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Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

Talk about cruel punishments, locking up someone for two fucking robberies without any deaths for nearly a century is unreasonable, cruel and defies everything our civilization stands for.

But hey, private prison operators need to make money and police/DA/any part of the justice system profits from being "tough on crime"...

Thank God I'm German, even if you end up killing someone you'll at most get 15 years (okay, there are some exceptions, but they're literally exceptions, not like US where exceptions tend to become standards).

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Another side of this is that the harsher you make the punishments for small crimes, the less you discourage moving up to bigger crimes.

If you're robbing a place and your punishment for being caught is effectively life in prison, what reason do you have not to murder all the potential witnesses to improve your odds of getting away with the crime? All you have is morality, and I don't want to rely on the morality of criminals.

I know that the deterrent effect of prison on criminals is highly debatable, but if somebody is robbing me, I don't want all of the incentives given to him to point towards murdering me too.

The main function of prisons is to keep the criminals away from law-abiding society. Note that the guy's accomplice continued his criminal behavior inside prison.

That said, 10-15 is more than enough for this kind of crime.

> That said, 10-15 is more than enough for this kind of crime.

Indeed. When he gets two-three murders worth of time without murdering anyone, you really have to question the proportionality of the whole thing.

They both definitely deserved jail time. I'm certain the crimes had an impact on the people they robbed and threatened.

And I agree, 10-15, MAYBE up to 20 is proportionate. 90 years is not.

20 years for two armed robberies is not remotely appropriate. It only seems appropriate in a system where people routinely get sentences longer than a standard lifespan.

And it's not only from a moral standpoint - the economics of it are ridiculous, too. The social harm done from two robberies is not worth the cost of locking someone up until they die.

The main function of prisons is to keep the criminals away from law-abiding society

Really? I thought it was about correcting/reforming.

Depends on the country maybe? Here in Brazil no one believes criminals can be fixed, here we want them away, locked up or dead.

They should change name from correctional facilities to something else then.

Joking aside, I think that using prisons just for isolation is a waste of tax payer money.

Just think about at the case at hand, we are wasting the money needed to keep this guy in jail for another 8 decades with no actual reasons.

edit: fix grammar

What's the alternative, in your mind?

Where, here in Brasil they are not called Correctional Facility!

In fact the only place where I saw "Correctional Facility" was in US-movies and series, I thought it was some fictional name or something like that.

It's not a matter of belief, it is a matter of demonstrable fact that some criminals are capable of completely reforming. To deny this is simply to deny reality.

(It is also clearly apparent that some criminals are unreformable - telling the difference a priori remains the hard part).

So an 18 year old kid gets busted for a drug offense. He gets thrown in jail for several years along with hardened and violent criminals. His "rehabilitation" consists of an immersion in a world of criminality, and when he is finally released, he has a record that will stay with him for the rest of his life and severely limit his choices moving forward.

Yes, he's been reformed. Just not in a good way. Not in a way that does anything to try to fit him back into society.

The four recognized purposes of punishment are: deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and retribution. Which is primary, or even whether they are all legitimate is a matter of fierce debate.

> Another side of this is that the harsher you make the punishments for small crimes, the less you discourage moving up to bigger crimes.

Maybe everybody should go to prison for a while to stop crime before it even starts.

Disproportionate penalties may be as likely to harden them as reform them. What you get out isn't a repentant model citizen. Unless your goal is to let these people rot and die and just release corpses.

This is a reasonable comment, but what does it have to do with the comment you replied to?

I think he misread it. I had to absorb the sentiment of the rest of the post and re-read your first line a few times to properly parse it.

For me, "the less you discourage" reads less clearly than "the more you encourage". I realise that the two aren't identical in meaning, but I would have chosen the latter because a compounded minimization ("the less you don't do x") is generally less immediately clear than a maximization ("the more you do x").

This is compounded by your opening of "Another side of this". This can mean "another aspect of the problem you describe which agrees with your point" but it can also mean "another aspect of how sentencing should work that comes to a different conclusion". For many, the latter is more intuitive ("two sides to every story" etc etc).

Not passing judgement on how you worded your post, just explaining why someone might misread it.

Fair. Looks like he's not alone, too. I'll keep that in mind!

You know -- I think we're on the same page wrt how the punishment really ought to fit the crime; I misread what you were saying :)

Maybe I should take it down -- initially I thought you were talking about discouraging crime w/ a big punishment, but in fact you were talking about discouraging a criminals restraint because they're already going to get nailed in a big way...

I think I'll take mine down and let your original post stand.

Edit: or I'll just leave it so the flow is preserved -- there's a thread here now that explains everything. Let the downvotes fit the crime though, please ;)

Leaving it is good by me. Like I said, it's a reasonable comment, just seemed out of place since it sounded like disagreement but said the same thing. Now that everyone knows what's up, it fits fine.

> Another side of this is that the harsher you make the punishments for small crimes, the less you discourage moving up to bigger crimes.

Actually it makes it easier ... there is upper limit on how much you could punish a person. And if the penalties for stealing pack of gum and high treason are the same - well ... why bother with only the first.

That's what I said: harsh punishment for minor crimes reduces the deterrent effect of harsh punishment for major crimes.

Read that sentence/post again, because the two of you agree.

Too many monsters too little sleep :(

> there is upper limit on how much you could punish a person

I would not be so sure about that. We, humans, are extremely creative when it comes to hurt each other.

If you're robbing a place and your punishment for being caught is effectively life in prison, what reason do you have not to murder all the potential witnesses to improve your odds of getting away with the crime? All you have is morality, and I don't want to rely on the morality of criminals.

In Heat, Al Pacino's character summarizes this attitude in a quick line (paraphrase): "Once it escalated to a murder-one for all of them, why not pop guard number two because ... what difference does it make?"

The scene is an armored truck holdup and a loose-cannon member of the robbers' crew shoots one of the two guards (By accident? Or is he a psychopath?). After this, the second guard needs to die, as a living witness, because the entire crew is already exposed to first-degree murder charges. Simple risk management.

Right. In that scene, the criminals (aside from the nutjob who shoots the first guard) are somewhat moral, but once the first guard dies, the cold calculations outweigh their somewhat loose morality.

(Great movie, too. If anyone else is reading this and wonders wtf it's all about, go check it out.)

The movie stands out for the actoring duel between Pacino and DeNiro, as well as (IIRC) sound.

I may be misremembering the story or context, since I can't find it with an internet search at the moment.

There was an ancient Chinese general, who lost a battle. The punishment for failure was death. The punishment for mutiny was also death. The general learned of this, and lead his soldiers in a revolt.

I recall a similar one where a work party for the Great Wall was delayed, and delay was punishable by death, so the leader of the work party led them on a successful revolt instead, and became emperor.

Not to mention they slapped them with kidnapping charges because they forced the people they were robbing into a room.... How the fuck....

The sad truth is the American people simply do not care. Period. If you are a criminal you are a nobody and you get everything you deserve in the eyes of many Americans. People sit and rot in prison for the stupidest of reasons or technicalities and then when they get out we are surprised when they sometime return to a life of crime? They don't know anything else and the rules of their parole are often impossible to adhere to without support. Like having to interview for jobs they know they won't get just to satisfy their parole terms. We really need to get more people out of the prisons and back on the streets with reasonable parole programs. However this is the "terrorism" argument all over again, no politician wants to sign his/her name to something like this because ONE single fuckup will have it all blow up in their face and potentially ruin their career....

Full Disclosure: I work for a company that, among other things, provides electronic monitoring to jurisdictions as an alternative to incarceration. That said any views expressed here are my own and not that of my employer.

I think its easy to say that sitting in your chair from this side. I would imagine that if I was one of the people in the bank that was being robbed, and I were forced in to a room. I would feel that I was being kidnapped / held hostage.

Do you think that because you and a colleague were held hostage ('kidnapped' is ridiculous, not even taken off-site) that it's worth each perpetrator getting about 30 years in prison? That that moment of fear is worth locking someone up for a generation and a half? That that moment of fear is even worth you paying taxes to keep that person locked up for that time?

30 years ago, the Cold War was still in full swing. Mutually Assured Destruction was still something people were afraid of. The world wide web was still about 10 years away. USA for Africa's "We Are The World" was just about to hit #1 in the charts. Big hair and legwarmers were fashionable. Half the people that use this site hadn't even been born yet. 30 years is an incredibly long time.

Man, you layer it on thick. I just turned 30!

More big hair and legwarmers for you!

Actually, I was thinking about it a bit more this morning, and found another interesting 30 year stretch: from the declaration of war in WWI to the close of WWII in Europe (VE Day) was about a month short of 31 years. Taking it to VP Day is about 1 month into 31 years.

So both world wars and everything that happened in-between took 'only' 30-ish years. :)

There's a reason we don't let crime victims decide the punishment for the criminal. This stuff is supposed to be objective. (How well that's achieved is debatable, but that's the goal.) Bringing up the emotions of the victims is not a good argument.

Sometimes timing is everything. The article mentioned that the crime was committed near the end of a violent period in that region and the public was giving politicians the message that they needed to crack down on crime. So what would have normally been a crime that merited a decade or so of prison time received a near-life sentence. He was essentially being punished for the actions of the criminals that came before him.

It reminds me a bit of something that happened to the brother of a former colleague of mine. He was an animal rights activist that allegedly, in protest, set off a bomb at an animal testing facility. The bomb went off at a time when no one was there. If he'd done it a few years earlier, it wouldn't have received much attention. But it happened shortly after 9/11 and the sentiment in the country was to stop terrorism at all costs. And so he's been on the FBI's most wanted list ever since. Don't get me wrong, setting off bombs is a serious matter, but I have a hard time believing that a stupid juvenile prank that only resulted in property damage puts someone in the top 10 most dangerous people the FBI could be pursuing.

Timing can be a bitch and the justice that someone receives is often more about the vengeance that society is yearning for rather than what the offender deserves.

If you think about it in Germany he would have gotten a 9 year sentence for something like this. It worked, he was rehabilitated and became an integrated member of society again.

This guy is a good argument against these long sentences, it doesn't make any sense for a society to keep this guy until he dies in prison for taxpayer money (not even considering the cruelty of it). Especially when he didn't commit a murder.

It's very similar to the drug problem. As soon as we label these people criminals, we just don't care what happens to them. Because they are now not people, the DA has no problem throwing every single possible crime against them. This means they are not prosecuted for much more than what they did. "Going easy" on criminals is not a good way to retain a position in government in the US, so we do the opposite.

It is interesting to note that the judge made good comments about how unjust this seemed, but was unable to do anything about it. That says a lot about our judicial system.

> As soon as we label these people criminals, we just don't care what happens to them.

Probably because felons don't have the right to vote. So no politician or anyone else cares much.

It's highly variable:

http://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2014/08/do-convicted-felons...

In most states, voting rights are restored upon completion of the sentence. In Maine and Vermont, prisoners have the right to vote.

Florida, Iowa, Kentucky and Virginia make the loss of the vote permanent.

More and more we prosecute people for who they are, not what they did

"private prison operators need to make money"

Public unions in many states (California being the major example) lobby for longer sentences all the time. Many spend more money than private companies. It's a humans acting selfishly problem, not a corporate problem.

The profit incentive we use for prisons (occupancy number) is the wrong profit incentive. We should pay on capacity and recidivism numbers (bonus after some number of years).

He should have ran for the Canadian border the day he was released by mistake. (Probably wouldn't have helped since we extradict.)

In Canada, you can kill someone and get only six years.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/killer-of-thai-welder...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/glowatski-sentenced-to-six-yea...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/northern-sask-man...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/kenny-gr...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/ryan-hickey-sent...

If I wanted to murder someone what would be the best country to do it? Obviously not the US.

Edit: I mean get caught, do my time and be on my way.

Arguably, the best country to murder someone (as in, get away with it) would be any dictatorship where you are one of the thugs employed by the murderous regime, with the task of making people "disappear".

Also, in any country in which the justice system is broken, you can murder people and get away with it by getting a job as an executioner. What your state considers a lawful execution is regarded as murder in the eyes of the sane world, and so you're getting away with murder.

Why do all that work when you can do it in Canada, serve a few years and get on with your life?

Antarctica?

Good luck going anywhere after you say "No, I don't know where Jack is. Maybe we should head back to the ship without him."

I think it's worth noting that the United States has 3x as many murders per capita per year as compared to Canada. I'd hate to see American-style justice come to Canada, because it clearly doesn't keep the country safe.

Business as usual in the Prison Industrial Complex, aka the New Jim Crowe. Some people make lots of money by locking people up. I don't expect the laws to change anytime soon.

Most of the victims of gangster thug types are ordinary black people. Only confused white people view the thugs as the victims.

I doubt Mr. Takita is one of those. You seem to be the one out of touch, however. The vast majority of American blacks are opposed to the policies of the Ferguson Police Department, the Drug War, and the mass incarceration of black men. Violence is visited most upon this community, but it didn't arise spontaneously. It has been fostered for generations by openly racist legal policies.

That's another extreme to me... 15 years for taking a life seems extremely low. With the ever extending life expectancy, this is not even half of persons productive years. Murder is an exceptional crime and deserves exceptional punishment.

The lives of the victim and those around the victim are forever altered, yet under German laws, the life of the murderer can go back on track and conviction be effectively hidden...

I have to disagree. You don't want people like this around. Do you think this guy would stop if a family is crossing the street while he is trying to get away?

I have a problem with a single mother spending a night jail over an unpaid parking ticket.

Fifteen years while loved ones of the deceased spend the rest of their lives in mourning? Thank God I'm not.

Why, what would be your concern?

Source: http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Germany/Uni...

Murder rate for 2011 (Homicide rate per year per 100,000 inhabitants): Germany: 0.86. USA: 5.

That's nearly 6x as many murders per capita in the USA than Germany.

FYI "because I want the person to suffer" is not a valid reason to lock someone up.

We lock people up as a punishment just like your parents may have sent you to your room when you were acting up. We do it under the thinking of they won't do it again once they've paid their debt but that thinking is flawed on SO many level. Among them are:

1. Prison does NOT reform people in fact it pushes many deeper into a life of crime

2. Even after they have "paid their debt to society" they are still ostracised and disadvantaged

3. Unlike your parents there is no mercy/compassion in our judicial system AFAICT or if there is it's only directed at upper-class white males....

People are also locked up to keep them away from ordinary citizens.

> FYI "because I want the person to suffer" is not a valid reason to lock someone up.

I don't know if it's valid, but it certainly a reason why we lock people up. "An eye for an eye" is a universal principle and I assume victims expect some type of revenge. Maybe that's something we should refrain from in a perfect world, but I don't think we're there yet!

"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind"

I think that concept is fundamentally flawed... I don't think it's sustainable or really fair.

And how can we murder the Aurora shooter 17 times?

Don't know about you, but to me punishment is about first and foremost protecting the society from persons actions and about offering a chance for redemption/improvement.

Vengeance is never a good agenda. Eye for an eye is an universal sadist principle.

Other countries put people in prison to protect the public, not to make them suffer. Many countries dropped the victorian method (lock people up and throw away the key, and lock them up in fairly nasty conditions)of prisons when they figured out it does not work.

How much they have varied from the Victorian method of prisons depends on the country, from Scandinavia at the one end,to the UK at the other.

"An eye for an eye" is a universal principle

No, it's not. It's a common desire, but it is not universal. And plenty of victims of various crimes don't want revenge, but to just put the whole affair behind them.

point 3 is not factually correct (at least as far as 'males') http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/men-women-prison-se...

> "because I want the person to suffer" is not a valid reason to lock someone up.

It's one of the established reasons: deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and retribution. The following are all from Wikipedia:

----

Deterrence is the use of punishment as a threat to deter people from offending.

Incapacitation in the context of sentencing philosophy refers to the effect of a sentence in terms of positively preventing (rather than merely deterring) future offending.

Rehabilitation is the re-integration into society of a convicted person and the main objective of modern penal policy.

Retributive justice is a theory of justice that considers punishment, if proportionate, to be the best response to crime. When an offender breaks the law, justice requires that they forfeit something in return.

----

The U.S. certainly puts more weight to retribution - in my opinion, too much weight - while European justice systems are more interested in rehabilitation, sometimes being ridiculously naive.

The way you compare them, you make it sound like increasing the prison term will decrease the time the loved ones spend mourning.

Which deceased is that? This person was convicted of robbery, not murder.

The hypothetical deceased German that would lead to the hypothetical 15 year maximum in the top comment of this subthread.

Emotion is a complex thing, but if I were killed, I would certainly not want my loved ones mourning me for the rest of their lives. Move on, be happy.

Regardless, the length of the prison sentence has no bearing on the mourning process.

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