4 ms·

Your point about 20 years vs 1 is really important. Sentences have gotten so long for relatively harmless crimes that benchmarking becomes distorted. If anyone

Your point about 20 years vs 1 is really important. Sentences have gotten so long for relatively harmless crimes that benchmarking becomes distorted. If anyone thinks about all the tings they will do in the next 3 years, then compare that to losing 20 years it can help show how long of a sentence that is.

rhizome 11y ago
Criminal sentences have their own flavor of inflation that seems rarely studied.
- tajen 11y ago
  * in USA. The average jail time in France is less than 2 years. French people are often surprised of the length of the penalties in countries which seem similarly western, such as Luxembourg.
  - omginternets 11y ago
    Oh boy... I would not use France as a counter-example. Jail time is low in France because our jails are full. Any sentence below two years is automatically deferred to probation, which means that a large number of crimes are de facto not punished. A quick google search will reveal a disturbing trend of violent crimes that don't result in jail time for this reason. France has the opposite problem, and it's no better.
    - tajen 11y ago
      > our jails are full I find it good. So magistrates are constrained by capacity. Of course I'd prefer they don't fill up French prisons at 125%. If we build more prisons, we'll fill them up. US is now famously known for having more people in jail than Stalin's gulags [1]. I quite appreciate France's leniency with penalties, because I'm not sure 3 months or 3 years is really different, apart from further distorting the social network of the inmate. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...
      - omginternets 11y ago
        Your point is well-taken and I agree insofar as the solution is not to build more prisons. My point is simply that not punishing people isn't a viable solution, either. France has the same problem as the US (too many people incarcerated) and an equally bad solution (stop incarcerating altogether).
    - astazangasta 11y ago
      So? Our jails are way above capacity in the US, but we're still handing out long sentences.

rhizome 11y ago

Criminal sentences have their own flavor of inflation that seems rarely studied.

tajen 11y ago
* in USA. The average jail time in France is less than 2 years. French people are often surprised of the length of the penalties in countries which seem similarly western, such as Luxembourg.
- omginternets 11y ago
  Oh boy... I would not use France as a counter-example. Jail time is low in France because our jails are full. Any sentence below two years is automatically deferred to probation, which means that a large number of crimes are de facto not punished. A quick google search will reveal a disturbing trend of violent crimes that don't result in jail time for this reason. France has the opposite problem, and it's no better.
  - tajen 11y ago
    > our jails are full I find it good. So magistrates are constrained by capacity. Of course I'd prefer they don't fill up French prisons at 125%. If we build more prisons, we'll fill them up. US is now famously known for having more people in jail than Stalin's gulags [1]. I quite appreciate France's leniency with penalties, because I'm not sure 3 months or 3 years is really different, apart from further distorting the social network of the inmate. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...
    - omginternets 11y ago
      Your point is well-taken and I agree insofar as the solution is not to build more prisons. My point is simply that not punishing people isn't a viable solution, either. France has the same problem as the US (too many people incarcerated) and an equally bad solution (stop incarcerating altogether).
  - astazangasta 11y ago
    So? Our jails are way above capacity in the US, but we're still handing out long sentences.