 2 years in prison.

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2024.html

This site has useful graphs but I don't see a category for stealing 11 billion dollars.

Yes, a very large number of people are in prisons for stealing far far far less money. But the motivation of seeing punishment as itself a good thing rather than a thing that achieves a downstream outcome overlaps.

There are other reasons for mass incarceration in the US too (perpetuation of racial hierarchies is a big one), but "people who do bad things should just be crushed" is a key element.

Yes, a very large number of people are in prisons for stealing far far far less money.

Most people are in prison for violent crimes, then some for drugs, then theft.

But the motivation of seeing punishment as itself a good thing rather than a thing that achieves a downstream outcome overlaps.

I don't know what exactly you mean by this, but maybe we should be an evolved and caring society and let everyone out of jail and prison because punishment is cruel.

but "people who do bad things should just be crushed" is a key element.

Let's be clear that someone who stole 11 billion dollars going away for 2 years is not "being crushed".

Almost anyone on the planet would go to prison for 2 years just to be able to invest 11 billion for a few years and give back the principle. At only 4%, that's 440 million dollars a year or $1.2 million a day.

White collar criminals with magnitude more body bags are not getting long periods of suffering that poorly resourced petty criminals are. I think society would work better if they, specifically got more relative to other groups, including some violent criminals.

Someone is suffering more than someone else and the solution is for everyone to suffer as badly? This sounds like the worst kind of race to the bottom.

I'm also worried about what it does to those who need to do the actual work to make people suffer. It must be poison for your soul to work on making others suffer. A downward spiral.

The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way

>solution is for everyone to suffer as badly

I think one expedient solution to changing the game is for the priveleged to suffer equally as the under priveleged, not just because that's fair / justice, but because they're in a better position to realize the the current race sucks when it's not rigged/biased. They should also suffer proportional to social harm done, a white collar criminal who hurts 1000s a little should get as much time as a criminal who hurts 1 a lot. There's already plenty people whose job it is to make others suffer, TBH, knowing some who works in corrections, enough psychopaths that it makes no difference if the people they oversee gets more "diverse". And if we really want their jobs to be more humane, then maybe putting priveleged in positions where they have to improve system for everyone, if only out of sheer self interest, is how to get that done.

SBF is going to get the shaft, just like many other prominent white collar criminals, like Bernie Madoff, have. The reason Ellison is getting off lightly is because she made a deal with prosecutors and gave them all they needed to build a strong case. Same happens when people in a non-white-collar criminal organisation snitch, they tend to get decent deals. The reason a low level drug dealer doesn't get that is because he has no information of value to the prosecution that he can use as leverage.

I find my fellow Americans generally lack empathy, and hypocrisy runs rampant. People are very harsh and critical until they’re in the same boat.

> I wonder if that's precisely the sentiment that has been part of the reason the USA has become the country with the highest % of incarcerated people.

No. We don't have hundreds of thousands of billion-size crypto fraudsters. We do have a lot of drug users and small-time drug dealers that are in prison for drug offenses, for example. Or a lot of mentally ill people who are in prison... well, because there's no other place to put them in, really.

I am not here to argue about if US should incarcerate more or less, but certainly having a billion-dollar crypto fraudster sit in prison more than 2 years would hardly make a change in that situation. It's an exceptional crime, and people expect exceptional punishment for it. Either way, it won't make difference for hundreds of thousands of people in jail for unexceptional offenses.

That’s because 30% of the U.S. is sadists who want to see people suffer. Be thankful you live in Europe!