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Comment by Mithaldu | Hacker News Reader

> At what point does society get to tell people "you know what, knock it off"?

You're thinking about this the wrong way.

First, ask yourself: Why is there the justice system and prisons?

The answer: To reduce occurrence of crime.

Now why are prisons meant to help reduce crime? By scaring people into not committing crimes? That obviously doesn't work, especially when many people live lives so bad that they can't see a way of improving their lives but by committing crimes, which is pretty much all the people in that document.

Now how would you actually get those people to stop committing crimes? The document actually shows that:

Educate them. Once they know enough to actually be able to meaningfully participate in modern society they see life entirely differently.

Only problem is: These people have reached that point and are barred from actually acting upon it.

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What is it these guys are doing right and we're doing wrong?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/11/sweden-closes-p...

This is only my own opinion and theory, but:

http://www.studyineurope.eu/study-in-sweden/tuition-fees

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits_in_Sweden

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Sweden

Nonsense.

The primary way prisons reduce crime is by people who commit crimes.

The problem is generally their personality. Habitual criminals are impulsive, aggressive, and bad at thinking ahead.

It's unfair to expect everyone else to put up with a lifetime of offenses, even if each one isn't particularly horrible individually.

>> The primary way prisons reduce crime is by people who commit crimes.

You realize there's a virtually unlimited supply of people that could potentially qualify to be locked up because they are criminal for violating some more or less arbitrary law, right? Are you proposing locking up each and every one of them to get to a crime-less nirvana where all criminals are behind bars, and everyone outside is perfectly pure and honest?

The fact that there are people here defending the idea you should be sentenced to life for 3 offenses like stealing a wallet makes me sick. He who is without sins throw the first stone, some of you saying things like this would probably be in jail yourselves if this kind of 'justice' was the norm

There is not an unlimited supply of potential prisoners. As wmil says, imprisonable crimes are generally those arising from poor impulse control and low intelligence. (If you want to learn more, Russell Barkley has some informative books on the connection between brain executive function, intelligence, and life outcomes.)

If we made wearing socks a three-strikes-eligible law, the same people would go to prison. Normal people would adapt, impulsive and dull people wouldn't. American criminal law is basically a test of certain neurological abilities. If you fail the test, they hit you with the banhammer. Psychiatrists would be cheaper and better, but democracy produces popular myths, not rational plans.

Proclaiming theories as fact is not a very nice way to proceed in an argument.

That said, please consider a counter-theory to your theory: Due to the fact that many people imprisoned for long terms do end up obtaining their GED and one or more vocations, it seems quite probably that american criminal law is a test of education more than one of genetic factors.

Alas, no. Mental tests in childhood and early adolescence predict subsequent educational failure. The effect is independent of race, culture, parental socioeconomic status, etc.

That doesn't mean anything though. :)

It merely proved a correlation between mental ability and educational success in the current educational system.

It does not show whether the cause of crime is the actual lack of mental ability, or the failure of the education system to properly prepare them for adult life.

In other words: You've not shown that more effort to educate people would result in the same crime levels as with the current effort.

The point of the justice system is to adequately determine punishments for crimes committed.

The point of prisons is to provide a place to isolate people from society that have been deemed not fit for society (permanently or temporary.)

Neither one is there to reduce crime. They're reactive not proactive systems. Society uses them as examples to deter future crime, but that does not make that their job.

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