There is no research I’m aware of on people for whom the prospect of punishment did act as a deterrent (i.e. people who decided not to commit the crime).
So I argue that there is a very big selection bias in literature surrounding the effectiveness of punishment as a deterrent .
Punishment absolutely works as deterrent. Boy I know people that would absolutely forge the tax declaration, if it wasn't a terrible fine if they do!
The key point is the probability of the punishment being enforced. There is a trade off calculation going on, like "I could get 5 years prison and 10 grand fine... IF they catch me!". Studies suggest, that if you have 100% probability of being caught, then the punishment is extremely good deterrent.
Surely this can’t be true - as a trivial example I would be surprised if removing parking fines wouldn’t increase parking violations, or if Singapore stopped punishing littering that it wouldn’t affect the amount of littering etc
Maybe the difference between a 10 year or 20 year sentence for murder doesn’t make much difference, but if murder had no punishment at all I would be very surprised if that wouldn’t raise the murder rate!
While I agree that people conducting corporate fraud think they will get away with it - I don't agree that the long sentences won't act as a deterrence. If you set the sentence for these sorts of crimes to 1 year rather than 15+, that completely changes the risk profile for people who think there is a 90% chance they will get away with it.
Sentence length has a small effect on crime rates, but what really matters is enforcement levels. If you have a 99% chance of getting caught & punished, you don't bother.
I think this just highlights how stupid the idea is that punishment doesn’t act as a deterrent
Your assertion is not the slam dunk you think it is.
I think when money is involved that sort of stuff is much more likely.
Of course, those prisoners aren’t billionaire healthcare CEOs, so maybe not…
Purdue Pharma is a recent instructive case. The marketing folks did some terrible stuff, but it would be pretty rough on victims, employees, and patients who need pain meds to respond by tearing down Purdue's factories and auctioning off the contents. So the bankruptcy plan calls for keeping the factories running, transferring them to a new company called Knoa, which will be owned by a trust that's dedicated to managing the opioid crisis. Isn't Knoa just Purdue wearing a new hat? Kinda, sure, but there's no better alternative.
At some point, recovery needs to take a back seat to deterrence.
I really dislike the black or white thinking of, "if we're not maximizing recovery then victims will get nothing."
You mean the owners and management and employees? Because a "business" in the way it's being suggested isn't a human with emotions or feelings, you can't "deter" a legal construct...
Maybe answerable ones, if the deterrence theory works out! But I don’t understand who it is that’s supposed to be getting punished or deterred. The owners are losing the business anyway, what do they care if you put the assets to productive use or not?
The investors who will continue to make money from the business that committed fraud and lost virtually no profit from it under the current model. As long as fraud continues not to affect the bottom line, businesses aren't going to stop committing it.
(As, perhaps, they should be.)
Easy solution: fire (and imprison) the executives, sell off the entire company, leave the owners/investors with nothing.
That sets a proper incentive for shareholders to not send yes-men or people with a dozen or more other well-paid low-effort board memberships into corporate boards but people actually willing and capable of controlling the executive.
Imprisoning executives is rare enough (you gotta piss off the truly rich for that, e.g. Madoff or Benko), but seizing and selling off an entire company from its prior owners is something I haven't even heard of.
What can happen is that a company crashes down due to fines and/or public pressure, but that's not the same.
And that is fundamentally different in messaging to owners and boards than a court order explicitly stating "the government has seized this company because too many laws were violated too egregiously, the entire board is banned for 5-10 years from holding any other board position, the owners/shareholders will not be compensated".
Bankruptcies and dissolutions happen all the time, they are a part of normal healthy capitalism. But explicit, no-nonsense, no-excuse seizures not.
It used to be that "company reputation" was part of the value of a stock certificate. That disappeared and the primary value of CEO became being a sufficiently raging asshole to pump the value of the lottery ticket at all costs.
Bringing back a bit of risk to investors would help put some pushback into the system.
However, I don't think it's practical to get fraudsters to pay back all the money in most cases as they won't be able to. What we need is a faster way to detect and imprison fraudsters to limit the damage they do. Also, most people don't respond to the "size" of punishments, but more to the likelihood that they will be caught.
And no, the severity of the crime does not (IMHO) justify it.
"The stated goal of the Swedish prison system is to create a safer society by reducing recidivism and rehabilitating offenders rather than focusing solely on punishment. This is achieved through humane treatment, education, and reintegration programs designed to prepare prisoners for life after release."
Right now the punishment is confinement. When you add effectively unpaid labour in prison as part of acceptable punishment, you're also paving the way for a future where unpaid labor as a standalone punishment is also acceptable. That's just slavery by law.
Except for some rare cases, I think you'll find that the cost of keeping an inmate in prison for a day makes it that you never break even
Inside a prison, should they not have a similar responsibility? They commit a crime and as such are held in stasis? Should they not at least carry the burden of themselves
I know of prison ran machine shops that were doing die-casting and tool production. I also heard of one (didn't see) that was doing basket weaving for a floral/arrangement company.
these are shallow 'social benefits'; but the companies were privately owned.
I guess the classic example is license plate pressing.. I guess that's a social good? I don't know if it goes on at all anymore.
I don't think there's enough jobs in prisons that need physical labour where they can cover the costs. You would then have to train them in useful skills but incompetence is not a crime so you cannot penalize those who "cannot learn/do" skilled work.
Other alternative is to make them work the same job they did outside but that is a slippery slope with lot of potential for abuse.
At that point it really is just slavery, which they can already do as protected in the US Constitution.
(I’m not arguing for this. I agree with restitution and believe that sentences longer than a certain point are also pointless and a net negative to society.)
Hypothetically let's say govt is allowed to use unpaid labour outside menial tasks and the prison system is setup in a way to efficiently utilize the skills of their labour pool and is allowed to outsource their skills to private entities at attractive rate for covering prison costs (i.e. more money left for govt spending)
E.g. tradesmen employed on their related jobs. A programmer employed in software jobs or a technician "loaned" to a nearby lab etc.
Don't you think the local/state governments will then have incentive to fill their pool with "missing" talent according to the job requirements.
AMENDMENT XIII
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Federal prisons pay roughly $0.12 to $0.40 per hour for regular jobs, which isn’t much better.
The hypocrisy of the US is breathtaking sometimes, and the current administration has the gall to criticise europe.
The constitution isn't a holy book, it's some opinions someone wrote down on paper. Some of them might be wrong.
The discussion around billionaires needs to move away from taxing their income and beyond taxing their wealth. We need to start talking about how much of their wealth we should be taking away. Light it on fire or delete it. The whole world will be better off.