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Comment by rtpg | Hacker News Reader

I'm more and more convinced that this is a cultural problem in the US. The idea of "serving out justice" seems to override any compassion for people.

People always talk about throwing bankers in jail for the crisis, but why would you wish all this suffering on anyone? Denying freedom for someone for years. Especially considering the multitude of studies showing that extended incarceration _does not work as a deterrent_.

We should be ashamed, a country with this sort of penal system cannot declare itself to be a bastion of civil rights.

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Agreed. Even the most liberal thinkers routinely call for people they don't approve of to be thrown in jail. I think it's important to challenge this type of thinking. Reserve jail for those times when there is no other way to protect innocents from violent offenders.

> Even the most liberal thinkers routinely call for people they don't approve of to be thrown in jail.

Evidence or argument to support this? It seems false by definition.

Argument. :)

Tautologically, you're right. Liberal is people who wouldn't do this, therefore...

But, of people who would self-identify as liberal how many are in fact closet authoritarians? Lots!

I'm thinking of bloggers I subscribe to who are often characterised as Social Justice Warriors - people who are extremely liberal. Very often these people will call for Bush, Cheney et al. to be jailed for war crimes. They tend to want people perceived as financial beneficiaries of the "neo-liberal" orthodoxy (bankers etc.) to be jailed as white collar criminals too.

> [...] people who are extremely liberal.

In the American definition of the word.

Yes, always a source of confusion.

The "why haven't any bankers been thrown in jail" trope has been repeated fairly often on both sides of the aisle.

Now here, "Most liberal" might be just talking about people still within mainstream thinking. Though many talk about not throwing people in jail for things like Marijuana, few talk about reducing sentences for non-drug related crimes (and pretty much no discussion on reducing it for violent crimes as well).

It all hinges on whether or not you look at the justice system as an agent for revenge or one of correction and rehabilitation.

Very true. It's one of those topics where people don't even start with the same axioms and definitions, so the discussion goes nowhere.

Personally, I was on the other side of the fence, until the constant evidence of the extreme suffering a large segment of the population goes through in prison convinced me that we're accomplishing immense amounts of harm this way.

The bankers are the ones I think it would work for. They understand risk analysis and it's all slow, reasoned, crime. Not like crimes of passion.

Is locking people in cages really necessary to stop bank misbehavior though? I would prefer first trying things like: 1) closer oversight; 2) fines restructured as a percentage of wealth so that they actually deter even very wealthy people; 3) kicking people out of the sector (e.g. bans from working in finance). Cages seem like a really blunt and rather barbaric instrument to use for improving society.

Some punishments are designed to send a message [1], maybe bankers would change their behaviour too.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byng

Making an example out of someone to send a message to others is completely unjust for the person who is made an example.

Did they intend the crime? And their only defense is "The other guy was doing it too"? Oh well.

As long as we prosecute as many people in their position as possible it doesn't seem to be a problem if we miss some. It's only selective when we choose who to ignore.

Something like Aaron Schwartz where it wasn't a crime until someone who made the DA look like an idiot does it... Then it's clearly crossed the line.

> 2) fines restructured as a percentage of wealth so that they actually deter even very wealthy people

Or even just the possibility of piercing the veil of incorporation, ie let the employees take some risk on the downside, too.

Cages ought to be reserved for people who cannot be trusted to live amongst the populace -- violent criminals, habitual negligents (e.g., drunk drivers), thieves and con artists.

If a bankster's danger to society can be remedied by banning him from his chosen profession, and justice served with a fine, it does seem like we could spare the cage.

The thing is, the banker (or other white-collar criminal) is the only one who planned it. They, more than the thugs imho, should be locked away because they're predators not just opportunists.

And maybe we could spare the cage... But after we get around to the mistakenly (cough) convicted black people, and poor people, and those with mental illness, etc, then we can worry about the poor-banker in his comfortable minimum-security cell.

Well that's a fine point you make -- predators vs. opportunists. And I need to be reminded that wealthy white-collar criminals don't often experience the same kind prison as does the common man.

Sure, but in that case just take their money away. At least then the punishment is in the same unit of measurement as the crime, and the risk can be compared better. Locking someone in a cell seems excessive (and excessively costly).

> At least then the punishment is in the same unit of measurement as the crime

No, not really. The crime inflicted homelessness, multiple jobs to feed your family, depression, broken marriages, suicide, etc.

If there's no downside to attempted theft, like they just lose the ill-gotten money and get to go home to a warm bed, we might as well be incentivizing it.

Besides, Jail isn't inherently costly - American for-profit prisons are intentionally wasteful. We don't need to spend a million-dollars a year per prisoner.

Regardless of whether you respect bankers or not - putting a rational human being in a cage is a fucking disgrace.

No, not really. It's putting the mentally ill and irrational ones in a cage that's a fucking disgrace.

The bankers know what they do.

The bankers know what they do.

Only if you believe in dualistic free will.

As I said elsewhere, when these comments come out in any general prison thread I support them. When they only come out when bankers are mentioned, I do not.

And, philosophical questions of free will tend to be a waste of time to consider. If you don't have free will then we also didn't really "choose" to execute you... Next.

Putting a rational human being in a cage makes them mentally ill and irrational. Well, at least we know this for sure about solitary.

One has to find a balance between compassion and justice. Some people obviously deserve more of one that the other, I guess this is what judges are for but they don't always do it right.

Locking someone up for a long time seems unusually cruel unless their crime involved punishing someone in a similar fashion over a similar amount of time. An eye for an eye seems to be more appropriate but impossible and immoral in its implementation.

Making some of those bankers live in poverty to me seems like a good punishment. Make them realise what it feels like to "lose it all", something they did basically inflict on thousands of people. Very hard to implement though.

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