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Comment by GiorgioG | Hacker News Reader

On one hand I empathize, on the other hand - she made the poor choices that wound up getting herself incarcerated. There are long-lasting consequences to their actions. When society has to choose between spending a dollar on re-entry or spending it on other more (perceived) worthwhile causes - we know how that goes. Before you all get mad at me for saying that, we don't live in a fantasy world with infinite resources that can do X and also do Y.

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You'll have to forgive me for not believing that you empathize, since most of your thoughts here are about rationalizing why there's nothing be to done.

There are other ways of thinking about this problem than as a zero-sum matter of where to allocate tax dollars.

I don’t really give a shit whether you think I’m sincere or not. Lots of people are in shitty situations of their own doing, or not of their own doing - I can emphasize with them and still prefer not to prioritize tax dollars on their situation over others that benefits society more in my opinion.

Fine, you're sincere. But you didn't actually read my comment.

she made poor choices but 8 years for assault where no one was permanently injured seems excessive. She served a year before an appeal had her out, before it was reversed and she went back for another 8 years, I'd call that excessive and as the article entails, really serves no one's best interest, not her daughters, not societies and not the victims.

That's not even budgeting back the costs associated with housing and caring for this person in prison nor the time and energy that's going to go back into reintegrating this person into society.

> we don't live in a fantasy world with infinite resources that can do X and also do Y.

Right, for instance in this world, we have to choose between, say, Jeff Bezos renting Venice for the weekend and school lunches for kids, or Elon Musk buying a presidency or programs to reduce prison recidivism. It’s a tough problem, and we’ve all gotta make sacrifices and make do.

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